Online Gambling and Credit Rating – Financial Risk?

There is a strongly held belief amongst many people that having an online gambling account will somehow reduce their credit rating. In theory it seems to make sense, which is how all myths are started. After all, the more gambling accounts you have, the more you are prone to gambling addiction, and no creditor wants to think that the money they lend you is going to be lumped on a long-shot, just as they don’t want to think that when you should be paying interest to them, you are actually throwing all of your money on a spin of the roulette wheel.

This myth is widespread, believed by many gamblers all over the world. For example, a recent study out of the United Kingdom reported that one third of all Brits believed that having an online gambling account would have an effect on their credit rating. It was not made clear how they thought this and whether all of them actually believed that creditors would be able to find out if such a gambling account existed, but it is safe to assume that a large proportion of the people that were asked believed this.

The United Kingdom is one of the biggest gambling countries in the world, so this is not some inexperienced country that doesn’t understand how gambling works. Gambling is part of the culture of the UK, with reports suggesting that during the Grand National alone (a historic horse race) more than half of the adult population gamble. If a nation such as this can be so misinformed about something so basic concerning gambling, then it is safe to say that the same can be said for the rest of the world.

The Truth

The truth is simple: a gambling account will not effect your credit rating. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that there is no way for the gambling sites to tell if you have a gambling account. You also have to factor in that some of the richest people in the world, some of the people with the best credit ratings, are regular gamblers. We happen to be very good friends with a CEO who has a credit rating like you wouldn’t believe, with financial institutions practically throwing loans and credit cards at him, yet in at every spare opportunity, whether he’s in the office on his laptop or he’s been driven from one meeting to the next and is on his smartphone or tablet, he gambles. His favourite site is Royal Vegas Casino, but he has dozens of accounts with dozens of casinos, sports books and poker rooms.

Just because they gamble it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be able to pay debts, just because they gamble it doesn’t mean they are going to risk it all on a single race or sports match. Our friend may gamble a lot, but it’s all relative to his income. There are only a very small number of gamblers in this world who will risk more than they can afford and avoid paying debts to place bets, and the issue with them is not that they have a gambling account, but that they have a gambling addiction.

To think that such a thing can happen is preposterous. If you look at it from that point of view, then the same could be said for all sorts of accounts. You can’t punish someone with a gambling account in the same way that you can’t punish someone with a department store account. The former may be able to throw their money away on a long-shot in a horse race, but the latter are also able to spend everything they own on luxury goods. Just because someone has a gambling account it doesn’t mean they will lose everything they have gambling, in the same way that just because someone knows a drug dealer doesn’t mean they will spend all of their money on Schedule 1 drugs, and just because someone lives next door to a fast food restaurant doesn’t mean they will eat their fill of burgers until there is no money left.

These things mean nothing, it is the person that decides his actions and the vast majority of gamblers are sensible. The creditors know this as well, which is why they wouldn’t allow such a thing to damage your credit rating even if they did know. So if you are one of those worriers and you have avoided creating a gambling account because you’re concerned it will damage your credit rating, then don’t be, because it won’t. Many things can hurt your credit rating, from applying for loans, buying products on credit, missing payments and more, but nowhere in that list will you find “opening an online gambling account.”

Think about it this way: you wouldn’t expect your creditors to follow you into a casino and give you a red mark against your name as soon as you crossed the threshold, so why would they do the same thing in the online world?

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