Posts tagged with ‘gambling’

Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Types of gambling include casinos, electronic gaming such as video poker, horse races, card games, and sports events. Studies show that though many people participate in gambling as a form of recreation or even as a means to gain an income, gambling can become a psychologically addictive and harmful behavior in some people.

Senior Casino Field Trips Fuel Addiction

Senior centers and retirement communities are great places for elderly Americans to live and to socialize. Many provide wonderful opportunities for seniors to engage in activities that include group outings, exercising and engaging the mind. These are the things that keep us healthy and young, but there is a downside to one of the most popular senior center field trips. Most senior groups take trips to casinos for recreational gambling. Playing the slots or the black jack table can be a fun way to pass the time, but they can also lead to a harmful addiction. Senior gambling is on the rise and the mental health and finances of the victims are suffering.

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Screening Teens for Gambling Problems

Gambling problems are gambling-related behaviors that detract from a person’s ability to maintain mental equilibrium and participate functionally in society. Some affected individuals have problems severe enough to qualify them for diagnosis of an official condition called gambling disorder. However, doctors may sometimes miss the presence of dysfunctional gambling-related behaviors in teenagers. In a study published in October 2013 in the Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, a team of Australian researchers examined the usefulness of a screening questionnaire, called the Victorian Gambling Screen, in detecting teenagers’ gambling problems.

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Senior Women Fastest-Growing Group of Problem Gamblers

Twenty miles from the river on an east/west highway running through central Mississippi, there’s a billboard, one of those really big ones. This billboard is a party, a sparkling carnival, a live action vaudeville show. It’s so thrilling that passersby never fail to notice it, and some have been known to slow down just to stare. It’s not unusual that this billboard features a slim, attractive woman with her head thrown back, a look of wild abandon painted on her face as colored lights spin and blur and loom behind her. What is unusual is that this woman is probably 75 years old.

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Say No to Bailing Out Your Problem Gambler Spouse

What do you do when the problem gambler is your spouse? Do you bail him or her out time after time, all the while anguishing over whether this addiction will ever end? If so, it’s time for a reality check. You aren’t doing your spouse – or yourself – any favors with your constant bailouts. In fact, bailouts never work – whether it’s the federal government or a loving, caring spouse trying to bring peace to the household. Full Story

Study of Gambling Behavior Could Help Researchers Understand How People Make Choices

A specific area of the brain may be responsible for a gambler’s activities and decisions, and could help researchers understand why people make decisions in other areas of their lives. Full Story

Mental Health Professionals Want Gambling Addiction Listed in DSM-V

Gambling addiction may soon be listed as a "behavioral addiction" in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health (DSM), the reference guide mental health professionals use to describe and diagnose mental illnesses, addictions, and diseases. The American Psychiatric Association is proposing the changes.

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Gambling Intervention

When gambling has progressed from purely social to problem gambling and on to pathological or compulsive gambling, there’s only one thing certain: the individual has a gambling addiction and needs help in order to overcome it. Addiction to gambling is similar in many respects to any other type of addiction – to alcohol, illicit drugs or prescription drugs used for nonmedical purposes for multiple co-occurring addictions – the addict continues with the addictive behavior despite all the negative physical, psychological, social and financial consequences. At the extreme, he or she gets to a point where they cannot stop gambling, they need to gamble, and they will risk everything in order to continue gambling. This process occurs over and over again until the addicted gambler ends up in jail, insane, or dead.

But there is hope for the compulsive gambler. The process is called gambling intervention. Full Story

Gambling Addiction and the Brain

In Saint Louis, Missouri, a national conference on gambling addiction and substance abuse is underway. When it comes to gambling, Fox 2’s Charles Jaco reports that the focus is less on casinos and more on brain chemistry.

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