Debt and Online Gambling

One of the biggest personal debt addictions is online gambling. Within minutes of logging on, a victim is rapidly losing money. As hours pass – days sometimes – the money people squander become mere numbers on the screen: they have no meaning, no reference in the real world.

After a while the urge to carry on overwhelms everything.  The person becomes irritated at inconveniences, like eating or going to the loo.  Unfortunately, becoming addicted to gambling has nothing to do with being uneducated, or from the lower income levels.

In fact, only people with high paying jobs start out with sufficient funds, or have the high enough credit rating to easily acquire a personal loan without question, or have several thousand pounds available on their credit cards.

The middle and upper classes are part of the growing number of secret, compulsive gamblers hooked on the thrill of internet gambling.  They log on for hours, losing money hand over fist.

A recent report revealed that the online casino is increasingly likely to be visited by middle-aged financially secure women in the 46 to 55 age group, which explains the sudden appearance of dozens of online bingo sites,

Gamblers Anonymous Scotland has noticed an increasing number of women and young people seeking help for gambling problems, where typically a gambler used to be a middle-aged man.  The number of people attending their meetings has doubled in the last two years.  The means of paying for gambling has changed too; once a gambler would have taken out a secured loan against his house. These days gambling is just as likely to be credit card funded or topped up with a pay day loan.

A paper published in the British Medical Journal asked the government to fully assess the physical impact of gambling. They warn that: “Gambling affects physical, social and mental wellbeing, as creating debt.”

There is evidence from other countries that prove that people will eventually sign away their homes to feed their gambling needs.