More than 448 million adults around the world suffer from some personal, family, work or financial problem derived from gambling and 80 million suffer from an addiction disorder to this activity. It is the “conservative” estimate of the multidisciplinary group of gambling experts brought together by The Lancet after reviewing all available literature and data on the harms of gambling.
From their report it is clear that gambling addiction could be affecting 15.8% of adults and 26.4% of adolescents who play slots, poker or other online casino products and 8.9% of adults and 16.3% of adolescents who place sports bets.
Two levels of impact
Report authors differentiate gambling addiction (gaming disorder) from problem gambling
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Gaming disorder. It is included as a pathology in the two main classifications of mental and behavioral disorders, the ICD-11 (the list of diseases prepared by the WHO) and the Diagnostic Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. It is identified by a pattern of repeated and continuous gambling that is maintained over time, that is prioritized over other activities in life and that cannot be controlled even if it has negative consequences. It corresponds to addiction. According to experts gathered by The Lancet, it affects 80 million people worldwide.
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Problematic game. This term is used to describe gambling practices that, without implying an addiction, have an impact on the personal, family, financial and work circumstances of the person affected. The Lancet commission estimates that it affects more than 448 million adults.
Hence they conclude, without leaving any room for doubt, that “gambling represents a threat to public health” and urge policymakers to treat it in the same way as other addictive and harmful products for health such as alcohol and alcohol. tobacco.
We must wake up and act collectively; If we delay, the damage will take root
The Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling is made up of leading experts in gambling studies, public health, global health policy, risk control and regulatory policies, and people with first-hand experience of the negative effects of gambling. game.
In their report they highlight that commercial gambling is clearly associated not only with financial losses and the risk of economic ruin, but also with physical and mental health problems, breakdown of relationships and families, loss of employment, increased risk of suicide and domestic violence. or the increase in crimes against property and people.
And to fall into these problems derived from gambling, experts explain, it is no longer necessary to go to a bingo hall, buy a lottery ticket or travel to Las Vegas because everyone has a casino in their pocket 24 hours a day of the mobile.
Today anyone has a casino in their pocket 24 hours a day through their mobile
The director of the new commission The Lancet and co-director of Gambling Research Glasgow (the research group on the social impacts of gambling at the University of Glasgow), Heather Wardle, emphasizes the fact that “highly sophisticated marketing and technology is making it increasingly easier to get started and more difficult to stop playing because many of these products use mechanisms designed to encourage repeated and prolonged participation.”
Proof of this, he says, is the strong global growth of this gaming industry. “We must wake up and act collectively; If we delay, gambling and its damage will become even more entrenched as a global phenomenon and will be much more difficult to address,” Wardle warned when releasing the report.
Groups with more risk
Children and adolescents, more vulnerable to the lure of easy money
The Commission’s experts also warn that gambling does not impact the entire population equally and there are groups that are at much greater risk of suffering harm, such as children and adolescents, a group that before the digital revolution did not have access to games of chance and are now found integrated into video games.
“We know that early exposure to gambling increases the risk of developing addiction disorders later in life, and children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the lure of easy money and the designs of online gambling; That is why we need to take measures to protect them from harm,” explains Kristiana Siste, the commissioner of Universitas Indonesia.
Along with minors, the other group that is at greater risk than the general population of falling into the networks of gambling addiction is people with few socioeconomic resources.
It is not harmless entertainment
The experts denounce in their report how the gaming industry undermines existing science on its risks, promotes it as harmless entertainment that everyone is responsible for controlling, and influences politicians when they try to regulate it.
They warn that gambling addiction is also “a crisis without borders” because although some countries prohibit it, the products are provided from international servers, bypassing national restrictions. “We can only move forward through coordinated international efforts,” they point out.
And they call for effective regulations to reduce the population’s exposure through access restrictions, social awareness campaigns and universal and affordable treatment for those affected by addiction.
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