Staying in control, and the help that exists if you are not

The tools your operator already has to provide

Player protection features are licence conditions rather than favours, so every operator on our shortlist offers them. They are usually filed under account settings, safer gambling or responsible gambling, and it is worth setting them on the day you open an account rather than on the day you wish you had.

• Spending limits. A cap set per day, week or month. Increases take effect only after a cooling-off period; reductions apply straight away.
• Loss and session limits. Caps on net losses or on how long a single sitting can run before the account closes itself.
• Reality checks. A pop-up at an interval you choose, telling you how long you have been playing and where you stand. Set it shorter than feels necessary.
• Time-out. A short break of a day, a week, a month or six weeks. The account locks and cannot be reopened early.
• Self-exclusion. A minimum of six months with that specific operator, which also stops its marketing reaching you.

Habits that keep it entertainment

Decide what a session costs before it starts, in the same way you would for a night out, and treat that figure as spent the moment you begin. Play with the clock visible. Keep gambling away from the hours when you are tired, bored or upset, because those are the sessions that run longest and end worst.

Two rules do more work than the rest. Never chase a loss — increasing stakes to recover money changes nothing about the odds and a great deal about the size of the hole. And never treat winnings as a separate, less real kind of money; a balance that has gone up is simply a balance, and leaving it in the account until it disappears is the most common way a good session becomes a bad one.