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Consequences of Gambling

Negative Consequences

  • Gambling has serious effects on health of the gambler this includes:
    • Financial stress
      • This can be caused from a high wager and losing
      • Losing a smaller wager and attempting to win back money
    • Relationship breakdown
      • Caused by financial problems
    • Family violence
      • aforementioned
    • Mental illness
    • Suicide

Treatment

  • However if one has fell down the rabbit hole, some solutions may be possible
  • The most effective is long-term cognitive behavioural therapy
  • Motivational interviewing, pharmacological interventions or support groups have a lower success rate than therapy
    • These, although are the most common types of treatment to this
  • However, the treatment for gambling disorder has a low uptake rate of only 0.14% of the population actively seeing formal treatment
    • This is caused by stigma/shame

Challenges

  • The gambling industry is profitable and will not be going away any time soon
  • In 2023, it was reported to be worth $540 billion
  • Countries revenue from gambling (legal (Reported in 2023)):
    • US
      • $66.5 billion
    • China
      • $22 billion
    • UK
      • $7.4 billion