Topic: Does having children have an influence on gambling habits? - page 14. (Read 1964 times)

When you have kids and you are a responsible father, you know that you are supposed to be a role model to your kids and a leader to your spouse. This thought and mentality alone changes your perspective about life and gambling. While the parent may not quit gambling entirely, you will see that they will reduce their bet size, gambling frequency and other gambling activities. I think could happen intentionally, or just naturally.

Being a parent and gambling means there are serious consequences if you do not straighten up your life. One of which is the loss of your family. No man would ever like to experience this.

In my experience, having children changes your outlook on life a lot, and it's not just about gambling. You become more responsible in almost everything.

Before I didn't have children I could spend half of my monthly salary in casinos. Now I don't allow myself such spending as my desires are not as important as my children's lives.

Of course there are people who are not changed even by having children, but it seems to me that this is probably an exception to the rule rather than a pattern.

Yes having a family would affect it, specially if you really care about them.
Most of the time you would only think about what they need and what could make them happy, so gambling or personal happiness wouldn't be your priority.
I would rather spend money on my child than to gamble or risk it, that is what I think most of the time when I am being tempted to gamble.
I would also think that the amount I would gamble could be used for my child to buy what they need.

Yep, if you have children, you will have less free time to devote to personal hobbies. So you may have to be selective with your leisure activities and focus on those that you can share with your child or can do quickly in your free time. Responsible for yourself and your family, it is important that you balance your time between all activities. This will help you reduce stress and maintain good mental health, which is important so you can take the best care of your children. When you have children, you have more things to worry about and protect. When you experience loss, you may feel more grief and loss. I think if you are feeling difficult, seek support from your partner, family, friends,... as long as you don't cause yourself to lose control.

I think I have to answer this question correctly because currently I have a daughter and  I know what it takes being a mother and as well gambling, most times when source of income is very low you look for other alternatives to increase your income by gambling with the little you have thinking you would secure winning yet doesn't come through.

Most times it's very hard when you have much kids around because the pressure for needs and wants is always increase and as a responsible parent you would do all your best to keep your family afloat by providing all they wants which also engages you to gamble in order to increase your earnings.
Sometimes those who has family are often becoming more gambling addicts due to their much responsibility and demand from family.

As a Gambler the easiest way to control this is to look for additional work to keep you earning in order to relief you from family pressure and less becoming a gambler otherwise relying on winning from gambling would caused more harm to you because you would always wants to double every little amount that comes into your hands.

Of course being a parent can change your gambling playing habit especially if you are a heavy staker, being a parent will make you reduce your staking power because most times your always on budget, and you know the heavy the staking power the heavy the reward, which parenting wouldn't allow you spend huge amount on gambling, because you have a family to run, and the day to day running of a family is strictly in your hands, so have to adjust your spending limit. Parenting and taking care of a children can also reduce your gamble playing time, especially if your someone that spends much time when gambling, so when kids are involve you definitely have to reduce your time and focus on taking care of your kids and spending time with them.

At first it will be very taxing for you to combine both parenting and creating time for gambling, but over time you will see yourself creating space for gambling time, because you'll be adjusting to a new reality.

Depending on an individual behavior. There are some gamblers who even if they have a lot of children, don't even care about the amount of money they spend on gambling as long as they can spend time gambling that will make them satisfied. Even with the tight budget, they continue to play and try their luck for the possibility to win huge amounts of money.

It should be emulated if the person believes indeed it is the best thing to do for themselves and also for the well being of their family, yes. Though, someone who has become very used to gamble (responsibly) probably will end missing to wager money as they used to. Going cold turkey on gambling or sport betting is difficult for many of they do not find another hobby to occupy their minds with, so instead going cold turkey, it would be enough to adjust their wager/gambling budget, so it wont affect their family life.
In terms of social status, ironically, I believe that while a person continue to do better economically or socially, they could be more tempted to go back into gambling because of how good things have become in their life.
When comes to age, I believe there is no a specific age to quit gambling, hence why you see the elderly spending much of their day in casinos, in those cases I believe they have become pretty much economically stable or they needs are taken care of by their families.

The story of my cousin is one of someone who managed to be responsible, though, there are better stories out there to make examples out of.

Depends on how responsible a person is. Some changes and priorities their family, some don't, some become addicted more due to stress or whatever they experience.

As for me, i'm not a problematic gambler, i gamble like occasional, and it never changed me even i already have a 3 year old buddy.

Of course! When you have children and a family, your expenses are going to rise considerably, so you have to adapt your budget to your new reality in order to not let your family in need. It means you will spend more money with basic stuff, like food, electricity and water bills, medics and medicines for your children, clothing, toys and accessories, day care center fees and so on... That is why the decision of having children, marrying or even having sex should be very well analyzed before executed.

The consequences will be for the rest of your life, and nothing is going to be the same anymore. If you value your freedom, or if you don't have enough financial conditions to give this step in your life, then don't do this. Many people act without thinking carefully, and once they see, they have already commited a big mistake which can't be undone. Then 'adios' to gambling routine, partying out with friends, playing sports frequently and doing what you want when you wish to do.

It depends.

If you're a billionaire, how it can cause a problem?

If you're just an Average Joe especially people who live from paycheck to paycheck, obviously having a children will influence anything including your gambling habits. Some people might quit gambling because they realize if the monthly needs increased, while some people would become a gambling addict because they're frustrated to earn more money.

All you have said is positive in the life of a family man who is into gambling, for a fact, i myself have a family, a wife and three kids, and should I say that for like three getting to four months now, I've not played a single game on any casino, due to important family issues I am trying to sort out, which amongst them is my children school fees, which is very high at the moment due to high inflation of things in my country, my house rent which will be due by the beginning of April, and just yesterday, my landlord contacted me telling me he as double the amount again, which mean, I am paying double of the amount I paid last year, this and many more miscallicious expenses have made me not have any extra or what I choose to call left over money to spend on gambling.

So yeah, having a family, children and all that does influence one's habit when it comes to gambling, I used to risk up to a hundred dollars on gambling every two weeks or lesser, and sometimes., I loss all of this money and still move on like nothing happened, but this day, I can't even afford losing $5 in a week and it will show in my finances, because right now, every penny have become really important.

Ofcourse it should because you're now tied to a lot of responsibilities, which one are you going to prioritize over the other, or will one say because of his love and addiction for gambling, he will become irresponsible for his children by choosing gambling over them as his first priority, we have to know how we will be able to manage the two without one being affected by any reason, but the children should come first in place, they cannot be hungry and we are using the money with us to gamble, except for those that have no financial challenges in raising their children, but still yet, children are more important because they needed our attention sometimes.

If the parent is a responsible parent then he will stop or minimize playing, responsible parents should prioritize the needs of their family before their vice, they can only gamble if he has spare money, but if on a tight budget all the money should go to food for the tables and for paying bills.
The start of having a broken family is when the father prioritizes gambling then the needs of the family, if you have a big family and your salary or profit coming from your business is not big enough to support your gambling sessions then it's better to minimize it.

In my case we have five in our family so I minimize my spending on gambling, I gamble almost daily but my allocation is not big enough that I can still cover paying our bills and having food on the table, a man should prioritize what's important in his life and family is the one that should matter for us in this world.

I only have one child and it feels like a heavy responsibility to pay for my child so I don't waste extra money on gambling, that's why I limit my budget and my gambling time so I can share time with family like my wife and children, if asked Regarding changing habits, it doesn't seem to be the case because I still gamble as usual, the same as before I got married, so it also depends on each person, for me there doesn't seem to be any change whether I have a child or not, it's not much different.

I don't think too much about losses because I don't gamble to make money but just to have fun, even though sometimes I feel like I'm losing and losing for me is part of a game and gambling that I agreed to beforehand, sometimes people find it strange that they want to gamble but only want to win but they are afraid of losing and losing, even though in fact they should be able to limit their budget, not avoid losing, because every gambler will experience defeat and loss, the point is, it depends on the budget and the money used, at least use money that is ready to be lost. Don't overdo it just because you want to win big  

Getting married and having children changes the financial condition of a man. If you still earn the same as when you are single,  you might have to readjust your gambling budget. You will have to prioritize your children expenses than gambling. And when you have a tight budget,  gambling will have to be dropped or reduced because the family must survive. Any gambler that uses money for family upkeep for gambling is irresponsible.

This is one of the major causes of divorce in my area. Young families are having issues because the father believes that gambling is an alternative source of income. It will be better if they seek a high-paying job or other sources of income if they want to continue with their gambling budget.

For sure who has responsibilities would find it difficult to gamble expecially if you are married with kids. Each time you think of gambling you think of your responsibilities feeling that what if this game didn't work out as thought, how will I fell knowing true well that your family need the money more than any other thing. In summary, a married man has more possibilities of being in a tight budget than the single man,who is not married because the mindset of a married man is different from the thinking of others.

OP although I am not parenting currently but I can tell from the things I have seen parents go through in bringing up children. We all are from a home and we can attest what our parents go through while we were growing up as kids. Imagine you as a parent looking for alternative means of survival to meet up with family needs and you decide to gamble just to earn money from it and unfortunately you lose all your bet and looking at the comparative advantage of it being used in the house to you losing it to gamble, how does that feels?

The money that could have been useful or helpful in the house now lost to gambling which you never know what the end results could be buy under assumption you played the game but looking at it the other way round, that money could have sustained your family  maybe paying for some bills or adding more food stuffs to the house.

Not only that,  as the children are growing up, they learn whatever they see their parents doing and as such if they continue seeing their parents gambling, it keeps record in their memory and they would definitely pick it up and as they grow, they begin to practice it because but as parents would definitely not want their child to do that, they would definitely limit their gambling lifestyle and adjust so that their children do not copy that.

That depends, having a kid will either make or break someone, what I mean by that is when you're already a gambler (for the sake of the example) and you've got a kid, either the kid will stress you out which will lead you to find avenues of recreation to have some break from that life of taking care of that kid which stresses you out or if it's the thing that will lead you to change your habits, say you're constantly gambling at a weekly basis but when you've got a kid, you've told yourself that you would be better for your kid and so your habit became a monthly until you don't even gamble in a month anymore.

What you feel with losses and wins are more intense too when you've got a kid because that money that you've lost could've went to somewhere that would benefit the kid, same with the win but the case with win is some people might not even consider giving something to their kid or contribute to their needs, some wins of these gamblers most likely will go back to playing another round.

So in a way, having a kid definitely makes you change your habits and if you think otherwise, that having a kid doesn't change your habits, that can only mean that you're going to be a bad parent because you don't know how to compromise or develop as a person for someone that you're supposed to love, nurture, and make them as a better person than you although the last part about you can still do it to your kid, they can become a better person than you because you've already set the bar too low for them when it comes to improvement as a person.

This is a story that should be emulated. For anyone looking for the motivation to take this step, he it is.

In my own opinion, I want to believe that there are people who have put an end date to their gambling. No, these people are not gambling addicts. They make a pact with themselves that they would completely quit gambling or reduce their rate of gambling when , they get married, secure an employment, reach at certain age bracket, when they attain a certain social status, that they'll quit. And true to their words, they do it.

As for getting married and having kids, the value a person places on them determines their priority.