Like all burgeoning iGaming markets, the Canadian sector is becoming increasingly focused on responsible gambling. This is borne out by the recent RGC research project, which has been funded by Flutter Entertainment to inform global marketing and advertising standards in the marketplace.

Flutter, which is best known for its procurement of Canadian betting firm The Stars Group for a total of $11 billion, has been a key driver of responsible gambling, with operators now offering players access to tools that enable them to control and manage their online activity.

But what steps can you take to track and cap the time you spend playing at online casinos? Here are some ideas to keep in mind!

1. Use ‘Reality Checks’ When Gambling

One of the tools that operators deploy is referred to as a ‘reality check’, which is a recurring message that pops up after a self-determined period of time to remind you of how much time you’ve spent playing during a particular session.

This message will also remind you to take a break from the screen, and while you can still decide whether to continue or not, it provides a gentle nudge that should impact on players who may be monitoring their behaviour or concerned about the risk of so-called “problem gambling”.

Ultimately, reality checks can have an incremental mental effect over time, as continual gentle reminders may provide regular insights into how often you’re wagering and (subsequently) how much you may be spending. This may create a more reflective and introspective mindset, which can translate into more thoughtful decisions over time.

Similarly, if you find yourself regularly ignoring reminders and continuing to play for extended sessions, you may start to ask yourself some questions about why this may be the case.

Such questions can only lead to more considered decisions about when and where you wager online, while introducing non-intrusive safeguards and controls that can be imposed by yourself as you wager.

Pretty much all gambling sites and online casinos enable you to set up reality checks on your account (especially if they’re fully licensed and regulated), while you can even time your gaming sessions independently using a phone or smartwatch in the digital age.

2. Impose Deposit Limits

There’s an inextricable link between time and money when gambling online, as the longer you play at a particular casino or vertical, the amount that you wager will also increase accordingly.

So, it makes sense to combine so-called “deposit limits” with reality checks and more basic tools that enable you to track the time that you spend gambling online. This way, you can introduce caps pertaining to both time and money, creating critical safeguards to provide a protective barrier against problem gambling.

You’ll find that even new casinos online will offer deposit limits to players in the digital age, with this a prerequisite of the licensing terms that casino brands and sportsbooks agree to when they start to operate in particular markets (such as Canada).

These limits can be set on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on how frequently you wager and your precise patterns of behaviour when betting online. There’s also a broad range in which you can cap your deposits, so it’s also possible to tailor limits to suit the size of your bankroll and the amount that you can comfortably afford to lose within a predetermined period of time.

We’d recommend making use of deposit limits to help control your spending, while ensuring that you stop playing once the limit has been reached and your bankroll for a particular period of time has been spent.

3. Maintain a Daily Routine and Positive Habits

If you’ve played the popular Halo Infinite game, you may have noticed that the title keeps crashing at inopportune moments.

This rarely happens when playing at an online casino, so you’ll need to be proactive when  tracking the time spent online and controlling your behaviours.

One of the best pieces of advice here is to create a much broader daily routine, in which you allow a set amount of time for online gambling. This way, you can ensure that you complete all of your necessary tasks and chores each day, while automatically capping the amount of time you spend wagering.

You can also use this as a reference to determine when you should stop playing, which may prove crucial if you’re prone to struggling with compulsive behaviour.

This is the type of positive habit that can become second nature over time, while it definitely translates into better gambling habits and a much keener sense of the time spent wagering online.