Therapy for problem gambling goes virtual
Therapists can safely take their gambling addicted patients to the casino to test their willpower using virtual reality, Canadian researchers say.
Psychologist Stephane Bouchard can convincingly recreate the sights, sounds and the action of gambling in virtual reality environments that trigger cravings and intense emotional responses in patients.
“We needed to know that we can use these tools in therapy without triggering our patients so they leave the office and then gamble away their fortune and kill themselves,” said Bouchard, Canada Research Chair in Clinical Cyberpsychology.
A series of studies described in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that cognitive behaviour therapy using VR environments elicit cravings that are clinically useful and that the feelings they trigger do not lead to loss of control.
Bouchard will be talking about his work at the New Horizons in Responsible Gambling Conference in Vancouver on Feb. 14, an event hosted by the B.C. Lottery Corporation.
Therapists can use VR environments to induce cravings and help patients learn to maintain control in those situations, said Bouchard.
“With the help of a therapist, we can progressively induce cravings and work with patients as if they were playing in a real life situation,” he said. “It’s a perfect opportunity to play out scenarios and practice.”
For some gambling addicts, their visceral response to the VR casino is a strong signal that they are not as advanced in their recovery as they thought.
“Even the sight of a (cash machine) is enough to trigger gambling cravings in some people,” Bouchard said.
The BCLC reported total revenue of $3.1 billion and $1.3 billion in net income in the last fiscal year.
About three quarters of British Columbians have participated in some form of gambling in the past 12 months. About 3.3 per cent — 125,000 people — are considered moderate- to high-risk problem gamblers, which is slightly lower than 10 years ago.
BCLC spends about $9.5 million a year on responsible gambling programs including GameSense, in-casino counsellors and a help line.
Casino revenues are growing, led by increased revenue generated by slot machines, according to the 2016/17 BCLC annual report.
“Slot machines are among the most potentially dangerous forms of gambling, because they exploit cognitive biases,” said Bouchard.
A gambler might see a frustrated gambler leave a machine that hasn’t paid recently and think that it is due to pay out.
“It isn’t, the machine is just generating random results, but we are driven to make sense of things,” he said. “It’s the same for near misses, when you can see the ‘seven’ you need just one tick above or below the payout line. You think it was so close, but really it wasn’t.”