Rather than give yet another consolation bonus, Enzo should restrict her deposit limits to prevent any further chasing bahaviour.
Many online casinos have the option to give players a 6 month account suspension. Once requested, the reputable ones will not give in to pleadings from the player to end the suspension early. This will give the player a 6 month "compulsory" break once they have summoned up the will to request this.
When a losing session "really hurts", vent off by asking support for a 6 month suspension. This falls short of asking for a permanent ban, and would be easier for a gambler to steel themselves to do, without feeling they are making a "forever" decision.
Another way to control problem gambling is to close off easy deposit methods, especially credit cards, where gambling can be done with funds you do not (yet) have. Mastercard is a good option, many gambling deposits will be blocked. It may be possible to ask the bank to put a block on gambling deposits on cards that are being used.
With brakes placed on deposit options, when the urge to chase comes again, it will be impossible to deposit such large amounts.
Not being able to confide in family members is a serious concern. Many of us NEED the support of family in such times, and if this is lacking we will turn our feelings inwards, where they can fester, and do damage. Being stuck in a foreign country (or even a new city in your own) with few or no friends means that gambling becomes even more attractive as a pastime - it can be done alone, and is even BEST done alone.
I have been open with my family, my gambling is NOT secret, thus I can discuss it with them should the need arise. My card issuers know that I use my cards for gambling, when they have asked about transactions that get caught up in their anti-fraud filters, I tell them it was a gambling transaction, and the casino used a different processor to their usual one.
Naturally, my family do not approve of gambling (except my dad, where I got the gambling gene from
), but it wont come as a shock to them if I have to mention it to them.
Fleur probably has a worry that asking her husband for help will mean revealing a shameful secret, and that far from helping, it will start a big row, and make things even worse.
I have been bitten by the "chase" bug a few times, and when it goes wrong I feel bad - I know I shouldn't have done it. Usually, the result is that I give back far too much of a big win in an inefficient manner, and then find that I cannot take advantage of good promotions shortly after, which limits my chances winning again with better odds.
When I first started playing online, I had a mind-blowing 20K win one day. I was on a high, and blew the bloody lot the following day trying to make it 40K. Even when I had a 10K recovery, I failed to stop there and lose only 10K of my win, I kept going hoping to at least get back to the 20K starting point, and this was the SECOND big mistake of that week.
The underlying error was to leave sums such as 20K sitting around in my Neteller account after they had been received. Had I withdrawn most of it, it would have spent the best part of 2 weeks in limbo (unavailable for use in online casinos), by which time I would no longer be on a high from the win.
Chasing after a loss is similar. The feeling is of needing to at least get back to the starting point, but each attempt to do so that fails makes it even LESS likely that further attempts will succeed, yet you have to try, and keep on trying while you can. Unlike losing winnings, this is worse, as the loss is YOUR money, rather than losing something you didn't expect to have in the first place.
The convenience of online casinos makes it far more likely that a problem gambler will give in to chasing than where they have to travel to a land casino, and gamble with "real" banknotes.
I feel the effects of this myself. Dropping 100 into a Fruit Machine feels like a bigger loss than dropping 100 in an online casino. This is because I am inserting REAL notes into the machine, and seeing REAL 1 coins circulate with the ups and downs of the session. Online, it's just a number, and loses it's impact. The same with winnings. I once won 500 from one of the UK random slots, and it felt "good" due to having to handle 500 coins - they were heavy. The sense of achievement was greater that winning 500 at an online casino, and thus such a win was more satisfying, making it easier to decide I had had enough for the evening.
As for 3Dice - it's 50 every month for me, and hope to hit big with slot bets of around 1 per spin as they are higher variance than most others. I did indeed hit big one month, ending up 100 ahead overall, which it took them 2 months to get back
4 deposits, totalling of EUR1700 gone in about an hour. Here are the stats I requested and received:
.. at 3.85/spin its a bit going for gold (and striking mud instead), but it still remains very unlucky. I'm going to see if there's something extra I can do on top of what I did earlier today. Be a bit more gentle tho, with only a couple of hundred of spins, the risk of not hitting those features is not unrealistic.
