The first national survey ever conducted on the subject in Ireland has found that 75% of online gamblers in Ireland have, at least once, either borrowed money or sold their own possessions in order to place a bet. A staggering 64% of respondents reported feeling that they might have a problem with their gambling, and 62% reported that they had gambled with funds that they could not afford to lose.
The survey, reported in the Times this week, was conducted by Colin O’Gara, consultant psychiatrist and Head of Addiction Services at Saint John of God Hospital in Dublin. He interpreted the results as a further indicator that the government needs to hasten its action on the Gambling Control Bill. As reported elsewhere, groups as diverse as gaming addiction services and the bookkeepers’ association (IBA) themselves have been calling for this process to be expedited for some time, along with calls to set up an independent regulator. There clearly needs to be some kind of action taken to help protect vulnerable gamblers in Ireland.
The study was presented in the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, in which Dr. O’Gara further claimed that the delay in the Gambling Control Bill was limiting treatment options for gambling addicts or those with a gambling disorder. He recognised that, while we don’t yet have full figures on the prevalence of gambling disorder in Ireland (a condition now recognised by the World Health Organisation), clinical data suggested that it is a worsening problem, and one exacerbated by the ever-increasing availability of gambling options.
The government has stated that the regulator, once instantiated, will have the power to remove licenses as part of investigations into operators. A social fund is expected to be set up for gambling treatment and research, funded by a levy on operators, who currently pay a mere 1% in corporate taxes each year.
Approximately the same percentage of respondents who reported using loans or sold items to fund gaming, roughly 75%, also stated that they thought the dangers of gambling should be better advertised. Furthermore, nearly 60% stated that they would prefer to play on sites which informed them of their overall losses, an initiative which Paddy Power is already beginning to put into place. The survey consisted of 208 total respondents.
