Through proper education, society can develop programs to stop compulsive gambling addiction before it gets out of control. It’s unfortunate that people are willing to educate themselves only after they have been negatively affected by gambling. In most situations the damage has been done.

When most people think of education they think of schools and books. When in reality every day we are educating ourselves about life from the time we get up. To Learn about compulsive gamblers all we need to do is observe their patterns. Breaking the patterns will help in the recovery process. All the signs are there, all we have to do is face the truth. You start to ask yourself more and more questions. What are we going to do? We are going to find all the resources available and apply them to our situation. Through this knowledge we will help to accerlate the recovery. The first area to look at is your understanding of what you are going through. It dose not matter if you are the compulsive gambler, friend of the compulsive gambler or related to the compulsive gambler. Your life has been affected. It’s now time to focus. Educating yourself on compulsive gambling addiction will help you to plan for your future. You can have a wonderful future.

It’s first important to understand the definitions of compulsive, gambling and addiction. Through knowledge you will gain a better understanding of compulsive gambling addiction and find new alternative ways to treat it.

Compulsive is an uncontrollable desire to do something.

Gambling is the wagering of money where the end result is uncertain and the individual is willing to take a chance.

Addiction is a craving that develops into a dependency to repeat a certain behavior over and over with out regard for the outcome.

Combine these three words and you have an uncontrollable desire to gamble where the outcome is uncertain that develops into a dependency.

It’s unfortunate but most people can not tell that they have an addiction until they have developed a self destructive behavior that has negatively affected their life.

What causes a person to have a compulsive gambling addiction? No one knows for sure, but there are many similarities in the type of individual that have becomes addicted. If we can understand the type personality that is more susceptible to addiction, then we can at least safe guard ourselves. For example it’s an established fact that children of alcoholics have greater chance of becoming an alcoholic. Since there has been significant growth in the gambling industry more and more people have developed a compulsive gambling addiction.

Gambling is a common practice all over the world. It’s believed that gambling dates back to the ancient civilizations where people would gather to take a chance even though the odds were against them.

People who are close to you, who have developed a compulsive gambling addiction will not show signs until a majority of their resources have been depleted. However these people exhibited negative social behavior inside the gambling establishments.

The gambling establishments are not regulated by law to stop people from recklessly throwing away their money. Even though these places know what they are doing to people, they recklessly destroy people’s lives for profits.

The gambling establishments have seen gamblers stay up for two days straight gambling and have not turned them off. They have allowed these individuals and other to max out their credit cards. No one did anything to help them. A bar is required by law to turn someone off if they appear to be drunk. Gambling establishment’s can also identify people who are in trouble. I have taken the opportunity to interview employees at gambling establishments. The employees all stated that they could tell who had a compulsive gambling addiction based on their repetitive behavior patterns. For example they would continuously go back and forth to the cash machine, they are there at all hours of the day and night when rational people would be sleeping, been seen in the same clothes for more then two days and there are many more signs. Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?

When compulsive gamblers go out to the gambling establishments with friends or family they appear very conservative when they gamble at first. By the end of the night all the signs are there, but no one is paying any attention. A few signs are seeing them frequently go to the cash machine, not ready to leave when you are and they continually tell you that their luck is going to change with just one more bet.

In Tom W. Bell’s address before the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, he presumed that eventually, internet gambling will be legalized. There are ongoing debates on the advantages and disadvantages of the legalization. It is also studied whether the claim of creating business opportunity in internet gambling is true. But experts say that, sooner or later, other states will also demand the same leeway that is given to Las Vegas in terms of gambling legality.

But even though there are designated gambling sites in the country, the development of technology makes it easier for people to access gambling sites online. In fact, people responded in recent studies that they will not fly to Las Vegas just to play in a legal casino. This is probably the reason why illegal gambling sites and fly-by-night gambling areas in the suburbs are created.

Well-meaning people who want to prevent gambling from being legalized have other interests to protect. Because the internet is readily accessible even to the youth, they fear that legalizing internet gambling might expose the young to early gambling activity. But currently, there are indeed minors who do play in online gambling sites. And there is very little that the government could do because the World Wide Web is too immense a sea of information to be monitored constantly to prevent minors from accessing it.

Another good thing about the business opportunity in internet gambling is that competition will beef up among gambling site operators. Each site will invest in its website and gambling games, making it as close to the physical gambling games as possible. The recreation of the experience in a real casino will become the ideal. And contrary to claims that gambling in one’s home is addicting and dangerous, it is not true. Going to a real casino poses real danger because that place is a controlled, carefully studied layout of making people spend everything that they brought there. Everywhere people go, there’s a slot machine waiting to get played. But if people would rather gamble online, people are still subject to external hindrances such as a crying baby or a spouse warning they’ve to stop after they’ve reached their 8th hour in gambling online.

Legalizing internet gambling is the best way to regulate these businesses. There is nothing much that laws can do in order to curtail gambling online. So instead of inhibiting online gambling, the government must legalize it and regulate it once it has been legalized. For now, they can simply focus their efforts on studying how to legalize the activity in order to generate more tax for developing social services. Once it has been legalized, online gamblers can be assured that this move will encourage more companies to join the online gambling industry.

With enough competition in the field and with regulation from the government, there can really be a lucrative business opportunity in internet gambling. Besides taxes that can help the government earn more, the creation of more gambling sites online will also create business opportunities for many people.

An Overview

Gambling nowadays is not related to a mere recreation activity albeit it has now taken a new direction into business and industry. For some it’s a pleasure activity and for the others it is a lucrative business. Although gambling is not at all a new sport which has emerged in this century, it has been a favorite of our ancestors and the historians date back the involvement into this activity to prehistoric times. It has been factually proved that even the early caveman was a gambler.

Gambling to a layman would mean sport involving money and an easy way to multiply the same. Although being a part f this sport means staking of one thing or the other. History has witnessed several incidents where not only wealth and material objects were a part of this game but also one’s own identity or the ownership of a family member was staked.

Gambling activity in this century has taken a two dimensional outlook. With high paced lives and scarcity of time for almost everything, even recreation activities are time bound. To this new age life, Internet comfortably snuggles in and creates a position of its own, thus giving room to Online Gambling. As compared to traditional gambling practices where one has to be physically available in the arena of casino, online gambling gives us the comfort of gambling in the privacy of our homes or café.

To further elaborate on both the categories of gambling lets have a closer look into the basic features of both. Traditional gambling basically has three types of games involved namely the table games, random games and gaming machines. Almost all the categories in traditional gambling requires parting with physical cash and getting them converted into chips which are of various denominations and are then further used in the game. The only division of game which does not require conversion of cash into chips is that of slot machines. Here the gambler has to place a quarter into the slot machine and pull on the lever. There are still some games where cash is deposited, but that is mainly confined to games which involve huge jackpots. Generally in such games the basic deposit only sums up to a huge amounts.

Online gambling, on the other hand, is a relatively comfortable way of enjoying the game. Needless to say the reason for its manifold popularity goes to the time factor and the availability of pleasure at the click of a button. Moreover, in order to attract more and more people into online gambling the owners make their sites tempting by offering various payback schemes and added advantages to its members. All sorts of games can be selected by just logging on the website. Basically the games available in this form of gambling can be broadly divided into two categories, one in which a particular software needs to be downloaded and the other which can be played without it as well.

Comparative Analysis of Traditional Gambling and Online Gambling

Although online gambling is gaining momentum, traditional gambling is still the undisputed leader in the business. There are pros and cons in both forms of gambling and it depends upon the personal liking of each gambler as to which form suits his or her requirement.

In traditional gambling where one can find the adrenaline rising and pressure on one’s nerves, the same is a miss in online gambling to some extent. The pleasure of winning and celebrating can be only enjoyed in the traditional gambling. The drive behind playing it again and again lies in winning and celebrating, thus giving instant boost in business of the casino owners. Winning of one motivates thousands others to remain in the game. Thus if we see the involvement, pleasure and financial aspect of gambling, no doubt traditional gambling would take a lead into it.

Online gambling, on the other hand, suits one and all to the extent of people residing in remote areas where availability of an actual casino is a miss. All it requires is a basic internet connection and you are into the pleasure of the sport. It gives you the leverage of time and space. Another advantage of online gambling can be that one can enjoy huge payouts and bonuses, but along with it the companies keep a catch of not paying the entire earned amount in order to make the gambler play for long. The reason for making a player gamble for longer durations is that generally the longer you play the chances of you losing increase, thereby making the casino owners reap higher profit margins.

In terms of business traditional gambling is favorable to the casino owners. They have all the tools and tactics available to make a gambler play and stay for long which in turn means that the odds increase in the favour of casino owners. But for a gambler, traditional form of gambling may be of loss at times as the earnings are lesser than the actual amount earned. Generally the payouts are in terms of 5 or 6 times the actual amount put at stake but the casinos pay out lesser and so results in visible loss.

Conclusion

Gambling in the eyes of gambler has its own dimensions which cannot be gauged by the critics. Form of gambling may have difference of opinions but the ultimate pleasure of sport cannot be undermined in either form of gambling.

On the other hand gambling as a line of business may mean totally different to the casino owners. They would have an altogether different stream of thoughts to analyze the two forms of gambling.

Why Your Business Can’t Ignore the Importance of Providing a Positive User Experience (UX)

Does your site provide the best user experience?

Bad website usability is not only bad for your users; it’s bad for your business too.

What exactly is website usability? It’s definitely one of those industry jargon terms that many entrepreneurs and business owners might not be familiar with. But should!

Website usability means: how easy is it to use your website?

If you’re unsure of what that is, then chances are you may need some help building a strategy for your website.

Your website’s use is how well it accomplishes the reason you built it. Is it to generate leads? Get someone to make a purchase? Direct people to something else? Each page of your website needs a purpose and if that purpose isn’t clear, then the usability is diminished.

When web marketers look at usability they’re looking to see whether or not a user can complete a defined task with little to no confusion or frustration.

So how do you know if your customers are finding your website easy to use?

Measuring User Experience and Usability

There are many services that have come and gone when it comes to measuring user activity and a site’s usability.

Heatmap services such as Hotjar or Crazyegg have been semi successful though woefully abused in the hands of those who don’t know what to do with the information. These types of services give the website owner a birds-eye view at where their website visitors are focusing their attention.

Testing groups can be a great asset but at the same time these are closed, controlled groups so they often inadvertently present misinformation by way of not being an accurate representation of the site’s actual target market.

The best way to check your website’s usability is your Google Analytics. Google offers its analytic web-based software for free for many reasons. One is so you can make your website better.

Within Google Analytics site owners can check things like how long someone is on a page, where they entered the page from, what they did on the page, and when they left.

If someone lands on your page and leaves nearly right away you have what is called a Bounce. If the majority of your users are bouncing (called a high bounce rate) then you have a usability issue and are offering up a bad user experience where they have left too quickly to take any action.

Another way to check is to set a conversion measurement. This is when you input information into Google Analytics that triggers a signal when someone completes a task as defined in there. You can even assign monetary values to the conversion if you want to measure the revenue generated through the conversion.

This type of analysis is best left to professionals so get in touch with my team if you need any help.

But Google doesn’t stop there with its free offerings! Try checking things like your site’s speed or mobile usability using their free tools:

Measuring usability is as complicated or as easy as your website is. Larger projects with many types of users and conversion types will have more complicated ways to measure usability but the overall message here is: does your website accomplish your business goals set for it?

Are Your Users Having A Bad Website Experience?

If you’re looking at the overall stats and the numbers are not good then it’s time to look at why your users are having a bad website experience.

Here’s 7 questions to ask yourself about your website to avoid frustrating your users:

1. Have you clearly defined what your business does and is it appealing to the right audience?

2. Did you make it as easy as possible for users to find the information they’re looking for? Typically there should be no more than 3 steps between landing on the site and finding what the user wants.

3. Can a customer contact you easily if they are stuck or have any questions?

4. Do you have any broken links on your site that will lead users to a dead end?

5. How fast does the site load (see test above)?

6. Is your website mobile responsive?

7. How transparent is your About page?

Nothing can be more frustrating than a dead end so make sure you don’t have any. Users need to have trust established by a website if they’re going to commit their time, money, or both to it.

This is where user test groups can come in handy. Universal website staples that often get forgotten are there so someone who has never been to your website before can have a good experience on it.

Check the few points listed above and if there are areas you haven’t covered or you need help with then get in touch and we’ll be able to break it all down for you.

Is User Experience Really The Same As Usability?

The experience and expectations will vary greatly between websites depending on their purpose.

For large scale big businesses, user experience transcends platforms and current award winners are melding online with offline in attempts to boost both point of sale ‘conversions’ on site and web conversions.

For anyone working in small to medium sized businesses usability is your website’s user experience so focus on that. Make sure when someone lands on your website searching for something, they find what they were needing as quickly and easily as possible.

And don’t forget your user experience doesn’t end there!

A Conversion Is Not the End of the Road for Good Website User Experience

Provide Great Support

Your user experience doesn’t stop when the conversion does.

Think about the process of your conversion from the perspective of someone performing the conversion.

Once you’re done, are you coming back to the website? If you do, are you going to be able to get the support you need right away?

Not having a support channel or any indication of one is a big negative for any user. They likely won’t buy from you if they don’t think they can contact you afterwards regarding any problems.

Refine Your Website Based on Feedback

Make sure you respond to negative feedback with more than dismissive apologies or a canned ‘thanks for the feedback we’ll work on it’ email. Users who have a bad experience during a conversion but a great experience with support can be recovered customers who will likely buy again.

Accept negative feedback as an opportunity to improve even if you disagree with it.

Take what you learn from the feedback as a gift. If a user takes the time to complain about something, treat it seriously and remedy the situation (within reason).

Maybe they completed their task but have feedback on how easy (or not) it was?

In addition to analyzing your Google Analytics, you can follow up with surveys for customers (if they opt in for having one sent to their email of course) to help refine your user experience.

If you need help drafting a survey try this list of some basic website experience survey questions to ask.