Sure, it’s a fun game, and an awful lot of people play it, but online bingo really can turn from a nice distracting hobby into a force that takes over the rest of your life.
And let’s face it, bingo is supposed to be about having fun over a silly game, chatting with other people and hopefully getting a few winning cards!
Sometimes it can be tough to tell the difference between a serious hobby and an actual addiction, however, so if you’re worried that you play too much online free bingo (or if your friends and family are starting to get on your nerves about the whole thing) then there are a few key factors to keep in mind.
Has online bingo taken over your life?
By definition:
The term addiction can refer to any behaviour that has interrupted or harmed other aspects of your life, such as work, family ties and even cleanliness.
Take a look at yourself – is your family upset with you? Have you been slacking at work to log onto your bingo site? Have you been sitting in the same clothes all weekend, in front of your computer playing bingo up until five minutes ago when you decided to ask someone if you had a problem?
If any of these examples sound familiar, you’ve clearly got to make some space between yourself and your online bingo site!
There are two different ways in which compulsive gambling is defined: either as action gambling or escape gambling. When you identify which of these applies to your own situation, it will be easier to deal with the problem.
Action gambling:
Action gambling would be the term used for an addict who is into gambling for the thrill of it – people like this usually participate in group gambling because of the heightened excitement that comes of winning in front of people, or of competing with them.
This doesn’t necessarily equate to online bingo where there is a large chat community; what it really means is that the gambler is addicted to the thrill of competing and winning. This type of gambling addiction is more common with men.
Escape gambling:
This kind of addiction has more to do with the isolation that gambling can bring instead of the urge to win.
Women are more susceptible to this kind of gambling addiction, and will tend more towards games that involve very little strategy, like slot machines, because they just want to shut out the rest of the world and stay anti-social.
Online bingo addicts
can fall into either category, depending on the extent to which players chat with other players, how high the expense gets to be and how often they play. Of course online bingo is just for a little bit of fun and there’s certainly nothing in the world wrong with that!
Take a few minutes to read the information provided on your bingo site about gambling problems for some good guidelines about how to spot a problem with your online play.
Most people don’t play online bingo any more than they would bingo hall bingo though, so it is still one of the safest and most fun online pastimes ever.