"The Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines" Is this a joke?

[mu_enrico]

I stumbled upon random news while browsing, and it uses this article as a citation: https://gamblingguidelines.ca/lower-risk-gambling-guidelines/what-are-the-guidelines/

They say:

If you gamble, the new Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines show you how to lower the risks and harms associated with gambling. There are only three guidelines, but you should follow all three.

And the joke begins:

Guideline 1: Gamble no more than 1% of household income
Don't bet more than 1% of your household income before tax per month. For example, someone with a household income of $70,000 before tax should gamble no more than $58 per month.

$58 per month LMAO! Okay, IIRC I advised people to bet a maximum of 10% of their income, but 1% is just too low. It won't even last one-hour playing penny slots in most cases. And look at this table:

Even if you earn 6 figures, you can only bet <$100, less than @roycilik's weekly budget

Guideline 2: Gamble no more than 4 days per month

While I think once a week is reasonable, four days a month is too harsh. I mean, if there are five Saturdays in a month, you still get only four playing sessions. IMO the limit should be twice a week.

Guideline 3: Avoid regularly gambling at more than 2 types of games

IMO it's useless advice. Even if a gambler plays many types of games, it won't matter as long as he knows the limit, guidelines 1 & 2.

What do you think?

[Oshosondy]

I have read some guidelines about the proper ways to gamble before, I am not surprised to see this type of guideline again. I remember when I read the guideline of a football predicting site which was soccervista, if I recall correctly, exactly to only gamble with 1% of your income  is included there too. It was too low for me, I became an addict but finally realized that the saying is true, it would help you have good gambling habit.

But this would depend from individual to individual, I use 5% of my income to gamble, it can not be more, but there are sometimes I found myself not using more than 2%, this is because of good gambling habit that helps in making profit while gambling and I make profit than loss, unlike before.

I prefer to bet on football matches, just ones in a week, and mainly on top leagues like EPL, La Liga Santander, Seria A, Bundesliga and Lique 1. They do play from Fridays to Monday and I am not betting more than 1 or 2 times weekly. Only what could make me bet more is during Champions League, and not often more because if I bet on Champions League, there is probability of the top clubs not to have matches, but I could go for lower matches at that times if I am really not busy.

In my opinion, these are all good advices, if you know you can increased your betting amount percentage of your total income and if convenient for you, you can increase it, but using small amount makes it fun and entertaining. Gambling not more than 4 times monthly makes it convenient and give you a good gambling habit, this can be weekend when having fun around friends like in the bar while watching the live match that you bet on, or it can just be a casino while having the fun and not going beyond your limit. A good gambling guideline would also include avoiding regular gambling. You should fill your life not only with gambling but other things that can be recreation for yourself.

Gambling is good if these guidelines are followed, and it is the exact opposite of gambling addiction.

[Boristhecat]

$58 per month LMAO! Okay, IIRC I advised people to bet a maximum of 10% of their income, but 1% is just too low. It won't even last one-hour playing penny slots in most cases.

It seems absurd to you, but from the point of view of the one who gives these tips, everything is logical: playing for a small amount of money, a person will not attach importance to this and this will help to avoid addiction.

Guideline 2: Gamble no more than 4 days per month

While I think once a week is reasonable, four days a month is too harsh. I mean, if there are five Saturdays in a month, you still get only four playing sessions. IMO the limit should be twice a week.

Twice a week is a huge number if you have a family and a regular job that takes 5 days a week. If you devote time to your wife, children, work, household chores, then 2 days a week for gambling is a lot. Perhaps this is advice for family people?

Guideline 3: Avoid regularly gambling at more than 2 types of games

IMO it's useless advice. Even if a gambler plays many types of games, it won't matter as long as he knows the limit, guidelines 1 & 2.

What do you think?

This is a controversial point, but I think its meaning is the same as in the previous points - to protect a person from addiction as much as possible.

[Rruchi man]

The guidelines are good on a broader sense when you think of it, but their detailed strategy on how to honor the guidelines like gambling with just 1% per month and just 4 times in a month seems unachievable to me. Say for instance, using same example of someone with a household income of $70k and supposed to use $58 which is 1% of it in a month to gamble say the 4 times or even lesser, It means the person will still have to further split the $58 into the number of times he is to gamble that month, gambling with such an amount seems like a joke.

IMO, the summary of the guidelines to lower-risk gambling are;
-Gamble with a fixed percent of your household income, an amount you can afford to loose.
-Choose the number of times you will gamble in a month and be disciplined about it.

[_act_]

Twice a week is a huge number if you have a family and a regular job that takes 5 days a week. If you devote time to your wife, children, work, household chores, then 2 days a week for gambling is a lot. Perhaps this is advice for family people?

Yes, it should be huge if having family. But you can have family and still bet on your mobile phone or personal computer even without your wife and children knowing. It depends on how and where you are gambling.

Even if you are not married, gambling in just 4 times monthly will be good, provided if you gamble with the amount you can lose and not think about or lead to depression, I mean the amount of money that is low to the extent that you can afford to lose it.

[South Park]

I stumbled upon random news while browsing, and it uses this article as a citation: https://gamblingguidelines.ca/lower-risk-gambling-guidelines/what-are-the-guidelines/

They say:

If you gamble, the new Lower-Risk Gambling Guidelines show you how to lower the risks and harms associated with gambling. There are only three guidelines, but you should follow all three.

And the joke begins:

Guideline 1: Gamble no more than 1% of household income
Don't bet more than 1% of your household income before tax per month. For example, someone with a household income of $70,000 before tax should gamble no more than $58 per month.

$58 per month LMAO! Okay, IIRC I advised people to bet a maximum of 10% of their income, but 1% is just too low. It won't even last one-hour playing penny slots in most cases. And look at this

I think that rule could make sense if we were talking about someone with a lot of responsibilities which does not have too much money to spare, however that is not the way they are promoting this guide, as supposedly this is a one size fits all policy for everyone that may be interested in gambling, and that is where they make their mistake, after all a single person can have very low expenses when it comes to their needs and the majority of their disposable income will go towards entertaining themselves, meaning that the limit you have recommended to other people of 10% is perfectly reasonable for people under those circumstances.

[madnessteat]

I also think that allocating 1% of the family budget to gambling is too little. If you have a small salary, then enjoy the game on this money will not work. In my opinion, the optimal is to spend no more than 5%.

I completely agree with the second recommendation as I believe that the more often a person plays gambling the stronger the addiction becomes. In my opinion it is optimal to gamble once a week or two.

The third recommendation makes no sense to me at all.

[cabron]

Do you now feel like you are addicted because you play all your week's pay? 

Its not a low risk but it negates the idea about you enjoying your weekend which gambling was suppose to be entertainment.  I don't know if you are really going to follow this guideline because it seem meant for you to lose 4 days a month for $8. Well its just $8 anyway but I'd rather add the amount to beer budget.

[milewilda]

When it comes to allocation then it would really be that subjective whether you would be using 1% or 10% on overall gross income or annual then its out of others business.
Important thing on here is that you do play with limits and thats what people should be thinking.I dont see for that guideline to be a joke.For those people who had been
playing using up huge amounts then this would be definitely be a small amount to consider yet you could really indeed play with these amounts with few bets which is something
that would really tell you that it is pointless or useless.What if that certain person been contented on that way?

[Pierre 2]

58 dollars a month is obviously overkill. I wouldn't call it low risk gambling. Better to say you are not even gambling at all. But %10 suggestion may be okay considering it would be 580 dollars a month. You can divide it to 4 and only gamble at weekends (especially Saturday) so you would be spending money as typical mediocre white collar guy. You should be enjoying gambling, you can enjoy nothing with less than hundred dollars.

[Cryptomultiplier]

There are only three guidelines, but you should follow all three.

And the joke begins:

Guideline 1: Gamble no more than 1% of household income
Don't bet more than 1% of your household income before tax per month. For example, someone with a household income of $70,000 before tax should gamble no more than $58 per month.

$58 per month LMAO! Okay, IIRC I advised people to bet a maximum of 10% of their income, but 1% is just too low. It won't even last one-hour playing penny slots in most cases. And look at this table:

Even if you earn 6 figures, you can only bet <$100, less than @roycilik's weekly budget

Guideline 2: Gamble no more than 4 days per month

While I think once a week is reasonable, four days a month is too harsh. I mean, if there are five Saturdays in a month, you still get only four playing sessions. IMO the limit should be twice a week.

Guideline 3: Avoid regularly gambling on more than 2 types of games

IMO it's useless advice. Even if a gambler plays many types of games, it won't matter as long as he knows the limit, guidelines 1 & 2.

What do you think?
[/quote]

The way I see it, it is just as the name implies, 'guidelines'. They may not necessarily be the solution to a gambling addiction, but with known facts, it is little decisions that add up eventually. This is also the reason why only an estimated amount of income, schedule, preference is suitable, but up to a restricted amount, so as to control the urge which leads to excessive gambling.
These guidelines could however be tweaked to suit ones taste, as I do on days as a London Derby, an El classico, Champions League Finals, and on other boxing and history making matches/bettings that happen only once.
 It will be difficult to control the urge to visit gambling sites on ones phone, seeing the ease at which smart devices with these apps either pre-installed or downloadable exists. Twice a week, 1% income, only 2 kinds of games to bet on, is a schedule I can keep.

[batang_bitcoin]

That guideline could be helpful for those that really can't think what to do and they're in the middle of a personal gambling crisis. While we have our own allocation. I think the main logic there is tightening the budget for your bankroll and that's the good that I can get from it.
Although it will still depend on me and I have no metrics that I'm basing from my salary per month or per year. So it's like having a spare money at that very moment and it will be the one that I'll use as my bankroll.

[KTChampions]

58 dollars a month is obviously overkill. I wouldn't call it low risk gambling. Better to say you are not even gambling at all. But %10 suggestion may be okay considering it would be 580 dollars a month. You can divide it to 4 and only gamble at weekends (especially Saturday) so you would be spending money as typical mediocre white collar guy. You should be enjoying gambling, you can enjoy nothing with less than hundred dollars.

If I'm not mistaken, banks consider reliable borrowers who spend no more than 20% of their income on mortgages, because in fact, if you subtract mandatory expenses, then 20% of income is a lot. Are you suggesting spending 10% (half the mortgage payment) on gambling and considering it "innocent entertainment that has nothing to do with addiction"? I think that for ordinary people for whom gambling is entertainment along with many others and not a hardcore hobby, such spending is too much.

[electronicash]

if you earn 6 figures a month, you may really spend huge for anything you enjoy doing. so the guideline will make you think of following it once you see yourself losing half of the 6 figures. it sounds like a joke but i guess this will serve as a reminder moderately gamble the money out from your wallet. its probably just for people to minimize the habit.

[goldkingcoiner]

Those numbers that you posted seem suspect to me, as well. It also seems like a lazily put together sheet of data that someone pulled out of their own bottom instead of doing the research. The numbers change depending on factors such as where you live, how much you earn, how much your expenses are and how much you need to put aside for emergency savings and so on.

If you're making 10k a year and live in a first world country you have bigger problems than worrying about your gambling expenses. But even then you could afford to gamble more than 8 bucks ( that is if you don't have a family to worry about)

[uneng]

If the person doesn't bother losing money and have gambling as his hobby he can use more than 1% of his income to gamble. Instead of going to the movies, concerts, travelling, going out, playing videogames, some people simply gamble. For a matter of comparison, we could calculate how much of their income other people spend doing these activities I mentioned earlier, so we could reach a more accurate result of how much gamblers should spend with their hobby. After all it depends on each ones' goals and purposes in life. I imagine the article is just concerned about helping people to not lose too much money, while still being possible to bet.

[livingfree]

58 dollars a month is obviously overkill. I wouldn't call it low risk gambling. Better to say you are not even gambling at all. But %10 suggestion may be okay considering it would be 580 dollars a month. You can divide it to 4 and only gamble at weekends (especially Saturday) so you would be spending money as typical mediocre white collar guy. You should be enjoying gambling, you can enjoy nothing with less than hundred dollars.

I think of this guideline is playing safe in here. I guess it really stands of what it is being described as "lower risk" gambling. It's understandable to have that threshold per month and those small time gamblers can do and follow that easily.

But those that are gambling for a long time, this is really a small budget and this will go nowhere unless you put that in the lotto and you hit jackpot but that's not gonna happen.

If the person doesn't bother losing money and have gambling as his hobby he can use more than 1% of his income to gamble.

Yup, as long as he still have that limit and won't be that much. Adding a few for that 1% is totally fine and you still understand that you don't have to go all in with that fund where you're getting that money.

[dunfida]

If the person doesn't bother losing money and have gambling as his hobby he can use more than 1% of his income to gamble. Instead of going to the movies, concerts, travelling, going out, playing videogames, some people simply gamble. For a matter of comparison, we could calculate how much of their income other people spend doing these activities I mentioned earlier, so we could reach a more accurate result of how much gamblers should spend with their hobby. After all it depends on each ones' goals and purposes in life. I imagine the article is just concerned about helping people to not lose too much money, while still being possible to bet.

1-10% should be safe based up on real experience but 1% is indeed small in overall and if you are someone who do really play for fun and not for making profits or money or not simply chasing it out then any amount

would suffice.It doesnt matter on how much percentage you would be using from your income and as been said that we do have different financial capacity which means that  spending will really vary on some factors.

If OP find this to be a joke then its up to him but its quite relevant for some people who are really that meticulous on spending up some funds on gambling.

[Lucasgabd]

people are probably better investing than gambling
if they aim to make money investing is the way to go
if they see gambling as a source of entertainment then 1% is probably too low

household income is a good metric but I'd think of total money invested too
maybe someone's income is low but they already have enough saved for the future. then they can gamble a bit more

[Yogee]

The aim is to lower the risk and harms of gambling so the guides actually makes sense. The guides 1 and 2 are just telling you that the simple solution is to gamble less so you don't get exposed too much.

Guide 3 is quite intriguing. I don't really get it but maybe it's meant to take advantage of the RTP....?