Online gambling is exciting, fun and addictive. That is the danger when you sit down at your home computer and go online to visit a virtual casino. By dint of downloaded software, you imagine that you are in a casino gambling on a colorful slot machine. The graphics and sound are amazing. Time passes unnoticed as you stare in fascination at the games. You are reluctant to stop to eat. You put off your normal activities, like bathing and answering the telephone, so you can play the slots. You are addicted.

The online casino provides for a transfer of funds so easy that you are hardly aware that your bank account is being drained. You buy credits using your cash, which are then transformed into virtual coin that you place in the virtual slot machine. You push the button, the spin begins and you watch fascinated. It is fun. It is exciting. One of the hidden dangers from online slot machine play is that you can lose everything just as fast as in a land based casino. Somehow we do not connect the benign home computer that we check email and write letters on as an instrument of our doom. It does not have to be that way, but often is. You have privacy. No one is monitoring how much time you spend or how much money you spend like they would if you went with friends to a land based casino.

The best thing you can do is determine how much money you can afford to lose. Keep that in front of you all the time. Keep track of how much you have put in the slot machine and turn off the computer when you have reached your financial limit.