I am not sure if there is anyone who has never gambled. To punter or to place bets, especially in football games. The youth, mostly males, are the most and worst affected.
But since nothing can be wholesome, there might be some, whom it can be believed, have never placed a single bet in their lives, online bets to be specific, because casinos are in movies – for many countries in developing areas.
This special group of people might have never gambled because of religious beliefs on minimal, or have a strong and strict upbringing that entailed real teachings about the effects of gambling, like mismanagement of money, but rarely is it because most parents hardly talk about things concerning betting when raising children and many grew up in such settings.
However, many of them might not have gotten time to interact with betting sites and hence not encountered the ‘sweetness’ of gambling, which is in the mind just like the ‘high’ in the drug, which leads to addiction.
When you start gambling, you can think that it is a harmless habit because your betting frequency at that time is small, and when deciding on money to gamble, you can spare some and gamble a little since the first stages are always controllable.
You will gamble, you will gamble, you will gamble until the second, third and the fifth… year until it becomes a rule that every time you receive money, you immediately settle priority debts, those that have serious implications when you fail to repay, and put the rest of the money in your gambling account.
It will go on like that for days, which will turn to years, and those times that you will earn little cash that can’t cover the crucial debts under your name, you will start gambling with hopes of doubling that money and dreaming of using it to settle the previous but pending bills but the likelihood of you losing most of those bets will be high because you will be betting with anxiety, and your losing streaks will drive you to depressions and shame as it will impact your home management, that is why gambling can cause divorce between married people, it leads to more debts and can cause legal problems.
When it reaches a point when you can’t stay with a positive account balance because of gambling or cannot withstand the urge to gamble when you get money, it is gambling addiction, an addictive disorder called compulsive gambling by psychiatrists.
When you have compulsive gambling, sometimes problem gambling, you are or seem to lose control over gambling, and you have started to disregard most responsibilities that require finances to save more money in order to gamble with it.
You will even cut your food budget to save up for a punt, and that is when gambling will have taken a toll on your life. It will have negative effects on your mental health due to the series of stresses developed every time you lose a bet, and your overall well-being will be affected.
How to control compulsive gambling
But you should not worry, really. It is possible to fight gambling addiction in this hard (but manageable) way because you have to forget yourself, just like Christ said.
Gambling is an addiction which is in our self-being, and the reason why I am saying it is a hard method is that you must completely surrender yourself to sadness and feeling bad every time you get money, but it will help you and liberate you from the disorder.
If you have several crucial debts to repay, try as much as you can in the first two weeks to settle all debts and then cancel all relations or contracts you had with creditors after fully paying what you owe. Do this by minimizing your spending on unnecessary things like fun and pleasure.
Step two is vowing that you will only spend money when you have it and not before you get it in your hand to avoid debt. This should be easy because you would have cancelled all loan contacts with all your previous money lenders. At all costs, avoid debt.
Now it is time to make another rule: Every time you get money, dedicate 50% of it to sleep in a high-yielding savings account like money market funds because the intention here is not investing but to make sure you don’t go broke because of gambling by maintaining your income, your most important wealth-building tool as Dave Ramsey would put.
That savings account should not be accessed, and in case you do it, it must be because of emergencies like helping someone who is in need at that particular moment in time, and you’ve offered to help but had no balance in your regular account.
For the remaining half of your earned cash, take 20%, repay the existing debt with it, if any, and use it to cater for your small daily bills.
For the other 20, use 10% to buy food and pay for your entertainment, including charity. For the remainder, the 10% of this 20, save it in a fixed deposit account where your money will remain locked in for the term of the deposit. This savings account should not be accepting any early withdrawals.
The last 10% is for putting in an open savings account, which you can liquidate only when you don’t have money to spend on basic needs.
After following this money rule, you can use the balance on your account to gamble responsibly – but this is only after diligently putting aside the monies as stated each time you earn. It requires discipline, but in the long run, you would have killed two birds with one stone;
After learning to preserve your income in this way, you will have a more stable peace of mind compared to when you had no financial planning and gambled recklessly.
Over time, you will regain control of compulsive gambling. It might take longer, but at the end of the tunnel, there is light.
