piggy bankStruggling to control your mobile gambling outgoings? If you are a frequent player at any mobile casino, it’s always a good idea to keep a budget. Whether you spend £20 a night or £200 a month, a budget helps control your cash output and prevents problem gambling. After all, it’s always easy to get carried away when you’re on a winning streak! So without further ado, here are MobileSlots4U’s top 5 tips on managing your mobile casino budget.


 

1. Use Whatever Limits Are Available

mobile phone deposit limitsWe thought it would be best to start with the most logical method. A mobile casino budget can be formed mostly out of all of the deposit limits that are available to players. For instance, with pay-by-phone billing services such as Boku, players can deposit up to £30 a day no matter what mobile network they’re on. This is a good system to be implemented as it prohibits any excessive spending and hereby reduces problem gambling, as it was designed to do.

But here also lies the flaw with deposit limits of any kind — a player can simply ditch the financial service they are currently using for that day and spend more money using another one. For example, if they reach their £30 daily limit for their Boku deposit then all they have to do is set up an e-wallet account with Neteller and continue gambling until they have reached Neteller’s limit, and so on and so forth.

If you know that you’ll back off once you hit a limit with one deposit method without retreating over to another then, by all means, this will work for you. If not, then you would be better off implementing some of our other tips.

 

2. Create A Spreadsheet

spreadsheetSpreadsheets are easy to create and manage, and you can do them for absolutely free! If you have Gmail, you can use Google Sheets to create a simple spreadsheet and allocate how much money you can spare towards mobile gambling among all of your other financial responsibilities. It’s a very useful tool and we strongly recommend the Microsoft Excel program as this gives you so many shortcuts and formulas you can use to make calculations.

This is the organised and efficient way to manage just about anything — especially finances — however not everyone knows how to make a spreadsheet and they can be rather… well, boring to make. But then, we’d argue that budgeting isn’t meant to be fun. As for not knowing how to do it, there are many tutorials on the internet to help you and many of them exist as videos on YouTube so you don’t have to read a dozen articles before you get the answers you want.

The other downside is that you would have to pay for some spreadsheet programs, especially for Microsoft Excel. This can be expensive and, in the face of budgeting, this can be rather pointless, especially when all you’re trying to do is curb your spending at a mobile casino. On the other hand, if you buy the Microsoft Office package, you get a dozen programs to go with it. Google Sheets, however, does the job nicely enough and it’s completely free of charge.

 

3. Download A Budgeting App

budget apps different coloursThe next best thing to a spreadsheet would be to go and download an app specifically tailored to help with your budgeting. These include Andromoney, Mint and Spending Tracker, just to name a few. They are completely user-friendly and can be used while you’re on the go. They’re easy to grasp and can even make budgeting a fun experience.

Of course, like Excel, if you want a really good app then you would have to pay for it. However, some would argue it’s worth it considering that most apps are no more than a couple of quid each. What you need to look out for are in-app purchases and insidious long-term payments plans which can actually drain your budget more than the mobile gambling. A lot of apps these days tend to ask you to cough up if you want access to more of its features.

But if you honestly want something that’s 100% going to help you manage your budget then getting a budget app is probably the direction to go in as they are specifically designed for that purpose — unlike spreadsheets which are more general.

 

4. Limit Your Gambling Time

man-looking-at-watchThis is easier said than done, but limiting your time whilst at a mobile casino seriously reduces the risk of you draining your finances in one go. Set a time limit for yourself for an hour or two a day and you’ll quickly find that you’ll be saving up the pennies. In case you forget that you’re on a time limit, set an alarm clock or the stopwatch on your phone so that you know when your time is up.

This step does involve a large amount of discipline on the player’s part. It’s all too easy to silence that alarm and continue playing for another hour. While this isn’t so bad every once in a while (as long as you’re still in budget), we strongly advise against this as it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of ignoring your alarm every time it rings.

In short, this step of mobile casino budgeting is for those who are mostly still in control of their finances and want to take it a step further and not for those who have a tendency to put their alarm on ‘snooze’ in the morning.

 

5.  Never Spend Outside Your Means

panic disorderThis last and most obvious step in mobile casino budgeting is the most solid bit of wisdom we can give you. Do not ever, if you can help it, spend outside your means. That means do not use a credit card if you cannot afford to pay it back next month, do not add to your monthly phone bill if you know that it will dent your already precarious financial situation, and do not, absolutely DO NOT, bet more than is currently in your bank account.

Yes, overdrafts are handy when you overspend slightly, but not fun when you find yourself unable to pay the bank back what you owe them. We appreciate that this is easier said than done. If ever you feel like you need more control over your gambling habits, the steps above will help you gain that control.

If however you feel as though you’re sliding into problem gambling, we strongly advise that you get help as soon as you can. Problem gambling can, after all, cause serious damage to you and your loved ones. We don’t mean to end on such a downer but the easier you can budget, the better.