Sports betting is entertainment, not a way to make money.
You’re betting on teams you’ve never heard of before
No doubt it can be fun: betting on the total of a third division football match in a Northern European country, where more goals are being scored than there are players in the starting line-up. But in reality it is closer to gambling than entertainment.
When placing bets on matches of your favourite team/athlete, on national championships and major world tournaments, you usually know more or less what you are betting on, you often watch these matches and get an adrenaline boost from betting while watching the game.
Betting on third-rate teams of a country whose location on the map would be difficult for most of the respondents in the streets of London can be compared with jerking the handle of a one-armed bandit or randomly pressing the buttons on a machine in the nearest underground club.
You are fighting with your family because the stakes are “eating up” your free time
If you are from the generation of 90s and you were indifferent to your first computer, you remember well how mum would literally drag you out by force from the next toy and reproach you for “sitting at the computer all day long” (well, what all day – only night and half a day!).
In modern adult life the cause of such situations – in a family you have already created yourself – is often Internet gambling, including betting on sports. Is your daughter the last one to leave an extended school class because daddy bet in a particularly important match in play? Free time belongs entirely, with some “holiday” exceptions, to betting, and the spouse is justifiably nervous? Then you should set your life’s priorities straight, and not in favour of betting.
You’re betting your savings, hoping that it will be easy to multiply
How can you explain to your son, that he has to go to technical school to become a carpenter, because his father lost his savings for the university in a bookmaker’s office? Of course, you can always say that there is a great demand for carpenters, not like lawyers and economists, and in general – you should have got a state-financed degree. But not everyone has a heart for woodworking, and the corruption in the admission to public places in high schools, from small to large, is well known and inextinguishable.
So the recurrent thought of withdrawing 50-100 rubles from a bank deposit and turning them into bankroll in a bookmaker’s office is an occasion to forget about betting on sports forever or to make a long pause and let your mind go cold.
Only bank as much as you can afford to spend on your normal day off at the café-bar-restaurant – and not a ruble more.
You borrow money to bet on sports
This is perhaps the most dangerous manifestation of gambling addiction. The obsessive thought that you should take a loan and bet a couple of games on another sure thing, and then you will surely win and repay the fellow, even double, and the amount is insignificant: a thousand roubles! – Another 100% reason to contact your online betting company then have your account closed.
Without further ado: there are few things worse than a debt pit, and certainly a debt clod caused by gambling addiction can literally bury you under it.
You’re getting even
You lose on a sure thing and bet on a total of less than 3.5 goals in a match that will not score another two goals in the remaining 30 minutes. Does this picture sound familiar?
The fifth sign that sports betting should be abandoned for at least a few months is a thirst to win back “hotly contested”. The most neglected and dangerous form is when a player borrows in order to get even. Here, as they say, you can go for professional help: there is no shame in it, because even from a financial point of view, communication with a psychologist will be less costly.
To sum up. If you find yourself at least one of the signs listed above, then urgently analyse how you play at the bookmaker and change for the better. If you see yourself in two or more of the above signs of sports betting addiction, we strongly recommend that you take a long pause in the game, or even forget your way to the bookmaker’s office altogether.