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drinkanddrugsnews
| September 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
The estimated 450,000 people in the UK
with a gambling problem are at a distinct
disadvantage when it comes to getting
access to treatment.
DDN
reports
LOADED DICE?
And that ‘availability and public visibility’ does seem to be increasing all the
time, with an explosion in online gambling, gambling apps and more, much of it
backed by well-funded advertising campaigns. Earlier this year there was a high-
profile controversy around fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT) – frequently
referred to as ‘the crack cocaine of gambling’ – installed in bookmakers, with MPs
calling for a reduction in the maximum amount it was possible to gamble on them
in one go, from £100 to £20.
There were 33,000 of these terminals in betting shops in the UK in 2013,
accounting for more than half of the shops’ net takings, according to regulator the
Gambling Commission. The Campaign for Fairer Gambling, meanwhile, claimed
that a staggering £1.6bn was lost on FOBTs last year – up £89m in 2012 – and that
almost £500m of those losses occurred in 55 of England’s most deprived boroughs.
Even where money isn’t at stake, however, as in the case of ordinary online
gaming, there’s real potential for addictive behaviour and negative consequences,
with people becoming so obsessed that their health and relationships can suffer
dramatically (
DDN
, February 2013, page 8).
As another RCPsych report in partnership with Alcohol Concern Cymru –
A
losing bet? Alcohol and gambling
– illustrated, while there may be fewer people
struggling with gambling problems than with alcohol, ‘often people with alcohol
problems participate in unhealthy gambling, and vice versa’. Both industries have
seen the rules governing them in the UK liberalised in recent years, it points out,
along with an expansion of female-targeted marketing. One in six of those
interviewed for the report who had sought help for alcohol misuse also admitted
to problems with gambling.
‘There’s a lot of comorbidity,’ said Brian Dudley. ‘Someone will come in with a
drug or alcohol problem but when we actually start working with them we might
well find their primary addiction is gambling, but they’d never have got funded.’
So is there a real role for the treatment sector here? ‘Expert and experienced in
E
arlier this year no less an organisation than the Royal College of
Psychiatrists (RPsych) called on the government to dramatically increase the
level of support for people struggling with problem gambling (
DDN
, May,
page 5), which it defines as ‘gambling that disrupts or damages personal,
family or recreational pursuits’.
‘These adults deserve the same access to treatment services as those with
alcohol and drug addictions,’ said the college’s Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry. It
also pointed out that not only was current service provision ‘under-developed,
geographically “patchy” or simply nonexistent’, it was also funded almost
exclusively by the gambling industry itself.
For problem gamblers looking for support there’s Central and North West
London NHS Trust’s (CNWL) National Problem Gambling Clinic, which offers one-to-
one and group therapy, family services and referral to appropriate aftercare, as well
as Gamblers Anonymous – which is holding events to mark its 50th birthday this
month – and a network of just under 20 local services partnered with industry-
funded support service GamCare.
As Broadway Lodge chief executive Brian Dudley told
DDN
last year, however,
among the only residential centres offering treatment for gambling addiction are
his organisation and the Gordon Moody Association, both GamCare-funded (
DDN
,
November 2013, page 17). ‘It’s funded by the gambling industry because there’s no
other funding,’ he said. ‘The need is there, but the money doesn’t follow it.’
RCPsych’s report,
Gambling: the hidden addiction
, called for the government to
‘recognise gambling disorder as a public health responsibility’, to allow treatment
to be provided by existing drug and alcohol services. Lack of government action,
however, alongside the ‘increasing availability and public visibility of gambling’
would provide ‘the perfect conditions for a new generation of problem gamblers –
a future trend in addictions that we are ill-equipped to treat’, said the report’s co-
author and consultant addiction psychiatrist, Dr Sanju George.