Statistics indicate that there has been a year-on-year increase of around 132% of women out for help due to their negative Gambling tendencies. However, Gorden Moody, A Gambling charity has estimated that only 3% of female Gambling addicts are actually seeking help. These figures were revealed a few months before opening the world’s first women’s residential treatment centre in the midlands.
Usually, women tend to suffer more from the shame and guilt surrounding them than men. This is why providing them support is highly essential. To find a wide audience, the NonGamStopSlots team which reviews hundreds of no verification online casinos in the UK decided to describe this story. A survey for Gamcare in December 2021 by YouGov showed that women are 30% more fond of playing Instant winning games, 3 times more likely to play bingo and gamble equally like men. A report from Public Health England also reported that around 0.5% of British are punters whereas 7% of them are negatively affected which is around 5 million people.
Stacey’s Gambling Addiction
Stacey Goodwin, a 29-year-old from Chesterfield Derbys, had once lost £50k in just 6 days after being lured into the gambling world by £1. Stacey worked at a Betting shop initially and had sworn to never start gambling. However, at the age of 19, she decided to try her luck and gambled hefty amounts. Even before realizing it, her life was in tatters.
Her Gambling tendencies had escalated such that she would regularly gamble away her entire month’s wages on her payday itself and took massive loans to survive that she could actually never repay. This resulted in suicidal thoughts as it seemed to be the only way out. Her mother supported her throughout this period and even encouraged her to attend Gamblers Anonymous groups but she felt that everyone attending those were much older than her. She felt that she was in the wrong place.
Stacey’s Path To Recovery
In 2019, Stacey came across Gorden Moody and went on a rehab retreat for 4 days which changed her life. The retreat helped her to understand her trigger points and develop tools for recovery with the help of support programs. This was not easy but the counsellors never made her feel ashamed.
Continuing her recovery process even today and with the help of Software blocking Gambling apps and websites like Gamban, Stacey is proud to share her journey on TikTok with the username Good Girl Gambler. She gets around 40-50 messages daily from women gambling addicts seeking help. It took 2 years for Stacey to open up about her recovery after the rehab retreat. Over the years she has understood that the gambling industry is aimed at women with female characters in online gambling games and ‘pink’ bingo. The industry targets a particular set of gamers to promote profit.
Stacey’s Opinion On Women And Gambling
Stacey feels that one of the major reasons which make women reluctant to talk about gambling and its effects on them is because there are no advertisements or celebrities publicly talking about the issue. There are dozens of footballers talking about gambling, all being men. If a woman gambler is addicted to independent casinos, she feels that she is the odd one out and tries to hide it from the entire world which makes it worse.
Stacey feels that there must be hundreds of celebrities who have blown away everything due to gambling and have rebuilt their wealth but the fact that they are hiding it from the world is a cause of concern. GamStop, established in 2018 to help gamblers overcome their addiction by giving it up for 6 months, a year, or 5 years recently reported its 250,000th user which is a milestone. More than a third of the users who signed up for Gamstop are women.
Gambling Addiction Effects
Steve Pope, an addiction counsellor, has seen a 400% rise in the number of women reaching out to him for gambling addiction since 2020. He also mentioned that gambling addiction is the cause of the highest attempted suicide rate at 82% which is drastic. It drains out all finances and harms social relationships.
A psychotherapist specializing in addiction, Rebecca Sparkes, mentioned how women gambling addicts have previously been put off by male-dominated betting shop environments. One of her clients had mentioned that she travels into a fantasy world while gambling as it is a risk-free escape from the difficult reality of life.
Conclusion
The lack of awareness of services and the social stigma associated with gambling addiction was considered to be significant barriers to accessing support and treatment. Everyone should learn more about healthy and responsible gambling and how to be careful.
Women are less prone to develop a gambling addiction, but those who do are 3x more likely than men to overcome it. The clinical lead for NHS gambling clinics in England, Matt Gaskell, mentioned that treatment and support regarding gambling addiction have to be monitored to find out how it is offered and delivered to help such women.
