A Rough Guide to Gambling Online

When you begin gambling online it can be a very daunting experience. In this article we will look at a number of quite 'high level' ideas, concepts and tips which will help you get your gambling career off to a good start. Anyone can gamble online - but if you can take onboard the tips and advice we cover below you will be well on your way to becoming a successful online gambler.


Ringfence the money you will use for gambling
This is arguably the most important piece of advice there is - if you only ever remember one thing from this article, please please remember this:

Never gamble with money you cannot afford to lose!

Of course to most people ANY money is money they can't afford to lose - but by saying 'never gamble with money you cannot afford to lose' what we mean is that you should not gamble with money that you are relying on to pay for important things like bills, childcare costs, mortgage payments and so on. The root cause of gambling addiction (as with any addiction) is a lack of control - so by ringfencing your bankroll right from the start you are putting yourself in a good position to be in control of your gambling and setting yourself up to make a healthy profit over time.

With this in mind, when you start out it is always a good idea to say to yourself 'OK, I can afford £x amount of money to put into my gambling float'. You can almost look at it from the point of view of your float being an alternative type of investment to the normal cash ISA or stocks and shares portfolio - it's money you're going to invest with a view to seeing it grow over the medium to long term (although actually you should see a much better return on this investment than any stocks and shares investment!).

By separating your float it is also easier to see how your 'investment' is going. You can easily count the money in all your gaming site accounts and see quickly what your current float size is.


Separate your online gambling life from your real life
First and foremost, by this we DO NOT mean you should not tell anyone about your gambling - in fact you should tell anyone close to you what you are doing and explain to them what it's about where possible!

What we mean by 'separate your online gambling life from your real life' is, where possible, try and keep your gambling activities separate from your real life activities wherever it might cause a problem if they clashed.

For example:

• Email - create a separate email account dedicated solely for gambling and only ever use that email address to sign up to new gaming sites. This will help reduce the amount of spam you see coming into your 'regular' inbox and allows you to always 'opt in' for email from gaming sites so you can find out quickly about the latest promotions that you can take part in to boost your profits. Another important reason for keeping a separate email address for gambling is to maintain some extra level of security, especially if you are using the email address for online money wallet services - see here for general tips on gambling securely online.
• Bank account - where possible, try and use a single dedicated current account for the purposes of gambling. This allows you to more easily ringfence your float and keep track of income and expenditure on that account without having to worry about your day-to-day spending or bills - sSee here for a list of threads relating to banking and gambling.
• Online money wallets - online money wallet providers like Moneybookers and Neteller are actually much more important than conventional bank accounts for the purposes of gambling online. There are various reasons for this, but the most important is that e-wallet accounts allow you to quickly move your float around between different gaming sites without having to wait days as you often would with a bank account. Bankroll management - especially cashflow control - is key to success!

Treat your gambling activities as a business venture
This follows on from what was said above about keeping control of your gambling activities. Always approach your gambling activities as if it were a business which is set up to grow over time and which will allow you to take a regular income from it if need be (or alternatively if you don't take any money out you can almost use it as a pension fund!).

As with any business, there are various streams of income and expenditure to keep a close eye on to ensure you are successful. Keeping good records of these ins and outs is not imperative to success, but it can help you boost your productivity and allow you to see easily how your float is growing. (TODO: some section on methods of recording gambling activity, keeping hand written notes, spreadsheets, etc?)

In the same vein, it is important to remember you will occasionally make losses which you should see as business losses. For example, in advantage play / matched betting, making mistakes when you place your bets is one of the biggest sources of losses when you are starting out. These losses should most definitely not be ignored (TODO: add something about 'dealing with gambling losses?'), however it is important to put your losses into perspective and try and treat them as a 'cost of doing business'.

There are many many others who have made the same mistakes/losses as you, you are NOT alone - see here for some examples of mistakes that people have made when gambling and how they have dealt with it.


Research every gaming site before you register with them
As with any business, all gambling sites that you visit will have a reputation associated with them. Some will be excellent, some downright shoddy. Whenever possible always research the site you are about to register to before you sign up.

One of the best places to start your research is here on TGT:

http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/reviews/bookmakers/
http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/reviews/casino/

All the sites that we list and give a rating for on the reviews pages are a result of our own reviewers experiences and the feedback provided by users on the forum. As such you can be assured that the reviews are accurate at the time of writing and give a fair assessment of each gaming site so that you can join up with confidence.

On a more general level regarding research of gaming sites, here is a checklist of things to consider when you are researching a gaming site and details of where you can find out this information:

• How long have they been in business? Obviously the longer a site has been in business, generally the more reputable they are and the less likely they are to have problems with going bust, reneging on promotional offers, voiding your bets unfairly and so on. You can usually find out how long a site has been in business by checking their 'About Us' page on their website.
• What kind of Start Up Bonus (SUB) do they offer and what other reload bonuses do they offer? Often this is the primary reason for joining a site, to take part in the bonus promotions they are offering. (TODO: The TGT forum's Bonuses sections are an excellent way to find out about the latest SUB offers that a gaming site is promoting - you can find out about these offers via the SUB sections here (if/when we sort out!!) - failing this
  
  Most gaming sites will have a 'Promotions' or 'Offers' section on their website where you can read about the current offers they have and importantly check the terms and conditions before signing up. However one of the best ways to find out about what promotions are on offer is to check the TGT bonuses forums:
  
  http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/boar...tbook-bonuses/
  http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/board/casino-bonuses/
  (note, premium membership required)
• How fast do they make payout / withdrawals to users? This is important because you do not want to get stuck in a gaming site which has a problem with lack of funds or has a history of 'slow paying' users (where the book has insufficient funds and so has to pay out users slowly over time as and when new users deposit new money). The TGT Payouts forum is an excellent way to check on the payout responses of online gaming sites - whenever users receive a payout, they can provide a quick summary of how much they were paid, how long it took and by what method on the Payouts forum. This can give you a great idea of how well a gaming site is doing in paying out it's users.
• Is the gaming site behaving itself and treating it's customer's fairly? The TGT Watchdog section is a great place to check for user submitted reports about problems they are having with gaming sites. By checking the Watchdog section you can quickly see whether there is any history of rogue behaviour displayed by the gaming site in question.

In summary, if you follow the advice above you should be well on your way to becoming a successful online gambler. As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask away on the forum.