Industry News

How to Gamble Responsibly and Not Get Addicted?

Published

6 years ago

May 7, 2020

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Gambling may seem like an innocent way to have fun, which makes many punters unaware of its potential dangers. Sure, you can win some money, or at least have a good time while on vacation, but how to keep gambling in control and make it remain just harmless fun?

The number of problem gamblers is growing predominantly because people see gambling as a reliable source of income or a way out of financial debt. Still, players who think about how and why they gamble do so for decades and never become problem gamblers. Here are some tips that will help you stay on the right track.

Gambling is not a Job

Many players think that just because Doyle Brunson built a fortune on poker, they can do so as well. Before you start thinking of yourself as the next Texas Dolly, remember there is only one Brunson, but there are thousands of players who gambled away their money.

Gambling is not, and should never be considered the primary source of income or investment. All responsible gamblers keep in mind how slots, roulette, and poker are nothing more than a good way to have some fun. If they win – great, and if not – they hope they’ll be luckier next time.

Gamble What You Can Afford To Lose

Before you visit your favorite casino venue or online casino, make sure to have your budget done right. Cover all your living needs first, make sure to pay your tuition, bills, utility bills, or whatever expenses you may have, and only then turn to Lady Luck and gamble the night away. When you gamble, remain focused, and have a set budget that won’t affect your lifestyle or your financial plan. In most cases, if you feel uncomfortable about losing that much money – you should decrease the budget predetermined for gambling activities.

Don’t Chase Losses

What is the best way to spend money in a casino? Well, to chase your losses, of course! This bad habit is more common among men than women. It seems that men simply can’t find peace with the fact they have lost, so they spend more and more money trying to catch up.

If you are on a losing streak, maybe it’s about time to leave or shut down your computer. Don’t feel compelled to compensate for your bad moves in a single day. Rather go home, and do something else, only to come back tomorrow or after two days. After all, the morning is wiser than the evening.

Limit the Playtime

This tip is important for everyone, no matter what game you enjoy. But, the game of poker in a casino will usually last for at least a few hours, and time flies when you spin the reels on your favorite slot. Also, in poker, for example, you get chips and have to wait for your turn, while when you are playing slots, you are the one who determines the dynamic and gets lost in an exciting adventure, fun characters, and flashy graphics surrounded by catchy tunes.

According to experts from casinohex.jp, most reputable online casinos will offer you a special feature where you can determine how much time you want to spend playing. Once the time is out, you will be blocked from accessing any games, and you can adjust the time only the next day. If you are in a traditional venue and want to spin some slots, you will soon figure out how there are no clocks to help you track time. Still, you can easily set a timer on your mobile phone or just wear a wristwatch to know how long you have been playing.

Keep a Gambling Diary

For many, this advice might seem funny as diaries are something we usually relate to angsty teens. Keep in mind you can use an Excel sheet, a notebook, or simply track everything in a memo app on your phone.

Write down how much you deposited, how many hands or sins you played, how much money you spend, and how much you have won. This will help you see a broader picture and detect concerning habits like overspending and chasing the losses. You can also write down how you felt that day, and what major events happened, to help you figure out whether certain emotional states affect your gambling moves.

Avoid High-Risk Situations

If you are aware that you don’t have as much self-control as you would like, make sure to avoid situations that cause you to act irresponsibly. Maybe you risk out of boredom, or because you had one drink too many, got a raise or a bonus, or because your friend is teasing you that you are a sheep at the poker table. Avoid such situations and keep cool at all costs, as only so can you avoid developing a gambling addiction.

fintech

PayDo Launches Unified Payment Infrastructure Suite for Digital Businesses

Published

6 hours ago

December 9, 2025

Niji Narayan

paydo-launches-unified-payment-infrastructure-suite-for-digital-businesses

Reading Time: 2 minutes

PayDo, a leading global payment ecosystem founded by Serhii Zakharov – who at just 25 became one of the youngest CEOs approved by the FCA to run an Electronic Money Institution in the UK, announced a series of strategic infrastructure launches designed to dismantle the costly complexity of modern payment stacks.

The releases—Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant access, USD SWIFT Accounts, Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts and Direct VISA and MasterCard Acquiring—are not standalone products, but integrated components of PayDo’s unified platform.

For the first time, online businesses can access this comprehensive suite under a single contract, one technical integration and with a dedicated account manager, eliminating the operational burden of managing multiple providers.

The launches directly address the primary pain points of payment fragmentation: high costs from intermediaries, slow settlement times, compliance overhead and loss of control. By securing direct memberships and building proprietary technology, PayDo now offers businesses enterprise-grade infrastructure with the agility of a FinTech.

The new services include:

• Direct SEPA & SEPA Instant: As a direct SEPA member, PayDo provides native European processing with no intermediary routing. This ensures faster, lower-cost euro transactions with immediate settlement capabilities via SEPA Instant.

• USD SWIFT Accounts: Online businesses can now receive dedicated USD account details via the SWIFT network, significantly reducing delays and fees associated with cross-border USD transactions, a critical need for a variety of cross-border operating online businesses.

• Dedicated C2B Open Banking Collections Accounts: A pioneering innovation, this service revolutionises how businesses receive payments. It enables instant, direct bank-to-business transfers from customers, offering an alternative to card networks with correct funds tracking and allocation, lower costs and real-time settlement. Functionality supports processing of +100,000 daily transactions.

• Launch of Direct Acquiring: PayDo is now a principal member acquirer for both Visa and Mastercard. This direct relationship removes a layer of intermediaries, reducing processing costs, improving authorisation rates and giving merchants greater control and transparency over their card payment flows.

These services are delivered within PayDo’s unified ecosystem, which also includes its signatory innovation – non-redirect E-Wallet checkout. This earlier innovation provided merchants with full friendly-fraud protection without any rolling reserve requirements. The new ecosystem approach allows companies in sectors like e-commerce, IT services, marketplaces, gaming and other Fintechs to streamline their entire financial operations, turning payment management from a resource drain into a competitive advantage.

Serhii Zakharov, CEO and Founder of PayDo, said: “For years, businesses have been forced to stitch together a patchwork of payment providers, each adding cost, complexity, and delay. We believe the future is not in more fragmentation, but in intelligent unification. These launches are not just new features; they are the foundational pillars of a coherent ecosystem. We are giving our clients direct control over the core rails of finance—from SEPA and SWIFT to card acquiring and Open Banking—all through one partnership. This is how we eliminate the hidden tax of fragmentation and empower businesses to scale globally with clarity and efficiency.”

PayDo’s ecosystem now processes over €5B annually for over 1000 businesses, leveraging its full regulatory compliance in the UK, Canada and the EU. The company’s direct infrastructure model is proving that the next wave of Fintech growth will be driven by consolidation and seamless integration, not further division.

The post PayDo Launches Unified Payment Infrastructure Suite for Digital Businesses appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

Free Bet

Meridianbet Reports Renewed Engagement in Custom Prediction Markets in H2 2025

Published

7 hours ago

December 9, 2025

Niji Narayan

meridianbet-reports-renewed-engagement-in-custom-prediction-markets-in-h2-2025

Reading Time: 2 minutes

While prediction markets have recently attracted increased public attention across politics, finance and culture, Meridianbet, part of the Golden Matrix Group has supported user-generated real-world prediction markets for more than a decade through its proprietary product branded as Free Bet.

For the second half of 2025, customer participation on the Free Bet platform has recorded an 11.5% increase in ticket volumes, reflecting renewed engagement across prediction markets tied to major elections, entertainment outcomes, weather forecasting and novelty-event propositions. Free Bet continues to represent a relatively small and non-material portion of Meridianbet’s overall wagering activity.

Free Bet allows customers to propose wagers on measurable real-world outcomes across sports, politics, entertainment awards, weather forecasting, financial milestones and social statistics. Once a proposed market passes regulatory, settlement and risk review, Meridianbet acts as the professional market maker, prices the odds and takes the lay side of each wager within the Company’s licensed sportsbook framework. This single-market-maker structure enables the delivery of prediction-market-style wagering to mass-market users while ensuring regulatory compliance, operational stability and standardised settlement.

In practical terms, customers initiate Free Bet markets by submitting their own proposed prediction events through Meridianbet’s platforms or retail network. Each submission is reviewed to ensure that the proposed event is lawful, ethically appropriate, clearly measurable and capable of unambiguous settlement under applicable regulatory standards. Only after passing these checks is the event accepted and priced by Meridianbet’s trading operators, who establish odds and offer the market to the customer for wagering.

Top Prediction Markets on Meridianbet

Over the past five years, Meridianbet customers have created and wagered on thousands of custom prediction markets reflecting major real-world outcomes across political cycles, cultural awards, financial milestones, weather forecasting and social trends.

Based on internal ticket volume and platform engagement data, the following five prediction markets have ranked among the most actively played on Meridianbet during this period:

U.S. Presidential Election

Binary outcome markets and related propositions tied to the U.S. presidential election results.

Global Entertainment Awards

Custom markets associated with major award outcomes including Oscars Best Picture and BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Weather Prediction Markets

Seasonal and location-specific forecasts, including snowfall occurrence and temperature benchmark outcomes during late winter and early spring periods.

Social Outcome Markets

Demographic and statistical propositions connected to public milestones, including birth-gender distributions during peak holiday periods and other large-scale social outcome measurements.

Regulatory & Availability Notice

The Free Bet product and related prediction market offerings are provided strictly in accordance with applicable national and local regulatory requirements and are available only in jurisdictions where such wagering formats are duly authorised by law.

Availability, market scope and wagering features may vary by location and regulatory regime. Certain jurisdictions may restrict or prohibit participation in custom prediction-based wagering products.

The post Meridianbet Reports Renewed Engagement in Custom Prediction Markets in H2 2025 appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

AI-Driven Optimisation

HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service

Published

4 days ago

December 5, 2025

Niji Narayan

hilltopads-introduces-dedicated-igaming-feature-suite-and-managed-performance-service

Reading Time: < 1 minute

HilltopAds announced the rollout of a specialised feature set built exclusively for iGaming advertisers, reinforcing the company’s focus on performance-driven media buying across global markets.

At the center of the release are newly launched, ready-to-use white- and blacklists, curated from premium traffic sources that have consistently shown strong results for iGaming campaigns. These lists are derived from performance data across thousands of active advertisers and are designed to reduce testing time while increasing the predictability of campaign outcomes.

HilltopAds is also introducing a full-managed service, giving advertisers access to dedicated iGaming specialists who will set up, launch and continuously optimise campaigns based on individual KPI requirements. This service aims to support teams looking for deeper expertise, streamlined workflows or hands-off performance management.

To mark the launch, HilltopAds is providing a $2000 bonus for all direct iGaming advertisers making their first deposit of $5000 or more using the promo code IGAVCIP.

These updates complement HilltopAds’ existing capabilities for the iGaming sector, including:

• Massive Global Reach: Over 273B monthly impressions available across 250+ countries.

• Premium Direct Traffic: Access to 39,000+ vetted websites suitable for iGaming user acquisition.

• AI-Driven Optimisation: Automated tools focused on maximising bets, deposits and high-value player actions.

• Flexible Bidding Models: CPM, CPC and CPA Goal options tailored for scale and performance control.

• Specialised Network Infrastructure: Built to support consistent delivery, stable volumes and transparent reporting for regulated verticals.

With these additions, HilltopAds aims to provide iGaming advertisers with a more data-grounded, efficient and scalable environment for user acquisition.

The post HilltopAds Introduces Dedicated iGaming Feature Suite and Managed Performance Service appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.