Your bookmakers will have various tools available to help you keep your gambling safe and recreational.
Here are a few of🌜 the main tools available to you:
Deposit Limit
You can set a limit on the amount of money you can deposit with🌜 your bookmaker over a defined period of time. (e.g daily, weekly, monthly).
This ensures that you can’t deposit more than you🌜 are comfortable with and can afford.
If you try to breach the limit the bookmaker’s system will stop you doing so🌜 and issue you with a message that you have reached your limit.
You can alter your limits at any time. However,🌜 if you wish to increase your deposit limit you will generally need to speak to your bookmaker and there should🌜 be a ‘cooling-off’ period before the limit will be increased. This ensures that your are not exposed to any further🌜 risk hastily. Decreases in limits will take immediate effect.
Loss Limit
This is similar to a deposit limit but asks you to🌜 define how much money you are prepared to lose in a defined period.
As with deposit limits, once you have reached🌜 your personal ‘loss limit’ the bookmaker’s system will stop you losing any more money in the period.
Also, you can increase🌜 your ‘loss limit’ after a cooling off period and reduce the limit immediately.
Time Out
If you feel you need a total🌜 break from your betting for a period of time then you can do this.
Systems will be slightly different for each🌜 bookmaker. Generally, you can take a break for any period from one day to one month.
This will mean you can’t🌜 bet on your account until your required ‘betting break’ has expired.
If you change your mind during this break period your🌜 bookmaker will not let you restart your activity until the original requested period has elapsed.
Manage Your Time
The Session Timer allows🌜 you to define the maximum amount of time you wish to access a bookmaker’s website or app during a prescribed🌜 period of time (usually a day).
Once your time limit has been breached you will receive a message informing you that🌜 you can’t access the bookmakers facility again until your period of maximum time has been renewed (e.g. the next day).
Reality🌜 Checks
These checks are designed to remind you at periodic intervals how long your current session with the bookmaker has been.🌜 Maybe you have been on the site much longer than you expected to be and slightly lost track of time🌜 and your period of gambling.
So, if you have asked to be sent a session reality check every 30 minutes, then🌜 you will receive a pop up message telling you when 30 minutes have elapsed. At this point you can either🌜 stop your session or consciously consent by agreeing to continue the session. This facility puts you in control of the🌜 time you spend on an individual session on a bookmaker’s betting site.
Self-exclude
If you reach a decision that you want to🌜 stop gambling with a bookmaker then you can 'self-exclude’ for a defined period of time.
You will be able to define🌜 the period of time you wish to be excluded from all gambling activity. This could be weeks, months, years or🌜 a permanent exclusion.
Whichever period you choose, your bookmaker will not allow you to use their betting facilities at all during🌜 your period of self-exclusion.
