Should you be worried?
Signs to look out for
If you have noticed any of these things, it's time to have a talk with the person you are concerned about. The sooner you take action, the easier it will be.
- Making excuses or lying to friends or family to cover up gambling
- Spending more and more time or money gambling
- Making repeated ATM withdrawals
- Becoming agitated when gambling, or after a gambling session
- Dipping into savings
- Offering excuses to explain how they have lost money
- Coming up with excuses to explain why they haven't been around
- Hiding bank statements
- Losing interest in friends, family or other activities.
Some ideas for talking about gambling are available under ‘talk to them'. Details of additional support are available here.
Test their gambling
Still wondering if someone's gambling is harmful? Do our quick and easy test.
What is harmful gambling?
Gambling is meant to be a fun and social form of entertainment. It offers the player the chance of winning more in return but ALL forms of gambling are designed to pay out less than they take in. For some people, the lure of making more money means it can easily start to cause harm.
Harmful gambling is when your gambling starts to cause problems for you or others. For example, if you are starting to have some stress associated with your gambling, it’s starting to put pressure on your budget, it’s causing problems with some of your relationships or it's simply no longer fun but the choice to cut back is proving difficult. Some forms of gambling are more harmful than others, especially those that allow the player to continuously play and loose track of how much they're spending.
How much is too much?
It depends. The amount someone can safely spend comes down to their circumstances and what amount they are able to risk loosing without it affecting other set expenses. For some people, even a few dollars may mean them or others having to go without weekly essentials.
Ask yourself – is the person's gambling harmless fun or is it causing problems?
What you should know
It’s often really difficult to understand gambling problems, unless you have experienced something similar yourself.
Gambling activities, such as playing the pokie machines, are designed to make players feel they have almost won or that they can influence the outcome of the game. This can encourage people to play more often or spend more time and money than they can afford, which can ultimately lead to a gambling problem.
It's important to understand that people affected by harmful gambling can experience strong physical reactions similar to other addictions. They can have highs similar to those experienced by drug users, and strong urges to gamble because of their physical longing for the 'high'. Often the person gambling has no idea why this is happening.
It’s important to remember that all forms of gambling are designed so that the owners can make a profit, not the players. So while the person you are concerned about might experience and talk about the odd win, ultimately, if they play enough, they will lose.
