Hoping for a safe bet? Now that is high stakes

FOR MY patient Tanya*, it started innocently enough. Off work after an operation, she was bored and killing time online when she clicked on a popup advert for a betting site.

‘It seemed like fun,’ she told me. ‘The advert had women just like me in it. It was just a laugh.’

And at first it was fun. Then it became a daily treat to break up the monotony, Then it began turning into something sinister.

‘It started to really control me. It was actually scary,’ she said.

Before long, gambling online dominated her every waking hour. The outcome is as predictable as it is sad. She lost her job, got into debt and was evicted from the flat she rented.

It took a further two years and a spell of homelessness before she sought treatment for her addiction and turned things around. But it left her with shattered selfconfidence and ongoing anxiety.

Tanya’s story is far from unique. But I am increasingly worried that during lockdown — confined to the home with no work, no structure and isolated from friends and family — many more will have fallen victim to online gambling.

Initially finding some sort of solace, their habit starts careering out of control.

We’ve heard a lot about alcohol use increasing during the lockdown, but I’m seeing patients for whom the legacy of lockdown is a gambling addiction. Now, I don’t buy into the ‘disease model of addiction’, which holds an individual is entirely helpless in the face of their craving. I believe that, while addiction may have complex psychological dimensions, ultimately — unlike other diseases — we are in control of our behaviour. Having said that, vulnerable people need to be protected. They’re up against a multi-billion-euro industry and so the dice, if you’ll excuse the pun, is loaded against them. During the pandemic, the number of people seeking help for gambling addictions soared and many politicians and counsellors called for a cap to be placed on online gambling sites so that those who were vulnerable would be limited in regards to what they could spend online. This is not the first time this call has been made, but as yet it has not materialised.

From a clinical perspective, gambling addiction is a fascinating, albeit tragic, phenomenon. People mistakenly believe it’s the winning that keeps gamblers hooked. It’s more complicated than that.

There are several elements that make it addictive, based on the way it ‘fires up’ the reward pathways in our brain, even if a gambler isn’t rewarded by a win.

The buzz of the expectation is incredibly intoxicating. Indeed, the neuroscience shows that gambling addiction involves many of the same neurological pathways as drug addiction.

As bets are placed the brain releases the neuro-transmitter dopamine, which creates euphoric feelings — exactly what happens when someone takes cocaine.

The mind also plays a role in perpetuating the addiction by falling into ‘cognitive errors’ — false beliefs or incorrect thinking patterns. The ‘gambler’s fallacy’ is the mistaken belief that if an event happens repeatedly, a different event is imminent.

It’s this which keeps gamblers hooked. With each loss, they become more convinced a win is inevitable, fuelling their behaviour.

Interestingly, many gambling addicts report feeling hopeless about other aspects of their lives. By gambling they are giving themselves hope. That’s why they keep going back for more.

IN the past, psychologists viewed gambling as a compulsion rather than an addiction. It was motivated by the need to relieve anxiety rather than a craving for pleasure. We now know that it’s more akin to addiction, yet we still don’t treat it accordingly.

While drugs and other substances that cause addiction are tightly regulated, or outlawed, gambling gets a free pass.

It makes no sense that it’s treated in such a lax fashion, given the devastation not only to the individual, but the loved ones dependent on them.

Yes we must ban online gambling adverts. But I’d go even further. Just as we’ve done with cigarettes, we should ban all gambling adverts altogether.

While people should be free to choose to gamble if they want, we cannot allow the vulnerable to be psychologically and cynically manipulated by the multinational gambling companies for profit. *Names have been changed.