Whoops, I realized halfway through writing the last page that some people out there may not have a clue what the heck I’m talking about. It wouldn’t be the first time, for sure, but I thought it would help to give some no-BS definitions of some of these things.

• Gambling: a pastime in which where you take a chance of losing money for the possibility of making even more money. See ”investing’, ‘home ownership’, and other related terms, LOL
• Gambling Addiction: when the hobby becomes a dangerous obsession. Believed by some to be an uncontrollable biochemical impulse that requires professional treatment, and by others to be yet another example of the loss of self-control and personal responsibility encouraged by the nanny state, pharmaceutical corporations, and sensationalist media outlets. By all objective accounts, this affects well under 1% of the population, though many sources will fall all over themselves to make it seem like a much bigger problem.
• Online Casino: a website that offers games like online slots, blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps, video poker, and a bunch of other mostly-random-type games (I mean that you’re always pretty much playing against a computer program that shuffles the cards, spins the wheels, or rolls the dice randomly).
• Online Poker Room: a website that provides a place for people to get together and play poker. Poker rooms provide the poker software, banking services, network of online players, and the ‘tables’ where the games happen. So even though you’re using the software, you’re always playing against other real people instead of a computer.
• Online Sportsbook: a website that lets you wager money on sporting events (and sometimes other events). The sportsbook decides which games to cover and what the odds should be, but the outcome depends on the ‘real’ game itself.
• Online Casino USA: a sizable portion of online gamblers play from the US, which is complicated by the fact that the US has some very weird laws about it (both strict and ambiguous, and I didn’t think that was possible!). If you’re a US player, make sure your chosen website allows US play or you could get screwed out of your winnings!