Can You Make Money Gambling Online?
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Since the dawn of online gambling in the 1990s, many players have viewed the activity as an easy ticket to financial freedom. With hope and dreams of hitting a significant jackpot after just a few spins, these players have been met with the harsh reality that you don’t always (or even often) win.
Despite this hard lesson, the belief that you can make money by gambling online remains rife. After all, regular punters see the success of professionals and are privy to the selective reporting of websites that only report large wins (but of course, not the countless losses that happen in between them). They also have a choice of over 100 UK casino sites literally at their fingertips, making it easier to play than ever before.
The truth is that you can both make and lose a lot of money gambling online, though the latter is much likelier. To justify this statement, we will dive into the world of iGaming and see exactly why winning is so difficult and what the best ways to improve your odds are.
Challenging Factors
As mentioned, it is more likely that you’ll lose a few quid long before you hit any notable jackpot. This is because casinos operate for profit and are unlikely to continue offering great games to players if they’re constantly paying out huge amounts without getting a lot in return. There are also other factors involved:
House Edge
House edge is a term that many punters have heard but may not entirely understand. Every casino game is designed with a house edge that allows the casino to earn more from it than it pays out. As such, there is no guarantee that players will win despite the guarantee that, statistically, the casino will.
One thing to note about the house edge is that it is variable. Not all games have the same house edge, and you may stand a better chance of winning with one game over another. This chance depends on factors of the game like the RTP (return to player) and volatility. It also depends significantly on luck.
Randomness
As every gambler knows, gambling is random. Even in games that rely more on skill, such as poker, luck is still needed to achieve a decent win. In recent years, transparency in online gambling has led to provably fair games, which allow you to investigate the randomness of wager outcomes and confirm them to be true.
This randomness is also often accompanied by variance. Variance is the term used to describe the highs and lows of gambling, where sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. This variance gives truth to the randomness of gambling, as it is often almost impossible to identify a pattern in variance.
Casino Terms
Aside from the house always winning, many casinos offer bonuses and promotions to entice punters to spend more money. These rewards are attached to explicit and often daunting terms and conditions that outline steps a gambler must take to be eligible to claim the full benefit of a bonus.
The downside to these offers is that players spend more money than they budget in an attempt to achieve the conditions set out in the bonus. This, in particular, can lead to higher losses and less chance of making money gambling, despite it seeming like the bonus will aid you in doing so.
Addiction and Emotions
The last challenging factor to making money through gambling is that the activity relies on our emotions. When suffering a loss, we may feel defeated or frustrated and want our money back. This leads us to spend more while trying to recover what we’ve lost.
In severe cases, this habit of chasing losses (or chasing wins if lucky enough) can lead to addictive behaviour and quickly cause a fun activity to turn into a problem. In such cases, it is best to seek professional help and cease all gambling activities immediately.
Winning Online
Despite the challenges that come with gambling, both online and in person at a casino, there are ways to improve your chances of winning. While these chances also rely on luck, they allow you to take a strategic approach and use casino bonus offers to your advantage.
Games of Skill
Poker and wagers placed on sporting events have long been considered games of skill rather than games of chance. To excel in these games, you often need to have in-depth knowledge of how the games operate and information about other factors (such as opponents, win history, and play style).
In these games, particularly poker, the victory is often over other skilled players rather than over the house. Achieving continuous wins in these games is also not always easy and requires constant research into improving and besting others.
Short-Term Streaks
As mentioned earlier, almost all gambling relies on luck—even skill-based games to a degree. Without luck on your side, you’re unlikely to be writing home about a big win. However, this luck may find its way to you, and you may find yourself a winner.
Whether it is a huge, life-changing amount or a series of smaller wins that begin to add up, it is important to realise that this luck could dry up very quickly. Therefore, don’t expect that a short-term winning streak will provide you with continuous wins, as this seldom (if ever) occurs.
Casino Bonuses
While the terms attached to casino bonuses may limit your ability to win, they are also one of the ways you can get more than you bargained for. By knowing how these bonuses work and making them work in your favour, you could get things like free spins, cashback, or other worthwhile perks.
When looking for a bonus to exploit, ensure you have a proper understanding of the conditions it is offered under and that you can meet them. If so, using bonuses to boost your ability to play or win is a great way to get something extra and feel like a winner.
Conclusion
Make no mistake: gambling online can be a rewarding and enjoyable experience. However, never approach this pastime with the view that it is a way to make money or maximise your wealth. Doing so will likely cause you to spend more than you bargained for in the pursuit of the money you think you can win.
Instead, gamble solely for the sake of entertainment and the enjoyment that playing the latest games gives you. When using this approach, any win is seen as a bonus that can help fill your wallet and leave you with extra money to do other activities. However, the prizes become a secondary goal rather than the primary one, which makes all the difference.