Seeing/hearing the word gambling more often lately? Unsure what it means?
Gambling is when we risk money, or something of value on an activity, at the chance of winning something more.
Something of value is going to be different for every person. Examples could include a pair of your favorite sneakers, your favorite necklace or even your lunch. If you are risking something of value on a chance, like a schoolyard dare or a sports game with your friends to try to win something greater, then that is considered gambling.
Examples of gambling you may see in your day-day could include:
- Advertisements
- Sports betting/fantasy sports
- Paying for in-game chance rewards (e.g. skins, loot boxes, player packs)
- Casino games (e.g. slot machines, online casino games)
- Games for money/prizes (e.g. cards, dice)
- Charity raffles
- Bingo
- Horseracing
- Lottery games (e.g. 6/49, scratch tickets, pull tabs)
- Arcade games (e.g. claw machines, fair/exhibition games)
- Purchasing blind boxes or ‘mystery’ items
- Any game that involves $, chance and risk
What is important to remember is that Gambling ALWAYS has risk!
When we gamble we should expect to lose more often than we should expect to win.
Why is that?
Gambling activities are controlled by odds. Odds are how many chances there are to lose for every chance there is to win. Odds are always better that the game will win over the player.
Let’s look at this example:
- There is a raffle at your local rink. You are told that the odds to win are 99 to 1. If you enter one ticket, that means that there are 99 chances you will not have the winning ticket, and only 1 chance you will.
Skill vs. Chance
When we think about the previous example, it’s not an activity that we can get better at through practice is it? This is the case with many games of chance (or gambling). Games of chance are just that – chance. There is always an element of risk and uncertainty and therefore they are not often activities that we can practice and develop skill in.