Tips For Preventing Gambling-Related Harms

There are a ton of ways to help prevent gambling-related harms. The beauty? They are on your sportsbook.

Preventing Gambling-Related Harms

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction and Greo Insights released a report that recommends developing a “pan-Canadian strategy to address gambling-related harms.” Sports betting has become huge in Canada and many other parts of the world as more countries find ways to monitor and regulate it. “This call to action is in response to the significant increase in gambling advertising on billboards, social media, at commercial breaks during sports broadcasts and during sporting events. Increased gambling availability and advertising are expected to contribute to increased gambling in Canada, thereby posing a significant risk of harms among the general population, particularly for youth, young adults and other vulnerable populations.”

The report focuses on gambling-related harms, but doesn’t mention some of the options for preventing gambling-related harms that are available on a ton of sports betting sites right now. The harms mentioned in the report include “financial, relationship and emotional distress, health problems, criminal involvement and other harms.” There are a ton of tools to prevent these gambling-related harms that are available on a lot of sportsbooks. These tools are mainly free.

Deposit limit and loss limit

You can’t bet without money to bet. Sports bettors having problems with betting too often or spending too much money can prevent this problem with deposit limits. BetVictor is an example of a sportsbook that allows their bettors to set deposit limits. Bettors can set a daily, weekly, and monthly deposit limit on BetVictor. With the help of friends, family, or professionals, anyone looking to prevent gambling-related harms by controlling how much they bet can try setting a deposit limit. For BetVictor, the deposit limit minimum for one day is $30. The maximum is $168,300. Bettors can also set loss limits. “Setting loss limits is a simple way to control how much money you’re prepared to lose while gambling.” A loss limit can be set for one day, week, or for a month.

Timeouts

You can prevent yourself from betting if you’re losing too much money, find yourself betting too much, or having any problems with a timeout. The timeout allows bettors to suspend their account for a day up to a few months. On Bet99, the minimum time is 24 hours. The maximum is three months. These timeouts have different names depending on the sportsbook, but they are available on many.

Account closure/ self exclusion

Self exclusion lets bettors block their account for six months or more. BetVictor’s self exclusion can go up to five years. This is similar to a timeout. The account closure is self-explanatory. Closing your account is always an option if you are experiencing gambling-related harms. This option may also show up as deactivate account.

Help resources

Most of, if not all, the top sports betting sites have help resources listed on the sportsbook somewhere. Many of them have these options listed at the bottom of the page. Some of them will have a dedicated section on the site or a dedicated page. They will provide a list of organizations with a little information about the group and contact information. The options vary depending on the sportsbook.