Gambling addictions are growing among young people, especially those under 25 years of age. The head of the Pathological Gambling and Behavioral Addictions Unit of the Bellvitge Hospital, Susana Jiménez, warned in an interview with ACN that strategic gambling, such as sports betting or casinos, is where addictions have increased the most.
Gambling has been changing over the years and addictions are not the same as before. While in 2005, the most common cases of addiction were middle-aged men to slot machines, now the profile has changed to very young people addicted to casinos and gambling. Jiménez asks to protect adolescents and young people as a group of risk and calls for prevention campaigns already from school: "We see that we do not arrive on time because they do not have the perception that it is a risk."
In the interview with ACN, Jiménez indicates that the prevalence of risk gambling in specific groups of greater vulnerability, such as young people, exceeds 4%. Last year the Bellvitge unit treated 38 children under 25 years of age, which represented 18% of the 267 patients treated, while in 2005, when it started, there were 28 young people (7%).
In 2005, what is known as a non-strategic game centered 84% of the queries. During these years, addiction to slot machine gambling has been receding, with 93 patients in 2022 (43%), and strategic gambling, which was residual in 2005 (1.5%), has practically equaled it (83 patients, 39% last year). Consultations for virtual gaming disorder have gone from being practically non-existent in 2005 to bringing 38 patients to the unit last year (18%).
"The gambling activity itself carries a risk," says the head of the unit, who points out that later there are risk factors that add up, such as sociodemographics. During all these years, men have represented around 90% of the patients treated at the unit. More than half (52%) were from a low social group and 31%, low-middle. 58% of the patients have primary studies and 44% do not work. Jiménez talks about low socioeconomic status as a risk factor, due to the fantasies attributed to the game of thinking that economic problems can be solved or easy money can be obtained through the prizes obtained.
Another risk factor for developing gambling disorder and other mental health problems is having started gambling at a young age. Jiménez explains that in a study carried out at the state level, they observed that 36% of patients with gambling addiction had started gambling before the legal age, 18 years of age. Jiménez also warns of the impact of accumulating significant debts due to addiction from a very young age: "They will begin adult life with this debt and this complicates their life situation."
Jiménez, who is also head of the hospital's new Clinical Psychology Service, calls for information campaigns and prevention of gambling with money. For Jiménez, the campaigns would have to start in childhood: "We start campaigning when they are older. We see that we do not arrive on time because they do not have the perception that this activity is a risk."
The Spanish government introduced in 2020 important limitations on the advertising of the game, which was restricted at dawn and prohibited the use of celebrities as a claim. Jiménez values this regulation, but believes that progress must continue, also in other areas, such as research to improve the detection of risk factors or treatments.
Jiménez explains that self-exclusion from gambling is a "very effective" measure but that it is still "little used" and asks to include it in prevention campaigns. People who suffer from a gambling addiction or are at risk of suffering from it can voluntarily request that they be prohibited from entering gaming halls, casinos and bingo halls. There are currently 14,095 people registered in the prohibition registry, according to data from the Department of Economy.
Of course, the head of the unit perceives that there is increasing awareness of the problem among the patients who arrive at the hospital, who minimize addiction and its consequences less, such as personal suffering in the form of isolation and irritability; the loss of family relationships and the accumulation of large debts.
In many cases, patients come under great pressure from their families and most admit that they have a gambling problem and that they took a load off their shoulders when they discovered the situation at home and coped. Most patients arrive at the Bellvitge unit referred by primary care.
Jiménez points out that behavioral addictions and gambling disorders have a "quite favorable response to treatment" and that what is usually more difficult is this situation prior to recognizing the addiction. Two years after starting the treatment, when the follow-up period ends, 70% of the patients have not relapsed and, despite the fact that in the other 30% the evolution is more complicated, it does not mean, he remarks, that they will not finish overcoming addiction.
