People say there needs to be more public awareness of gambling harms. This includes the risks of gambling, early warning signs, and the fact that it can impact anybody. This will help people to understand gambling as an addiction, comparable to other public health addictions such as alcohol and substance use. It would also help tackle the stigma associated with people accessing support.
I think it would be great to have public information type campaigns. I think that proactive approach to like everything, isn’t it? If you can manage to do most things in moderation, you’ll be okay and most people will, but people don’t know the warning signs for things like that. I think that would break down some of the stigma about seeking support. I’d like to see that more mainstream and more out there.
People just treat it so separately to drug and alcohol addiction. If there could be a societal change where actually people put those things all on the same level. Even things like in work, people talk about, oh, I love gambling. I’ve never spoken up there about the problems I’ve been through. I just think you wouldn’t get someone in work just talking in the same way about drinking is great. A little bit more public awareness would be great.
We’re starting to talk about it. It can happen to absolutely anybody… Everybody understands that smoking, drinking, taking drugs is dangerous, gambling needs to be listed in there, 100%.
I saw a domestic abuse advert that was out during the football… It was very short, very football-fied but not slogans on it about the woman at home getting the abuse, more domestic abuse during England football competitions because of the betting and the excitement and everything. Even tonight when I saw it, it was quite scary for me to look at, because I was like, “Wow, this actually really is what it is.” Nobody really looks at the fact that sport, plus gambling, plus sometimes alcohol and drugs equals a lot of pain. It’s so easy to see, yet people are choosing not to see it. That’s why we need to keep talking about it.
Treatment and support services also need to address stigma as a barrier to use.
I think as well, I’d like to think they are doing, but we’ve all learned to live online in the last couple of years, haven’t we? That could reduce an awful lot of stigma because the idea of physically going somewhere for a meeting, somebody might see you going into the meeting. My [brother] lived in a very small community. Like where we live, lots of people know each other. As I said, he was very sociable. That in itself potentially would’ve put him off going into somewhere for a meeting, whereas it it’s a Zoom call like this, it’s much safer, isn’t it, in terms of emotionally safer?
Some say they would like to see more focus on women who are affected by gambling-related harm.
I think a focus on women and the harms that happens to women. Everybody knows it happens, but I think there’s research to show that it does mainly impact young men, but there are actually so many women out there and just through the work that we’ve been doing and the contact that I’ve had that there needs to be more of a focus on the women who are impacted by gambling either directly or indirectly.
Affected others say they want to use their own lived experience to help other people and show that anyone can be impacted by gambling.
Stigma that was a huge thing that I experienced as a child even and afterwards in adolescence and it took me even four or five months of knowing about this issue and that it affected so many other people before I decided to de-anonymise. I think part of my other motivation behind whenever I try to speak is that hopefully I’m helping someone else perhaps from a similar background so it can resonate with me. I know people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colours and creeds and backgrounds, and hopefully I might be able to help someone who’s got something similar to me, it might help them and help them share. It might help them enter a period of understanding, reflection, and recovery, essentially.
I am not ashamed of my story anymore. I don’t feel stupid about my story. I now understand it. When I call it a story, it’s not a story, it’s real life…. My life needs to be told. My children’s life needs to be told, my husband’s life need to be told, otherwise, people just sweep it under the carpet and believe it doesn’t happen. It does happen, and it’s happening more and more.
If there’s something I could say or something I could give somebody to maybe just think a little bit differently about various things. Maybe it’s an addiction, maybe it’s general advertising, maybe it’s their own mental health, just all different things. If we don’t keep talking, it’s not going to be a good place. We need to keep being open and we need to kill the stigma off it all really, really quickly.
I am open with people when I talk about my brother. I talk, because I just think it’s about reducing that stigma. He wasn’t his gambling habit, but his gambling habit, it killed him ultimately. What a terrible thing to say, but it did, so I am very open about it. I’m always mindful because I know it’s his story and that’s hard and I share it and sometimes I think, “Should I do that or not?” I just have to make that decision myself and the thought that if it helps other people, then I know the last thing I want is, I think it’s a story that should be shared for the right reasons in the hope that it can make a difference.
Others say that more data needs to be collected and distributed to show the full extent of gambling-related harm.
The awareness thing as well, I think it’s just a lack of awareness in all aspects of gambling. I’d really love to know how many scratch cards my corner shop sells. Is gambling more prevalent in deprived areas, low socioeconomic status and stuff, does that have a factor?
Some say work policies and the criminal justice system need to improve their knowledge and understanding of gambling difficulties, so the blame is not placed solely on the individual.
