Gambling Addiction

Gambling

As someone who's been a gambler for forty years, I know a bunch of people with a gambling addiction. It leads to never quitting while you have a penny left, running through you're bank account, borrowing heavily, and stealing.

One big problem is that the more a person loses, the more desperate they are to win it back. It's a "this time I'll win" mentality, and it isn't pretty.

My husband and I had a class a couple years back with a guy that works at one of the casinos that is a few miles from our home. Casinos are new to our area. . .just during the past few years. He told of one woman who became addicted. She would show up every payday and play until she's spent her entire check. Her spouse found out when they started losing everything. They are always thinking they'll have a big win any time now and all their money troubles will be over. Of course, it never works that way!

I imagine any state that allows gambling in any form would have a hotline or an organization that would be glad to answer your questions.

A good movie is "Owning Mahoney." starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. A good book is Dostoevsky's "The Gambler".

I've only known one compulsive gambler in my life. He was my friend's dad. Real type A personality. He used to bet sports and he'd do okay most of the time, a real lucky SOB. When he won he'd be in a great mood and buy my friend and his mom all these presents and burn through his money almost immediately with steak dinners and new televisions and the like.
When he was losing he'd get VERY angry and pissy until he basically won again. During game day we'd have to be really quiet or he'd flip out. He sat in front of the TV all day screaming violently at the tv. My dad watched sports too and yelled at the tv but it was different, my friend's dad was out of control with it, sweating bullets, throwing his beer cans.
It finally got so bad that this guy was lying to his wife, taking out loans to pay bookies and he still wasn't stopping. He began drinking really heavily too around this time and finally it ended in him getting fired from his job and leaving his wife and son to move to Las Vegas.
I don't know what happened to him after that but I never saw him again and I moved away not too soon after.

Hi - I have counseled gamblers. There are a number of types and a number of stages. Good resource book (like the Bible of addiction treatment), even though old, is When Luck Runs Out by Robert Custer, MD, and Harry Milt, two of the top gurus of gambling treatment. Also is a National Council of Problem Gambling; Keith Whyte is the director and very receptive to answering questions and giving info.

Good luck,
JudiB

I see you're in the UK. The National Council I mentioned is in the US. I believe there is a 1-800 phone number.
JudiB

At a hotel I worked at in Alberta, video lottery terminals were new and three were installed. By law, they couldn't turn on until noon (huge signs to that effect right beside them), yet we had people lining up at 11 to use them. Since I worked in accounting, I didn't see the behavior myself, but a. heard about it and b. tracked statistical usage data. We do know of one woman who lost her and her husband's life savings, house, everything, in the first couple of months after the VLTs were installed. Well, yeah, the hotel earned a LOT of revenue from those things, even after all the payouts.