Change
Change (person who gambled perspective)

Changes to other institutions and services

People suggest how other institutions and services, including financial services, workplaces, and education in schools need to improve to prevent and address gambling harm. They want all the organisations and services to play their part.

Financial services

Most people were financially impacted by another’s gambling. They often had to deal with debt, take over the management of the finances and keep the household running – taking on a large amount of responsibility.

They wanted more access to financial support and advice. They said that banks and debt services need to have more knowledge of gambling harm and do more to address it.

They said that banks should do more to intervene when they can see that somebody is gambling lots of money online. Banks should also offer the opportunity to block banking transactions from business cards and not just personal cards.

Banks as well, banks need to be a bit more responsible. [Partner’s] okay with his. He’s able to put a block on so that he can’t gamble, but it’s also recognizing the patterns that they have when they gamble, because there is always a pattern. [Partner] isn’t able to go in to a gambling website and make payments through his bank account, but he can do it through PayPal. It’s recognizing patterns because compulsive gamblers always have patterns. They will have like 20 transactions or £10 to PayPal, £10, £10, £10. Nobody should be having that sort of thing to release, then questioning that and giving more options. There’s some banks that have more options like he has got a gambling block on his account. But again, like I say, he can go to PayPal. It’s looking at them, and then there’s somewhere you can do cash withdrawals. You have to go in to ask for cash and it’s then having a bit more responsibility as well. It is a difficult one really.

The government should be banning– There is a lot of things in place, but there’s a lot flaws to the things that are in place and like I said with the ban, you can get around it a different way, but they don’t then pick up the fact that there’s £10 coming of PayPal. You’ve got the Gamblock that you can put on computers, but if you do a restart, not a restart, but a refresh on your computer, it takes it off. I’d like people to take more responsibilities from how they’re causing this person harm as well. Obviously, the compulsive gambler doesn’t necessarily know there’s a problem, but they have to choose to be able to see that there is one. If you could see that somebody gambling too much, don’t leave it for them to then tell you when enough is enough. Because they don’t know when enough is enough. It’s them recognizing there’s an issue and challenging them on that. If they want to self-exclude, don’t be giving them an option of how long or whatever, self-exclude them indefinitely. They shouldn’t after so many years, then be invited back to use that site again. They only have limits for a year or two years, but if somebody is telling you they have a problem, they need as much help as they can get.

Even mobile phone companies, one of the things that [partner] has done recently was used the mobile phone bill to pay for gambling and then recognizing there’s an issue as well. I think the limit was like £250. He was getting a phone bill for £250 and they were allowing it to happen.

Clare

They need to have some experience with gambling-related debts because and sort of like the things that you need, the blockers on your accounts and those kinds of things, I think. Because your general debt advice services, I don’t think have all that knowledge or have the experience to be able to provide you with that support.

The financial support as well in terms of services. What I would have given in those first few weeks for some financial advice on how best to manage it.

Did you know you can’t stop a business card being used for online gambling? While Barclays, Santander, etc, they all bang on about, “Look what we’re doing to stop personal gambling.” I’ve tried with Barclays to put it on Gamban. I’ve tried to– In a personal banking app, you can go into it, and actually not be able to gamble using your personal bank card, but you can’t do it with a business card… Also, he didn’t have to verify. He’d memorized the number and didn’t have to do any verification at all. He just inputs the information. There needs to be more due diligence.

By the time I started seeing him, he couldn’t get a phone contract. One thing that he told me along the way was your credit history resets after a period of time. I’m not actually sure to what extent that is true. It’s like a separate issue of there could be things in place to stop people being able to gamble, but also, what potential affordances might there be so that it’s not the case of people in recovery are unfairly disadvantaged for a long period of time.

Education

People talk about how important it is to teach young people about gambling harms, because they did not receive information about the risks of gambling and because they are concerned that children are being exposed to gambling from a young age.

I think more stuff in schools definitely. Because really these kids are starting…it’s certainly in the amount of exposure they have to things that they probably can’t even quite compute or understand, but yet they’re being fed information that’s going to be harmful to them. I think schools definitely should make a priority that at least there’s somebody going in telling them about the pitfalls of what could go down and maybe at a younger age.

Kids are aware of alcohol addiction and drug addiction. They should be aware of the dangers of gambling addiction. We need to flood teenagers with the dangers of this.

Although information about gambling has recently been introduced into the school curriculum, some people feel that this education needs to start when the children are younger. It should also include information on how to manage finances and debt.

Education reform. But I fear personally, I think it needs to come a bit earlier than what the current offering is. So, when you look at the statistics of how many 15, 16-year-olds are currently gambling or have got problems with gambling, I feel like it needs to come way earlier… So, working on those aspects, the money, the awareness, the risk vs. reward, those kinds of things that children can learn that will then help them with their future gambling behaviours… Money, finances, learning about debt and learning how to budget and little things like that I think need to come first before it gets too little too late which it seems like it is just now.

Some emphasise the importance of people with lived experience younger in age going into schools to educate children about the risks of gambling as they would be more relatable.

I’d like to see addiction on the school curriculum. Not just– Again, we say, the three big hitters is food, drugs, and alcohol. We need to be talking about addiction in schools to parents and children. It needs to be presented by people, almost like my son, young people that can relate. There’s no good someone like me at 51 going in and preaching to 16-year-old young people, “Oh, if you do this, you’ll get into trouble.” Because they’re going to look at me and say, “What does that old dear know?”

We need to change the culture around how we talk to our young people. We need more young people talking to young people, because they can talk on the same level. Not us older people, not you, because obviously you’re young, but people like me, most people that do training around addiction or discussion are my age and older. That’s the 50 plus category, or 40 plus.

You won’t find many 20, 25, 30-year-olds. We need more young people. Like I said, I do think we need to understand addiction more. I don’t think we need to bombard young people about talking about dopamine and that level. If we could educate people more on how addiction starts, what to look for, how your brain is what’s in control. It’s not your fault if you’re an addict, because we do make it their fault.

You’re an alcoholic, because you should drink too much, you’re bankrupt because you gamble too much. This is powerful. The brain, we need to understand– I think, again, that education to young people about how your brain is involved in addiction. It’s not just you willingly wanting to be a drug addict, or an anorexic, or a gambling addict. I think addiction in schools, we should be talking about it. Make it normal.

Make it normal, because it’s going to be normal in a few years, because this is coming for us, and soon, every one of us will have an addict in our family. Gambling is going to be bigger, I think, than anything. Let’s make it normal to talk about it, to try and take some of the sting out of the tail. Then, maybe we won’t lose so many people.

Michelle

Workplace

Some people say there needs to be an improvement in workplace policies for gambling and mental health. There are often workplace policies for drugs and alcohol, but gambling is typically neglected.

I’m not too sure there’s been as good a focus on mental health or disabilities. I know that’s improving because I’ve seen that written into policies. But again, quite often a lot of people talk about alcohol or talk about drugs in policies. Very few talk about gambling or gaming in policies… Trying to encourage openness is important by the employer.

Private companies, businesses, public sector organizations, anyone, I would say make sure you try to incorporate a level of awareness around gambling addiction as much in your policies as you do maybe in other aspects. Do think about it as I said earlier, when you’re thinking about performance, when you’re trying to consider when you may feel an individual’s not well, or you’re concerned about their mental health do bring the subject up about is this potentially a gambling addiction. So make sure your occupational health departments, for example, are aware of gambling addiction because if your not, the risk is you won’t get to the root cause of the problem potentially on that as well.

So, I think all these institutions could learn and actually, I think those companies can benefit because in my son’s case his performance at the end when he was at his lowest was negligible. So productivity was lost. You need to increase that. You can increase that productivity. And my final point to say is if you happen to work in an industry where you have a higher risk in that industry, if your employee happens to be at a period of being in their lowest ebb because of a gambling addiction and you have not identified. As I said, it’s not their fault because of their illness, there is a risk that they could lose concentration at a time that they were driving a train or a bus. Or they could lose concentration if they was a nurse when they’re trying to prescribe drugs. Just some examples. So that’s why it’s important you have an awareness because these individuals if they’re unable to share with you the fact that they need help. And if you’re unable to be open enough to give them that help, you’re not only hurting that individual, you’re not only losing productivity for yourself but actually, there is a risk that others could be harmed as a consequence of you not having created the environment to protect your own employees.

John #2

I think more wider, private companies, businesses, public sector organizations, anyone, I would say make sure you try to incorporate a level of awareness around gambling addiction as much in your policies as you do maybe in other aspects.

Get Support

If you feel like you need support or someone to talk to about your own or someone else’s gambling, there are several organisations who can offer help, support and answer any questions you may have.

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