Is Gambling Bad
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Approximately 10 million people in the United States live with a gambling addiction problem. A gambling addiction occurs when a person continues to gamble despite negative effects that may impact their finances, relationships, or well-being. Gambling addiction involves compulsions to seek out gambling, betting, and wagering, and the end result can be devastating for the gambler as well as his or her family..Gambling is bad. Subscribe Subscribe Unsubscribe +5. Participants: 1 2 Next. Follow Follow Unfollow. When gambling is legalized it tempts people to neglect their God-mandated responsibility to care for their families, and these families often end up on welfare. Fourth, gambling is a form of state-sponsored greed. We read in Romans 13 that government is to be a minister of God.
1People who struggle with a gambling or shopping problem often hide their issues out of shame and a desire for secrecy.
This often delays recovery and treatment and allows a gambling addiction to lead to other serious effects, including loss of jobs, failed relationships, and severe debt. Problem gambling is often associated with mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and mood disorders. Gambling problems don’t just affect mental health. People who have struggled with gambling benefit greatly from treatment and often also need family counseling and financial coaching to fully recover.
Gambling is not intrinsically bad for health. It is only when gambling becomes an addiction that it is bad. You know you are addicted if you repeat the behavior despite negative personal and social consequences like gambling your house away(major) or staying up late so that you show up to work late the next day(minor). Jan 02, 2020 Gambling is a difficult issue because if it is done in moderation and only on occasion, it is a waste of money, but it is not necessarily evil. People waste money on all sorts of activities. Gambling is no more or less of a waste of money than seeing a movie (in many cases), eating an unnecessarily expensive meal, or purchasing a worthless item.
Christine’s Story
“You have to do the work in all areas of your recovery, including your finances. I chose to not do all the work necessary for a well-rounded recovery. Even though I was no longer actively gambling, my financial and legal troubles told me I still needed to work with a gambling addiction specialist. After my troubles occurred, I worked with a specialist for a year while I went through the legal mess I created.
“Now that I have reached eight and a half years in recovery from gambling addiction and alcohol abuse, I know it is my job, my duty, to be of recovery service to others. Life today is good!”
— Read Christine C.’s story and more at www.HeroesInRecovery.com
The Cost of Problem Gambling in Your Community
Studies have shown that more than $6 billion has been lost each year to gambling addictions. This problem is far-reaching and can cause both individuals and companies to panic and act in ways they would not normally act.1
Gambling addictions also place a severe hardship on prison systems, public assistance programs, and legal systems. There are many consequences of gambling addictions that result in community economic costs.
Some community gambling addiction dangers include:
- Increased rates of unemployment
- Bankruptcy
- Fraud and check forgery
- Forced home sales
- Increased alcohol and drug abuse
- Poor mental and physical health of individuals and families
How Gambling Impacts the Individual and Family
While the addicted person will definitely suffer during a gambling addiction, that person’s family will also face challenges. The stress that the problem gambler experiences may cause irritable behavior, secrecy, and arguments. Calls from creditors and bill collectors erode relationships. Financial strains impact all family members, and strained relationships make the experience difficult for even extended family members, friends, and colleagues.
The children of gambling addicts also suffer in many ways, including:
- Emotional neglect and abandonment (and even physical abandonment) when one parent is consumed in an addiction.
- Stressed and irritable parents may lash out at children angrily, and even if they do not, these children can sense their parents’ tension.
- Children of people with gambling addiction are at higher risk of experiencing their own addictions later in life.
If You Can’t Stop Gambling, Your Life Will Be Forever Changed
The effects of a gambling addiction are often quite clear. A large number of people who engage in compulsive gambling will use credit cards and debit cards to pay casinos or internet gambling organizations. If you engage in problem gambling, you will most likely incur debt, damage your relationships, and lose sight of your goals in life.
There are many ways that an untreated gambling addiction can change your life.
- Family problems are very common. Almost all compulsive gamblers around the world have issues at home with their family because of their addiction.
- Financial devastation is unavoidable. People with a gambling addiction will go to extreme measures to get money to gamble. Many people eventually resort to stealing, taking out large loans, or other desperate means that are out-of-character.
- Job loss is very high among gambling addicts. Gambling addiction may lead you to miss work, or come to work distracted. Gambling addictions will interfere with work relations, promotions, and employment.
No matter how bad a gambling addiction has become, it is possible to turn things around. Call us for help today at 269-280-4673.
Gaming when illegal is called gambling. This is the most crude and layman definition of the vice which involves wagering of money or something of material value. When talking about history, ancient tales of Gambler’s lament and Mahabharata testifies to the popularity of gambling among kings and princes. Hence the dating cannot be done. But this is known for sure that religious authorities generally disapproved of gambling. Arthashahstra recommended taxation and control of gambling, ancient Jewish authorities disqualified professional gamblers from appearing in the courts, some Islamic nations prohibit it. It has been seen that gambling has social consequences and is at the receiving end of flak from most of the nations. Then why do we find an increased rate of addiction to this social evil. What is in it that is so appealing to the masses. The answer is the monetary gains. When we are acquainted with such ways of earning quick money we seldom turn our backs. But one must not forget the popular law, “action and reaction exist in pairs”. The reactions are hereby given.
10. At a loss
An unsuccessful gambler is often at a loss of money and sleep. He is restless and this urges him to resort to more gambling to recuperate the losses. What about a successful gambler then? Can we say it in Toto about his success rates? Everyone among us is not an MIT graduate who knows his game with numbers and algorithms. Be it a person in need for money or elite people of the society, no one welcomes loss. The stress related to these losses can hamper one’s health and ultimately one’s life. In Michael Jordan’s own words, I want people to understand, gambling is not a bad thing if you do it within the framework of what’s meant to be, which is fun and entertaining.
9. Exposure
Don’t the children learn pretty quickly? But don’t expect them to learn the good always. Researchers argue that now a day’s children below 18 gamble increasingly. Gambling exists in much forms-racing, bingo, card games, dice games, lottery, slots and horse betting. Increased accessibility to internet has coined a new form of gambling-internet gambling. Among other drawbacks of internet this too has its repercussions. Since youth are inquisitive and often at a need for answers, they are more likely to develop problems related to gambling than adults.
8. Isolation
“I can’t face this mess alone, but am I not a loser who will not be helped?” Have you often heard such words from gamblers? Are they considered lonely or the society is too harsh on them? Does your spouse blame you for the financial bankruptcy, threatening to leave you? If you have an answer to these questions and going through a similar mental state, then it is high time to realize the emotional problem related to gambling. Family members may avoid a gambler for he embarrasses them. Your partner might develop strong feelings against you. This makes it hard for people to get love and support. They feel isolated and suffer like a loner.
7. Impact on children
What is it that you smoke? Is not it bad for your health? My teacher says so. Please stop gambling. If you aren’t all ears to these queries, you will soon lose on your children. Children often feel forgotten, depressed and angry when they see their parents or one of them has a gambling problem. This rushes them into taking sides between their parents. This is a serious problem as it concerns the fragile mental behavior of the children. There have been cases when they stop trusting their parents seeing their addiction. It is true they follow the elders but when their ideals go berserk, it comes as a setback. They may lose their trust and start misbehaving, feeling down in the dumps.
6. Fights and abuses
When nations are in crisis, they wage wars; families create violence. Gambling instills remorse among the people when they lose the game. Many feel all the more stressed, anxious and depressed. Above all of it, if his family starts to think of him as a gangrenous limb to be removed, would not he be angered and aggressive. Gambling problems lead to physical and emotional abuse of a partner or child. Researches show that 25-50% of spouses of compulsive gamblers have been abused. Among them some have been physically and verbally abused and some have even attempted to suicide as a result of it. A medical school in Nebraska found that gambling is as much a risk for violence as alcohol abuse. One can always look up for the research reports online.
5. Suicide risk
The most likely people who commit suicide are the ones prone to heavy alcohol, drugs or similar addiction. On the other hand some who have threatened suicide or hurt themselves in the past are also at risk. It would be obvious to state the reasons for depression and such terminal steps. Loss of money, alienation from family and spouse, child abuse, damage to self-dignity- who wouldn’t be crestfallen.
4. Impediment to career
A student will skip classes; forget to study his lessons just because he is somewhere busy stacking cards or bidding online. An employee will show up less at his office and his performance will drop. Of course one is not anti-gambling. You may even question, if someone is alcoholic, alcohol should be banned then. The point here is not to make this problem everyone else’s but to make them aware of the implications this vice can have on your career; for it will be harder to come back to the real world now, because time has already passed by.
3. Fraud and double standards
Legalized gambling is the fastest growing industry in the world and can have drastic influence on state government, one is being corruption. Till date there have been numerous news reports of corruption and fraud in state lotteries. Evidence shows that the poor and the disadvantaged are its easy targets. Let us not get into the political sphere of this huge gambling business because people love to earn quick and spend lavish. At times like this, it is either self-motivation or family interference which can pull us out of this deep pitch. No doubt legalized gambling is a bad social policy but it is better to stay mum on such sensitive issues.
2. Bleeding account
Know an interesting fact? The average compulsive gambler has debts exceeding $80,000. If unlucky, they end up hassling with loan sharks who would go after their lives if they don’t pay. Feel the crunch the person might be undergoing, marital disharmony, divorce, substance abuse. If we try to find a link between the increased crime rate and gambling, chances are we will get success. Embezzlement, theft and involvement in organized crime are some hideaway means for potential gamblers. Your bank account will run dry if you don’t monitor your recreational options.
1. Problem gambling
Is Gambling Bad For You
When gambling becomes problematic and there is a plausibility of difficulties, it becomes problem gambling. Ludo mania as is commonly referred is a mental state of excessive gambling without an urge to stop. So grave is this problem, that it is diagnosed as clinical pathological gambling. It might be difficult to accept but people dealing with this addiction can suffer from depression, migraine, distress, intestinal disorders and other anxiety related problems. Now that is something to mull over as gambling is becoming more prevalent throughout the world. A problem gambler gambles as frequently as he will take a tranquilizer, a drug, or have a cup of coffee. It becomes an addiction; the person will wish to experience the emotional affect same as before. It can disrupt your physiological, personal and professional life to a grave extent. The solution may not lie in banning and imposing strict laws on legalized gambling but since it is causing negative impacts on one’s individual life, it needs to be curbed.