Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2024 11:34:21 GMT
How to control your gambling
What’s fun at first can all too easily get out of hand. Learn the warning signs and use these tips to rein things in
by Luke Clark
psyche.co/guides/how-to-recognise-out-of-control-gambling-and-rein-it-in
The way gambling is portrayed in the movies or in TV ads, it usually looks like a lot of fun. It’s exciting, and there’s often a social buzz. Maybe your own experiences with gambling started out this way too, but you’ve noticed that your relationship with gambling has begun to change. Something that used to seem like harmless fun is starting to feel more like an uncontrollable habit. Maybe the bets haven’t been going your way, and you’re struggling to make other payments.
Opportunities to gamble in modern society have increased, and the underlying technologies have evolved. We’re all familiar with the traditional ways of gambling, from lottery products and scratch cards, slot machines, bingo and casino table games, to betting on sports and horse racing. In many parts of the world, all these forms of gambling are now also available on the internet. We’re rarely more than a few seconds from being able to bet on a gambling website – whatever the time of day or night, or wherever we are.
Then there’s the surge in advertising. Gambling ads during televised sports or late-night TV are just the tip of the iceberg. If you’ve downloaded a gambling app, perhaps you receive push notifications for new promotions. In spectator sports, gambling firms might also advertise pitch-side, or sponsor the team strip. Naturally, gambling operators also have an active presence on social media. In recent research from the University of Bristol in the UK, the opening weekend of the 2023 English Premier League football season was accompanied by 11,000 gambling ‘messages’ across TV, radio and social media. These messages contain persuasive triggers and cues that can drive an urge to gamble among fans.
When gambling gets out of control, the negative consequences can take different forms, but they usually emerge from financial losses. Commercial gambling games contain a ‘house edge’, which is what makes them a profitable business. This means that, with continued gambling, the gambler is destined, mathematically, to lose money in the long run.
Worrying about debts, loss of sleep, unpaid bills and having to make financial sacrifices in other areas, such as groceries or holidays, are all common experiences for people whose gambling gets out of hand. Partners and children typically also bear the financial hardship of gambling losses and, unlike a hangover, gambling debts can take months or years to pay off. When your losses also affect your spouse or partner, this can lead to arguments, guilty feelings, and perhaps a temptation to lie about your intentions to gamble again. You might turn to friends and family to borrow money. Your job or studies may suffer as you become distracted and preoccupied.
In its most severe form, the official medical term for gambling addiction is gambling disorder. Since 2013, it has been categorised by US psychiatry alongside substance use disorders as the first ‘behavioural addiction’. Among the symptoms of gambling disorder are various hallmarks that overlap with drug and alcohol addictions. Betting with larger sums of money over time is analogous to ‘tolerance’ – for example where someone with an alcohol use disorder finds that they need to gradually increase the quantity of alcohol they consume to achieve the same psychological effects. Similarly, when someone is prevented from gambling (eg, through a lack of funds, or being away on vacation), they might experience withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability or difficulty concentrating, akin to the withdrawal that can be experienced after stopping consuming a drug or alcohol. Nowadays, gambling disorder is recognised as a debilitating condition that can be associated with the most severe outcomes, including suicide and bankruptcy.
There’s a lot of stigma around gambling problems. With a chemical addiction, it is well recognised that drugs exert powerful effects on the brain, to alter reward-seeking and self-control. Even though gambling seems to hijack the same neural systems as drugs, via the allure of unpredictable rewards, these effects are less well understood, which may contribute to heightened stigma. Problem gambling is sometimes referred to as a hidden addiction, because at a physical level there are no tell-tale signs, such as the smell of alcohol on the breath in someone with a drinking problem.
What’s fun at first can all too easily get out of hand. Learn the warning signs and use these tips to rein things in
by Luke Clark
psyche.co/guides/how-to-recognise-out-of-control-gambling-and-rein-it-in
The way gambling is portrayed in the movies or in TV ads, it usually looks like a lot of fun. It’s exciting, and there’s often a social buzz. Maybe your own experiences with gambling started out this way too, but you’ve noticed that your relationship with gambling has begun to change. Something that used to seem like harmless fun is starting to feel more like an uncontrollable habit. Maybe the bets haven’t been going your way, and you’re struggling to make other payments.
Opportunities to gamble in modern society have increased, and the underlying technologies have evolved. We’re all familiar with the traditional ways of gambling, from lottery products and scratch cards, slot machines, bingo and casino table games, to betting on sports and horse racing. In many parts of the world, all these forms of gambling are now also available on the internet. We’re rarely more than a few seconds from being able to bet on a gambling website – whatever the time of day or night, or wherever we are.
Then there’s the surge in advertising. Gambling ads during televised sports or late-night TV are just the tip of the iceberg. If you’ve downloaded a gambling app, perhaps you receive push notifications for new promotions. In spectator sports, gambling firms might also advertise pitch-side, or sponsor the team strip. Naturally, gambling operators also have an active presence on social media. In recent research from the University of Bristol in the UK, the opening weekend of the 2023 English Premier League football season was accompanied by 11,000 gambling ‘messages’ across TV, radio and social media. These messages contain persuasive triggers and cues that can drive an urge to gamble among fans.
When gambling gets out of control, the negative consequences can take different forms, but they usually emerge from financial losses. Commercial gambling games contain a ‘house edge’, which is what makes them a profitable business. This means that, with continued gambling, the gambler is destined, mathematically, to lose money in the long run.
Worrying about debts, loss of sleep, unpaid bills and having to make financial sacrifices in other areas, such as groceries or holidays, are all common experiences for people whose gambling gets out of hand. Partners and children typically also bear the financial hardship of gambling losses and, unlike a hangover, gambling debts can take months or years to pay off. When your losses also affect your spouse or partner, this can lead to arguments, guilty feelings, and perhaps a temptation to lie about your intentions to gamble again. You might turn to friends and family to borrow money. Your job or studies may suffer as you become distracted and preoccupied.
In its most severe form, the official medical term for gambling addiction is gambling disorder. Since 2013, it has been categorised by US psychiatry alongside substance use disorders as the first ‘behavioural addiction’. Among the symptoms of gambling disorder are various hallmarks that overlap with drug and alcohol addictions. Betting with larger sums of money over time is analogous to ‘tolerance’ – for example where someone with an alcohol use disorder finds that they need to gradually increase the quantity of alcohol they consume to achieve the same psychological effects. Similarly, when someone is prevented from gambling (eg, through a lack of funds, or being away on vacation), they might experience withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability or difficulty concentrating, akin to the withdrawal that can be experienced after stopping consuming a drug or alcohol. Nowadays, gambling disorder is recognised as a debilitating condition that can be associated with the most severe outcomes, including suicide and bankruptcy.
There’s a lot of stigma around gambling problems. With a chemical addiction, it is well recognised that drugs exert powerful effects on the brain, to alter reward-seeking and self-control. Even though gambling seems to hijack the same neural systems as drugs, via the allure of unpredictable rewards, these effects are less well understood, which may contribute to heightened stigma. Problem gambling is sometimes referred to as a hidden addiction, because at a physical level there are no tell-tale signs, such as the smell of alcohol on the breath in someone with a drinking problem.