Topic: What Can Be Done To Reduce Gambling Related Issues Like Suicide etc? - page 4. (Read 651 times)

There is nothing to be done about this, the people which can gamble responsibly will keep being responsibly whether there are gambling ads or not, while those that have a propensity to become addicted will always find a way to fall into some sort of addiction, at best those measures can delay things up but that is it, which is why I have always been against a complete gambling ban as this benefits no one and the costs society has to pay are huge.

These are real life issues that are becoming more common as gambling activities and other activities that can lead to them are becoming more popular. For gambling related issues, with the awareness that the people are becoming more prone to these issues, support and more help centers that are accessible can be established to assist people in these situations. I think that can go a long way.

MAybe there's a language barrier but to me you make it sound like these are caused by gambling. Many of these are disorders you would had your whole life. Gambling addiction doesn't cause them but they can cause Gambling addiction.

What comes to other issues you listed, most of them are treatable by doctors and psychologists. Goverments have intervened too and ordered casinos to set up self-exclusion systems (by law) to help people with low impulse control.

Problem however lies with the people who don't want help nor they understand that they need it.

Different regulations tackle those problems very differently, Finland has already very strict system. Government basically owns monopoly in gambling, mandatory kyc is needed for slots and lottery. This works for us locally, but we can still gamble easily via internet. And i can see that other countries might see such kind of policies as invasive. You mentioned government banning on gambling ads, which doesn't stop gambling, nor it should. But i guess they think that everything counts when you don't want to trigger unstable people .

This is very complicated problem and there are no one working solution.

Personally i think we should do as much as we can to lower the barrier to get help and try to remove the stigma from it. It's really the only thing we can if we won't forcefully treat gambling addicts.

I agree to you, As long as you can control things you can usually control you are not considered as an addict. If you cannot control vices or these bad habits, It is potentially dangerous in different ways and these are mostly on the physical and psychological side damages. There are many factors why people are getting addicted and the most common reason are on the finance side and stress. People are doing these vices or bad habits to release the tension they have on their selves and surely they can overlook it as harmless on the early stages but after they unconsciously repeating it, it could become uncontrollable thing which make it dangerous and possibly diagnose them as an addict.

in my personal opinion gambling ads are okey, while they are mostly restricted to places or environments where adults are and not children. For example, It would be acceptable for casinos to have ads in night clubs, TV programming for adults, parties, etc. On the other hand, gambling ads on teens video games and social media profiles of minors is highly questionable.

One of the measures I believe would be important for less people to commit suicide is easy access to good quality mental healthcare, not only of people with addiction to gambling but in general.

Gambling is harmless as long as it don't become an addiction. Getting addicted to gambling what makes it dangerous imo. People get addicted to various things every day. Smoking, drinking, gambling, chocolates, coffee, drugs... Gambling is just one of those bad habits. Like you said in the OP, there are various underlying reasons that make a person a gambling addict. They are mostly psychological.

A healthy family environment and a good education are usually enough to overcome being an addict.

It sounds cruel enough, but I agree that we need to look for real reasons, and not blame everything on the last reason - gambling, drugs or something else. Often this is a weakness of people. The government should be concerned not to prevent people from making their lives better, but in the population there will always be a percentage of those who will not do anything and will be dissatisfied with everything (I describe the ideal scenario, since often people find themselves in a difficult situation through no fault of their own). For this reason, banning various things is unwise, since most people use them without harm to themselves.

I think you correctly pointed out that there is a relation between gambling and related issues. Everything human beings do excessively mostly is meant to compensate for something that is missing or causing pain in the broader sense. There is a lot of material and scientific research out there showing that in only very rare cases do people drift up to excessive action in something harmful if their life is in order. You could differentiate between traumatic causes leading immediately to a cascade of bad behaviors and outcomes, i.e. a death of a beloved one, you drink alcohol and crash with your car the same day. There is also deeply rooted reasons which could lead to consequences your whole life, depending on how prone you are to post-traumatic effects.

An answer could be to as good as possible strengthen somebody's psyche in the form of medical treatment and mental strength training in order to increase resistance and the ability to deal with past and potentially present traumas. There is a low number of people who simply get stuck in gambling while there is no other reason than the gambling itself.

It is also a bit similar to alcohol abuse in the sense that alcohol is available everywhere and hence it is hard to get away from it. When it comes to any form of self-destructive behavior, a strong network of socially well-established people reduces access and availability in space and time to actually revert to self-destructive behavior. That is why significant social isolation is serious poison to almost everyone. There are great studies about it. Some are in the more general sense why some of them deal with correlated reasons, like people who are lonely more tend to certain self-destructive behaviors.

What method are you going to use to select gamblers who are suicidal? It seems to me that today no state has such methods as most gamblers with gambling addiction are afraid to admit it even to their relatives, let alone psychologists.

Suicide is committed even by seemingly self-confident people who do not stand out from the crowd in any way. Moreover, even if gambling is completely banned there is no guarantee that such people won't commit suicide after losing a large sum of money while playing poker with their friends in their kitchen.

Brewery companies always tell their customers to drink responsible because they know the effect of too much.  I think if gambling companies can also tell customers to bet responsibly it  will reduce the rate at which people plays gambling excessively and uncontrollable, but i don't think this can be possible.

as long as the government still receives large taxes from the gambling business then gambling cannot be stopped and it also will not reduce/eliminate the suicidal tendencies that some people do

the best way to reduce the likelihood of suicide by gamblers is for the government to intensively rehabilitate people who are identified as having a severe gambling addiction

I don't know how politics is in England but providing rehabilitation services to gambling addicts is very important to reduce the suicide rate due to gambling there

In my opinion suicide is the destiny of weak people who do not know how to solve their problems, and in fact all our life consists of problems which have to be solved from day to day. Weak people will always exist because their weakness is a psychological disorder, and it seems to me that in fact there is no difference from what problems they will flee - from unrequited love, misunderstanding from society, debts, gambling, drugs, alcohol, etc. Even if we prohibit everything that can lead such people to suicide, they will find a problem they can't solve anyway.

When it's hard for her to open up to someone else, the main job falls to his relatives, family, and friends. Sometimes the person needs to realize that their behavior has changed. This can be done with a good relationship. It is important to have a good environment in all of the examples we give here. But if the opposite is the case, that person's job is really difficult. He gets through the predicament he is in very hard. Again, it has to do with how strong a person's psychology is. What needs to be done is to get professional support.

Everything relies on the gambler himself. If he is aware that he has family and friends that make his support system, then he will no longer continue gambling and risk his life. I believe the gambler should always be responsible of his actions, if not then that’s the time he will fall into gambling addiction. And when addiction occurs, it’s hard for him to open himself for others most particularly if the government is also showing a negative reaction on people like them.

It's a mental health issue, therefore it's related to the health governmental sector. To ban ads and forbid gamblind don't attack the issue on its root.

Governments shpuld be concerned regards life quality and mental health of their citizens instead. They should launch campaigns where public agents from health sector visit each house asking for informations about everyone living there. Questions like if they have any diseases, take any medications, what was the last time they've gone to the doctor. Furthermore, these agents should schedule medical appointments from times to times for every citizens, including appointments at psychologists and psychiatrics.

That is how governments can work with prevention in an efficient way.

I don't think governments are foolish enough to think that banning gambling ads will put an end to gambling. Even banning gambling does not stop people from gambling. I think this measure is designed to protect vulnerable people, such as young people from seeing gambling ads from an early age.


I believe that the few measures that can be put in place are already being implemented by governments, such as bans or restrictions on advertisements, and obligations on gambling houses to put responsible gambling options available for customers. I say they have a limited impact because at the end of the day the compulsive and problem gambler will find places to gamble even if they have self-excluded themselves from a thousand sites, for example. There will always be gambling and there will always be people who have problems with gambling but these people, like the suicide case you mention, are people who have previous problems and externalise them through gambling, not the other way around.

I'd say it will be mitigated, yes. It will be a gradual process but I think UK is on the right direction to reduce that number. I think a data showing it may have lessen it will be a great piece to be shared in this thread. Banning ads is just one factor, there are lot of factors that may contribute to people being addicted in gambling, it doesn't mean banning it will stop people over it. Total ban on all gambling games I'd say or make it regulated and impose huge taxes on all gambling firms.

actually the government did a ban on gambling advertising it did little to help avoid gambling and reduce all the problems that occur after gambling addiction.
and what can really stop it all is awareness for every gambler. if the government already bans gambling advertising but if gambling addicts still want to bet on gambling, that will not stop someone from quitting gambling. because these addicts will have various ways to be able to bet on gambling even though any restrictions have been placed

IMO, what should be done is to provide advertisements that contain the negative effects of being a gambling addict. although advertising like the one I mentioned can't help completely to overcome the problem but if a gambling addict has seen the negative effects of gambling it will surely make him aware and have a desire to reduce betting in gambling and find ways to slowly stop gambling

The root of the problem will be the gambling place but they will be hardly seen if without the help of ads so banning ads really does help for some person to not be involved in gambling and possibly became an addict later on which could lead to suicides and other life threatening actions. it can be a temporary solution if the banning is not permanent but that was better than not doing it all.

One of the reasons why people play gambling is due to boredom or they don't have something to do so yeah, offering them a job can be a big help as well. Some plays gambling to earn money but if they already have a source of income, they won't gamble anymore.

Gambling is a choice even if the government bad those ads it's the gambler who will decide if they want or don't continue to play,
the government should launch a massive campaign on the bad side of gambling and gambling prevention, here in our country we do this with our liquor and cigarettes and it works but not yet on gambling.
Gambling problems breed many issues so the government should make it easy for their citizen to reach rehabilitation and make it affordable, education and prevention are the only way to minimize problems associated in gambling and government should focus on these two.