Gambling in an (online) casino is a lot of fun: you experience thrills, distract yourself from everyday life and enjoy the colorful graphics of slots or other games… Today you don’t even have to leave your own four walls: online platforms have it all, what a gamer could only wish for. Unfortunately, gambling in a casino has one major disadvantage – the risk of gambling addiction. In this article we’ll take a look at what gambling addiction is and what you can do about it.
How does gambling addiction develop?
Gambling addiction is pathological gambling, or more specifically, obsession with gambling. It’s about an addiction that sometimes has similar symptoms to other addictions (alcohol addiction, pathological gaming, etc.). Unfortunately, the first symptoms and signs of gambling addiction are often ignored. You don’t become a gambling addict in a day, this disease develops gradually. The symptoms of gambling addiction include the following:
- Increasingly frequent and intense cravings for casino games. You feel this addiction and you can hardly control it.
- Constant thoughts about gaming. You can’t distract yourself psychologically from games either. Because you think too much about casino games, it causes areas of your life to be negatively affected.
- Mood swings that depend on winnings and losses in a casino. The player’s mood actually depends on how he plays in a casino. If you lose money, he tries to chase losses.
- Chasing the losses.
- Social isolation. The person withdraws from real life, spends much less or no time with family, colleagues, friends, which can lead to dismissal, divorce, separation or loss of important social contacts.
- Denial of addiction and frequent lying to family and friends. To hide your addiction, you can’t answer about it. What’s worse, you can lie to others in order to borrow money to play in a casino.
- Developing feelings of anxiety and irritability when playing is interrupted or when you simply cannot play.
These symptoms do not all appear at once. Everything often starts quite normally. You suddenly start gambling uncontrollably and spend more time at the slots or casino tables than before. At the beginning you often don’t notice the changes in your own behavior and ignore them. If you notice any of these signs in yourself or someone close to you, you should definitely contact a psychiatrist or psychotherapist and stop gambling temporarily. The best way to do this is to exclude yourself from an online casino that you play at when you enjoy online games. This will help you avoid further financial losses and stop the development of gambling addiction.
Gambling Addiction Treatment
Treatment for gambling addiction can take place on an inpatient or outpatient basis. Inpatient treatment includes a permanent stay in the clinic, as well as group and individual sessions with psychotherapists. Outpatient treatment includes regular consultations or psychotherapy sessions with a psychologist. The first variant is of course more effective when it comes to difficult cases.
However, the player’s attitude plays perhaps the biggest role in the success of the treatment. Are you ready to fight gambling addiction? For long-term success, it is important that you analyze your own behavior with the help of a specialist and fundamentally change your life and your attitude towards life. So it’s not enough to just stop gaming.
Gambling Addiction Prevention
To avoid gambling addiction, you should constantly analyze your gambling behavior, play responsibly and control your spending. Especially when it comes to gambling addiction, it is much easier to take preventative measures against gambling addiction than to struggle with the disease.