Since the very creation of gambling, politicians and doctors have been asking the question: is gambling a disease or an innocent adult prank? In every country, medical professionals, as do governments, have a completely different view of the problem. Even with the evidence base available, medical associations are reluctant to recognize gambling addiction as a problem, as it could hurt an industry that pays taxes and fees well.
Recently, however, doctors in the UK have stopped being silent, voicing their opinions more and more loudly that the business of gambling needs regulation and control. Medics and psychologists are greatly concerned about the negative statistics that the owners of large casinos and online platforms are trying to silence.
Some activists are also convinced that they are helped in this by the British government, which ignores the complaints of medical organizations about the disaster due to the increase in gambling addiction cases across the country. If we focus on similar cases in the statistics of other countries, it is pretty serious.
The situation became more complicated after the iGaming industry started to grow. The possibility to play from phones or PCs made such entertainment much more accessible. To start playing, you just need to choose a casino. It is most convenient to do this through onlinecasinobuddy website, which is leading in the statistics of search queries. After a quick registration and replenishment of the account, a person can access thousands of gambling games without leaving home. While for most people, this convenience has many advantages, it can be a big problem for Ludomaniacs. After all, resisting the desire to play becomes much more challenging.
At the annual meeting of the British Medical Organization, the absolute majority of delegates voted to recognize gambling as a harmful entertainment that negatively affects the health of the population. 85% of the Organization’s constituents signed the document approving this.
London-based public health consultant Ellis Friedman calls gambling “the plague of our time,” backing up his words with deplorable statistics. About 15 percent of all suicides nationwide are due to gambling problems, and about one percent of all adults in Britain have an addiction to this type of entertainment.
However, the consultant blames not only casino owners but also the government. According to him, the country’s leadership is too soft and negligent in regulating the gambling sector, allowing this business too much in exchange for taxes. He calls this situation inadequate, appealing to the conscience of politicians.
Nevertheless, there was also a split among the medical community. If all representatives of the British Medical Organization agree on the negative impact of gambling but on the methods of countering this disease, there are differences.
Some believe that it is necessary not only to introduce government regulation in the form of additional taxes and restrictions on the expansion of casinos but also to introduce mandatory education for medical professionals in the treatment of gambling addiction problems. This has drawn the ire of many professional physicians.
They don’t understand why money and time should be spent on training unrelated medical professionals to deal with patients with gambling addictions when there are already therapists and psychologists available. In their opinion, limiting ourselves to state regulation and expansion of psychological assistance is necessary.
Nevertheless, no matter how loud the voice of doctors is, it is far from the fact that the government will hear it. Many politicians ignore the casino problem or don’t consider it a problem, which is why they get a negative attitude in parliamentary elections. Or maybe the problem described by the doctors is not so big, and the medical organization has only exaggerated everything?
