Help For Gambling Addicts
Whether it’s betting on the horses or playing the pokies, gambling is something we all do at some stage in our lives. It’s also something that can become very problematic if it takes over your life. Luckily, there are many ways to deal with the problem and we can help you if you are a gambling addict.
Gambling is any activity in which a person bets something of value on an outcome that is determined by chance. The person hopes that they will win something of value and the bet can’t be taken back once it has been placed.
The most common forms of gambling in the world are lotteries, sports pools and casinos. Most of these forms of gambling are legal, but there is also some illegal gambling that is prevalent in the UK and abroad.
Pathological gambling is the most serious form of gambling and it can be very difficult to treat. People who have a gambling problem often spend more money than they should and it can interfere with their work, family and social life.
It can be very difficult to get help if you’re a gambler but there are many support services available to help you recover from your gambling problems. The best place to start is by finding out more about gambling, and getting the support you need if it’s a problem for you.
In recent years there has been a growing interest in studying gambling behaviour. There are two main approaches to gambling research: cognitive and psychobiological.
The cognitive approach is based on the belief that problem gamblers have erroneous beliefs about the true chances of winning during gambling. This erroneous belief may include a distorted appraisal of control, which results in the gambler feeling that they have a higher degree of skill than they actually do (Ladouceur & Walker 1996).
Some cognitive approaches involve think-aloud procedures to record a subject’s thinking about gambling. Other cognitive approaches involve the use of ‘warning messages’, which are intended to alert the gambler to the distortions in their thinking.
These warning messages typically consist of statements such as: “You have a bad habit of over-estimating your chances of winning” or “The odds are against you!” It is the hope that exposing the irrational beliefs that a gambler has will help them to change their thoughts and to stop their gambling habits.
A large number of people are able to overcome their gambling addictions with the help of treatment. However, there are many others who do not seek treatment.
We are working to understand how the brain responds to situations of chance in order to develop better treatments for problem gamblers. In particular, we are interested in how gambling changes the reward system in the brain.
In order to test our hypothesis, we have manipulated the reward system in the brain by combining two different types of gaming: lottery games and casino games. We have also used neuroimaging to assess the brain responses of subjects playing these two types of gambling. In addition, we have compared the brains of healthy non-gamblers and those of problem gamblers.