Chasing Losses: What It Looks Like and What to Do

Chasing losses means gambling because you are trying to win back money already lost. It can turn a bad session into a much larger financial problem.

You do not need to understand a psychological theory to recognise it. If the reason for the next bet is mainly to recover the last loss, you are chasing.

What loss chasing can look like

• Continuing after you had planned to stop
• Increasing stakes because smaller wins would no longer recover the loss
• Depositing again after reaching a spending limit
• Switching games, markets or accounts to keep gambling
• Using savings, bill money or borrowed money to continue
• Thinking you cannot stop until you are back to even

The Gambling Commission includes chasing losses among the behaviours operators should consider when identifying possible gambling harm.

The money already lost is gone

A previous loss does not improve the odds of the next independent bet or game result. If you lost £200 earlier, the next spin, hand or bet does not become more likely to win because you now need £200 back.

That is the practical problem with trying to get back to even. The target is based on your past losses, but the next gambling outcome is not.

Why chasing can escalate quickly

The amount needed to recover tends to grow as losses grow. A person who started trying to recover £50 may later be trying to recover several hundred pounds and taking larger risks to do it.

NICE recommends that gambling assessments consider whether gambling has intensified, whether someone is borrowing or stealing money to gamble and how gambling is affecting finances, mental health, work, education and relationships.

What to do when you notice you are chasing

Do not make recovering the loss the next objective. Make stopping access the next objective.

• End the gambling session rather than changing game or stake
• Do not make another deposit to recover what has gone
• Use a bank gambling block if your bank offers one
• Use blocking software or device controls to make gambling sites harder to access
• Use time out or self-exclusion if you need a stronger barrier
• Tell someone you trust what has happened, especially if money for bills or debt repayments has been used

If this keeps happening

Repeated loss chasing is a strong reason to use more than a voluntary spending target. NICE specifically includes blocking tools, bank payment blocks and self-exclusion among practical ways to prevent further gambling.

If stopping is difficult, gambling support services can help you look at the gambling itself as well as debt, mental health and other problems around it.

Sources

• NICE NG248: gambling-related harms
• Gambling Commission: indicators of gambling harm