Pathological Gambling: An Introduction

Ludomania, otherwise known as pathological gambling is the desire of the person to gamble all the time even if negative consequences may occur; even if the person wishes to stop gambling, he or she wouldn’t be able to that easily.

Pathological gambling is said to be a mental disorder that is chronic and progressive. It is a recurrent as well as persistent gambling attitude that has some of the symptoms stated below:

Preoccupation - the gamblers often times think about gambling in terms of their experiences that happened in the past or will happen in the future (fantasy).

Tolerance - just like people having drug tolerance, the gamblers with pathological gambling behaviors would have the need for frequent wagers just to get “high” or feel ecstatic

Escape - the gamblers see gambling as a way to boost their mood or escape from life’s problems.

Chasing - the more the gamblers diagnosed with pathological gambling lose, the more they will gamble in the desire to win back the losses they have experienced.

Stealing - the gamblers do this act just to be able to gamble continuously in the event that they have ran out of gambling funds.

Loss of control - gamblers diagnosed with pathological gambling have attempted to reduce the number of times they gamble but have failed

Risked significant relationship - in pathological gambling, the gamblers also wouldn’t stop even if there is a risk of them losing a friendship, a marriage, a job, etc.

“A person diagnosed with pathological gambling needs to undergo treatment such as self-help, counseling, peer support, step-based programs, etc. in order to eradicate the said disorder. Usually a couple or more of the said treatments are combined to get the gambler back on track” (playsportal.net).

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