Stereotypes can be a terrible nuisance. People get an idea in their heads and ‘kapow!’ that’s it, stigma, discrimination and all sorts of prejudice come flying out of the box.

My friend Liz who uses a wheelchair and who looks a bit unusual since her surgery knows just how easy it is to be on the wrong side of a stereotype.

And of course there are other, equally serious stereotypes that I could mention, but that would be a distraction.

What I want to draw attention to is something a bit less heavy. In a nutshell it is that there are some stereotypes that can get in the way of using your leisure time in a manner that is both rewarding and economically responsible. ‘Low cost’ and ‘cheap’ are two words that carry very different connotations, and as we’ve discussed before, there is a terrible stereotype attached to the latter.

I’m going to use the example of 32Red online casino’s to illustrate this (you can find out more about 32Red here). 32Red is an online casino that allows people to play a range of games for real stakes and it offers real cash prizes.

For some people gambling has a bad name. And for some, online gaming gets an equally bad rap. This is certainly true for people who are addicted to gambling or who waste all of their money at casinos and online gaming sites, but like drinking, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

For my friend Liz, who keeps unusual hours sometimes, and who can struggle to get out of the house, 32Red is a lifeline. It provides a sense of escape and excitement that she’d struggle to match in other recreational settings.

The great thing about online gaming for Liz is that she’s the one who decides how much it costs (she plays for pennies) and how much time she’s going to devote to it. She’s not an addict in any way, and nor is she anything other than someone who has found a way to generate a flexible, low cost source of entertainment that feels as though it actually means something. Not long ago she won close to $300.

A lot of people would turn their noses up at the idea of online gaming. They’d see it as a kind of trailer-trash exploitation that sucks up cash and is just the thin end of a dubious moral wedge.

But that’s just one stereotypical view. Liz talks about it in a very different way. Her eyes shine when she starts to talk through her last game of poker or her hunches for the baseball season in a way that I have rarely seen since her accident.

Liz takes a lot more away from 32Red than what is measured in dollars and cents.

And if you were to take the time to talk to her about it you’d find her to be a serious-minded, intelligent woman with a full grasp of the moral, financial and psychological implications of what she is doing, and a very strong belief that she has as much right as anyone else in town to have a bit of fun.

Of course, to get to that point in the conversation, you might have had to put a few stereotypes to one side.