Responsible Gambling in Canada

What Is Gambling Addiction?

Our goal is to always provide you with a fun, enjoyable and safe gaming experience. However, even the most enjoyable experiences can turn into an addiction if not paid attention to. Gambling disorder (problem gambling) defines behaviour in a continuous manner that causes impairment in functionality. Problem gambling is an addiction that affects both the individual and society. In addition to causing serious financial losses, it causes families to break up.

Problem gambling was first described as a clinical diagnosis in 1980. Not all gamblers develop an addiction. Some gamble for recreational purposes only as a social act and may be self-limiting. Problem gambling is defined as playing with increasing frequency and higher stakes, despite harmful consequences. In gambling addiction, players connect their earnings to their special abilities and blame bad luck for the losses. Moreover, no matter if they win or lose, they just keep playing.

The term gambling does not only cover games played in casinos. Horse races, games of chance or card games played by placing bets are also included in this group. The earlier you start engaging in the activity, the higher the risk of developing an addiction. Since gambling addiction does not give any physical symptoms, it takes time to be appropriately diagnosed.

Everything begins with the person making a big win. After this win, this player constantly dreams that he will win bigger prizes and his confidence increases. When the imagined win is not achieved, the person cannot tolerate the loss and continues to play with more money. He can sell all his assets in order to find money in this losing phase and/or completely lose control. The problems with work and family increase, and they can even commit illegal acts. In the last stage, the awareness that the losses will never be replaced comes. In this phase, additional problems and gambling-related harms arise, such as divorce and alcohol abuse.

What Is Responsible Gambling?

Responsible gambling is a set of social responsibility practices in order to promote awareness of gambling-related harms and regulated by the gaming industry, governments, game control commissions, operators (e.g. casinos), and suppliers. Generally, they aim to minimize gambling-related harm. In this direction, they first try to increase the problem awareness and contain a series of restrictions to eliminate the problem. For example:

• ➡️ Players can limit the amount of time or budget for the games they play.
• ➡️ Players can request to close their accounts permanently.
• ➡️ Players can restrict the types of games they can play.

In line with responsible gambling practices, operators (bookmakers and casino sites) must offer such self-exclusion features to their members. Agencies such as UKGC have made this a licence requirement, meaning that operators who do not offer self-exclusion tools cannot obtain the UKGC licence. But responsible gaming is more than a set of restrictions. They also include the following applications:

• Prevent underage gambling. The most important rule of responsible gaming is that minors must be prevented from the activity. Even operators without a licence take care to obey this rule.
• Prevent fraudulent behaviour. Responsible gambling practices include anti-money laundering measures and KYC procedures. It means their goal is not only to prevent gambling addiction but also to ensure the security of the gambling environment.
• Ethical marketing. This means that the ads of operators cannot be misleading or encouraging. For example, bonus promotions may not be sent to minors, or a bonus may not be unethically marketed.

Responsible gambling practices have a wide scope, and everyone in this industry must comply with them according to the roles they play. In this context, we declare that we will also comply with these practices, work towards safer gambling, and take the necessary measures to ensure that our users can avoid gambling-related harms.

How to Avoid Gambling Related Harm?

Here are a couple of tips for safer gambling:

• Remember that gambling is not a method to make money.
• Do not gamble with money you cannot afford to lose.
• If you are in a bad mood, do not gamble. Likewise, do not gamble when drunk.
• Do not let gambling become your only hobby.
• Do not try to win more by using strategies in casino games. Almost all of these strategies cause you to lose more in the long run.
• There are a number of responsible gambling tools you can use to control your habits on online casinos and bookmaker sites. These responsible gambling tools will help you set limits for yourself, take a break, and/or exclude yourself from the site if necessary.
• The first step to gamble safely is knowing how much you can spend and how much you can afford to lose. Setting limits for both will help you stay in control. Therefore, first start by setting limits for your deposits, bets, and losses. Typically, you can set daily (renewed every 24 hours), weekly, or monthly limits for each of these options.
• It can also be helpful to plan your playtime and keep track of how much time you spend on a site. To help you with this, most operators offer real-life reminder gambling tools that are displayed at regular intervals and allow you to keep track of the time you spend on the site.
• If you think you need to take a break for a while, you can request it from your operator. Your account will be temporarily suspended for the duration of your request. Your account is automatically unlocked when the break period expires.

Symptoms of Gambling Addiction

If you are concerned about your gaming habits and want to gamble safely, take a look at these questions, and notice how many of them describe you:

1. Have you ever given up work or school time to gamble?
2. Have you ever neglected your daily work to gamble?
3. Has gambling ever caused problems in your family life?
4. Has gambling affected your personal reputation?
5. Have you ever lied to hide your time spent playing games or money lost?
6. Have you ever gambled to earn enough money to pay off your debt or solve your financial difficulties?
7. Have you ever felt that you need to get back to playing and regain your losses as soon as possible after you lose?
8. Did you feel a strong urge to keep playing and earn more even after winning?
9. Do you often gamble until you run out of money?
10. Have you ever borrowed or sold anything to find money to gamble?
11. Has gambling made you careless about your well-being or your family’s well-being?
12. Have you ever taken or thought about doing an illegal act to find money to gamble?
13. Do you feel an urge to gamble after arguments, disappointments, or stress?

The more of these questions you answer “yes”, the more serious your problem is. Below you will find information about the tools that you can use to control your gaming habits, as well as organizations that can provide you with assistance and support.

How to Stop Gambling Addiction?

In studies conducted in the treatment of gambling addiction, partial efficacy of drug treatments has been observed. In the presence of additional psychiatric disorders, the effectiveness of drug treatments increases. Among the psychotherapies, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviews and self-help groups (i.e. Gamblers Anonymous) have been shown to be effective. In addition, restriction of access to financial resources (cancelation of credit cards, not carrying cash, etc.) may prevent people from continuing their gambling behaviour. Moreover, getting help from groups such as Gamblers Anonymous and participating in group therapies can also be helpful for safer gambling.

Protect Minors from Underage Gambling

It is against our rules for people under the age of 18 to play games on our site. We do everything we can to make sure all players on our website are of age. In addition to these efforts, we emphasize that parents also have a responsibility to prevent minors from playing casino games, and we encourage all parents to take the necessary measures to protect minors from underage gambling. In this regard:

• You can use gambling blocking software and several gambling tools such as NetNanny, GamBlock, and GamBan to prevent children under your care from accessing inappropriate sites.
• Do not leave children unattended near a computer or other device that they can use to access casino sites.
• Protect your account username and password on online casino sites. Do not use the ‘Save Password’ option when logging into the casino, and always log out of the site when you finish playing.
• Keep your credit and/or debit cards out of the reach of minors, and do not share your banking information with them.

Gambling Blocking Software

There are many gambling tools that you can use to both prevent underage gambling and get a safer gambling experience. The most effective of these tools is the gambling blocking software. This software can be used to minimize gambling-related harm and/or block access to certain sites altogether. Perhaps this is the most important of the tips for safer gambling. If you are worried about your kids visiting casino sites, use gambling tools that can block them. There is gambling blocking software that you can use completely free of charge. GamBan, GamBlock, BetFILter, BetBlocker, and NetNanny are the most popular of these.