Online games such as poker, backgammon, reversi, pool and mahjong among others offer to earn big quantities of money just playing by your computer, but you must be careful since not everything that glitters is gold.
A lot of people have become addicted to different online games on the belief that they can win interesting money online. The true behind these games that promise good sums of dollars for winners is that they may obtain important and private information from players through their credit cards.
Online poker for example has become the most popular gambling games on the web. There are many websites that offer to play games for free and let you win at the beginning stages. They try to convince you of how easy it is to win because this is a game of skills in which money may be done according to those ones.
However, there is a big problem: you almost never win because you are not playing to win; you are playing to lose your money slowly in the long-run and without being aware of this situation.
The gambling web site that operates the gambling “house” will always win because you may always be playing with software program players, that is not real people, programmed to win either in the short-run or in the long-run.
The worst part is that cards are not randomly dealt deck. Cards can be rigged in anyway in order to make gamblers lose quickly. The gambling house can rig any hand whenever it wants.
Gambling websites can not be trusted, because they obtain your bank account and credit card information with which they can clean out your bank account whenever they want, and worst max out your credit, while you were gambling.
These are the reasons why the top poker players in the world do not play poker at gambling websites and the top poker players that play at these ones is because of getting paid for endorsements.
Make money online is different than Losing money online.
Why is Internet Gambling so Dangerous for an addict?
There are several reasons why online gaming presents such a serious problem for those with a gambling addiction, including:
- The removal of barriers. Before the advent of Internet gambling, a person needed to get in their car and drive (or get on a plane and fly) to a location that had legalized gambling. The only other option was finding an illegal game somewhere in their area – which also took a considerable amount of effort and risk. With the Internet, an individual needs only a modem connection and a funded account to play for hours and hours – all the while fueling their addiction and racking up huge losses.
- The removal of accountability. There is something anonymous and isolated about gambling on the web. And this isolation allows people to fall deeper and deeper into the cycle of addiction without much accountability for their actions. In addition, providing a credit card number or a link to one's bank account feels different than handing over cash to buy chips. There is a video-game feel to Internet gambling which makes it appear to be more harmless than it actually is.
- The speed of play. Online gambling games are played at a breakneck pace – allowing the individual to lose large sums of money in a relatively short period of time, as the example below regarding online poker will illustrate.
How to know if Someone has a Gambling Addiction?
Just like a drug addiction, a gambling addiction can destroy a family in a relatively short period of time. However, because the addict is unlikely to come forward and admit that they have a problem until it is too late, it is up to those same family and friends to be aware of the signs and symptoms of gambling addiction –and reach out to that individual to get them the help that they so badly need.
Among the most common signs of a gambling addiction are:
- A need to gamble using more and more money in order to achieve the same "rush" that the activity provides the individual
- Irritability and moodiness when losing or not gambling
- Gambling more after losses in an attempt to win it all back
- Borrowing or stealing money from friends and family to fund more gambling
- Lying about their gambling activities
- An ability to stop gambling despite understand the damage it is causing
If anyone needs support in the argument that gambling addiction is similar to drug or alcohol addiction, this final point certainly provides it. Drug addicts understand that their action are harming themselves and their families – and just like a gambling addict – are powerless to stop it on their own.
Although gambling websites post warnings about gambling addiction and toll-free phone numbers to call for support, it is really little more than a token gesture. The help must come from within the family if is true recovery is to be achieved.
