Hi community,
As with any addiction, the effects of addiction to games of chance and betting do not fall on the gambler alone. It affects the family, friends, relatives, and everyone around him, and may lead to the deterioration of their conditions.
It negatively affects social relationships and at the marital level. Pathological gambling can be described as a side relationship. The gambler invests his attention in gambling at the expense of the spouse, whom he sometimes repays to cover his infidelity. The marital relationship is destabilized against a background of lack of trust, helplessness, and anxiety about what will happen in the future.
Gambling and accumulated debts lead the gambler to a moral collapse that may even amount to an existential threat to family members. Gamblers do not hesitate to sell property to finance their debts, take loans from relatives without any ability to repay the debts, and in extreme cases they may even physically harm family members.
Partners in dependency - Relatives often try to "understand" the addict and help him, by paying off his debts, while accepting his promise to stop gambling, a promise he is unable to keep. More than once, family members come to the aid process, becoming partners so that they become “addicted” to the therapeutic process. But help works in exactly the opposite direction instead of helping the gambler wean off, they perpetuate his condition. These partners, such as parents or spouses, may find themselves in great distress that requires treatment.
Of course, there are many indirect victims of gambling addiction. Can you add more?
Since you're asking for other people who could be affected by someone who's addicted to gambling, let me add some:
1. Children and young persons dependent upon the addict: Initially, they get all that they need from the gambler before the gambling addiction took over his brain and his logical and rational thinking region's clouded by thoughts of reclaiming all his losses in the casino. It could be monetary, emotional, or even inspirational aid, which is cut short and abruptly by the way, once the gambler finally succumbs to gambling addiction. All of a sudden sustenance and money is harder to come by, they become an absentee/deadbeat parent/guardian, and they may even start to abuse these children as a means of letting out steam and frustration from an unsuccessful night/session of gambling. Some are even forced to go into child labor for the sake of supporting their family when the parents couldn't. And even worse, gambling addicts who sees no light at the end of the tunnel and are left to commit suicide leave children and relatives behind to carry the emotional baggage that they will leave them with, as well as the debts that they failed to pay when they are still alive.
2. Strangers, in certain instances: Some gamblers who fail to get the money to support their vices end up committing crimes like robbery or even more heinous ones to sustain their addiction and their gambling streak, thus, this may leave people who shouldn't even have anything to do with the gambler victimized all because they unfortunately happened to walk the same road that the addicted and desperate gambler tread upon. Fucking sucks but I've seen a lot of people lose money and sometimes even their lives because of someone's uncontrolled gambling addiction.