Why Every Casino Should Embrace Break Reminders: A Game-Changer for Responsible Gambling

Now that online gambling has fully entered the mainstream, a lot of people are starting to be more conscious of responsible gaming. How much money do you have in play, how many apps do you use, and how much time are you spending gaming per week? Many people don’t know the answers to those questions. That’s why there’s a focus to improve responsible gambling tools at online casinos in Canada.

A lot of non-gaming apps have started to implement tools (because over-using YouTube, TikTok or any other social media can have an impact on your wellbeing), and now the gaming sites are starting to get some ideas. Can something like a mobile screen blocker or tracker help players out? Let’s take a closer look.

We spend a lot of time on our phones, but few of us really know how much. How much of is it is for work? How much do you spend on YouTube just bouncing from video to video? How often do you find yourself on news sites reading what might be real or fake news? Modern time management tools are apps that help you get a grip on the data. They can pop up prompts when you’ve spent a lot of time in an app, give you reminders to take a break, and gently nudge you to do some other things.

It might surprise you, but most Canadian gambling sites have really led the way in terms of guiding players on spending time responsibly. Of course, with gaming, it always made sense to set boundaries. Other apps have now come around to realizing that having a system of checks and balances makes sense too.

For a long time, any online casino worth its salt has had responsible gaming limits. That means settings where you can set up a cool down period, set up limits for how long a session can last, set limits for how much you win/lose/bet in a session or over a period of time, or set up limits in terms of how much you deposit in a timeframe.

Online casinos have a lot of safe gambling features already. While there is room for improvement, it’s nice that the foundation is already in place.

Currently, there are two major areas where gaming sites can improve their efforts to help gamers play more responsibly:

 Earlier notifications

Some screen trackers will give you a head’s up to say, “Hey, you’ve spent 20 minutes on the app today. You have 20 minutes left.” Or at least check in with you to give you a status update from time to time.

Casino session reminders would help players who are really in the throes of a game to help them check-in with themselves. Have I lost too much? Have I spent too much time? Do I have anything else I have to get to right now? Quick little pop-up break reminders in online gaming might trigger some self-reflection and avoid problem habits.

Weekly online gambling report

Another unique feature would be a weekly report, so that it’s fully laid out in terms of time management. Could be a pie chart to show which games they play the most. Or maybe it’s a time log to show just how many minutes or hours they played that week. Or what about displaying the money spent, deposited, and lost?

All of these reports can give you a snapshot of their situation each week, so that they can think about their own boundaries. Sometimes we don’t even notice that we’ve played real money online slots for hours – even if we’re not losing money. But if you played for three or four hours, can your life accommodate that, or should you trim it down and maybe go on a date this week?  Seeing a weekly report might help players realize that they’re gaming is excessive.