With the prevalence of smartphones and the public’s increasing addiction to fulfilling their desires (and building new desires) via their phones, online gambling is likely a growing problem these days. Ads like that for Cece188 Casino make gambling online sound easy, fun, luxurious, and lucrative.
The truth is, gambling is rarely lucrative. The odds of winning are the same from your phone as they are in a physical casino: not good. How else can one explain the ubiquity of these sites? A smartphone can provide privacy for someone wishing to gamble undetected, at work, at home, in front of a loved one or child. It also makes it more acceptable to gamble, because everyone sits at home, tapping away on their phones. It’s a way of life.
All that screen time adds up and can cause social and emotional problems, as well as a drained bank account. For casual gamblers with the specific self-control to set reasonable time and financial limits for themselves (and follow them), online gambling could be a fun, once-in-a-while distraction. But it should never be used as a time-filler, and people with gambling addictions are further enabled to engage in their debilitating behavior when it is so accessible.
The high that gamblers get from playing a game online is too much for gambling addicts to resists, even in the face of financial ruin. They think to themselves, “I’ve screwed this up, but if I can just keep playing long enough to get a big win, I can pay back all those loans and buy my boyfriend a car,” it will all be worth it. One or two addicts who think like this might actually win enough to do that. But the vast majority will sink deeper in debt, creating a hole too deep to climb out of without setting down the phone.
But that’s the last thing on their minds because they either don’t realize that they are addicted to online gambling, or the benefits of quitting cannot stop the impulse to gamble.
Playing Cece188 Casino is, according to their radio ad, only legal in New Jersey. This indicates that legislators know it’s a risky practice. Perhaps a way to satisfy only the casual gamblers and prevent mass financial ruin and mental health problems would be to allow gamblers to play only monthly, or only set aside a set amount of spending money on the site ahead of their gaming session.