The NHS is putting its weight behind the UK’s new responsible gambling initiatives with the announcement of seven new gambling addiction clinics around the country this summer. The announcement comes as a surprise, an early achievement six months ahead of that forecast by the NHS Long Term Plan.
Not all individuals who play at online casinos or place wagers with sportsbooks can do so judiciously and in moderation. Fortunately, for those who happen to be displaying compulsive behavior, these additional clinics will provide more easily accessible support.
The New Clinics
The seven new gambling addiction clinics will be located in Liverpool, Blackpool, Bristol, Milton Keynes, Thurrock, Derby, and Sheffield. They join the existing eight clinics that are already operating under the NHS in Stoke-on-Trent, Telford, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and London. In just the past year alone, there have been three new additions to this list. As the government pours money into gambling addiction, a good deal of it being funded by taxes and levies from gambling services themselves, social services like these gambling addiction clinics spring up to deal with the issue.
Seeking Help For Gambling Addiction Is Growing
The new clinics are a direct response to the growing number of people seeking help for gambling addiction and related harms. The NHS reports that around 1400 people were referred to the current gambling addiction clinic service over the year to July 2023, which stands at around 33% higher than the previous year and around 80% higher than the figure two years ago. These numbers are significant, although it can be difficult to tell whether more people are addicted to gambling and seeking help through the NHS or whether the service is more well-known among doctors and other providers who are making the referrals.
The UK Gambling Commission estimates that around 140,000 people across the country may be engaging in problem gambling. The number of people who seek help for problem gambling is far lower. The referrals to gambling addiction clinics make up just 0.01% of the estimated total number of problem gamblers, a tiny amount in comparison.
The NHS And Problem Gambling
While the NHS might not be the first agency you think of when you think of problem gambling, the service has an increasing presence in this area. Problem gambling, much like problem drinking, or other addictive behaviors, is a health issue, and so is treated as such by many, including the government’s health service.
The NHS themselves promote Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a good first start in addressing problem gambling behaviors, and promote GamCare, the free information and support service that also runs the 24/7 National Gambling Helpline. The NHS also offers up various centers for help for people 13 and over including the National Centre for Behavioral Addictions, the NHS Northern Gambling Service, the NHS Southern Gambling Service, and West Midlands Gambling Harm Clinic. They also recommend the Gordon Moody residential courses and Gamblers Anonymous, an offshoot of Alcoholics Anonymous. GamAnon has a range of local support groups that anyone can join for help in their addiction recovery. People can also follow along online in the GamCare Recovery diaries forum to learn about stories of people just like them in their recovery.
On New Ways Of Dealing With Problem Gambling
The NHS’s latest announcement comes at a time when there is renewed focus and energy into gambling-related activities and the potential outcomes. The Gambling Act whitepaper was released earlier this year, with a large range of recommendations for making gambling online safer.
One of the recommendations within the whitepaper was that of a statutory levy for online gambling operators. The proposed levy itself does not have a dollar value as yet and will need to be ushered into legislation, but it will be coming. The funds generated by the levy are to go directly back into research, education, and treatment of problem gambling.
The NHS publicly supported the proposed new levy, believing that it was a step forward in the right direction to help with the increased surge in people seeking help for gambling-related harms. Funding of similar programs to the gambling addiction clinics requires the money to come from somewhere, and with government services, this means it needs to be generated through taxes, levies, and other governmental means, rather than through private investment.
While there will always be a place for private gambling addiction help services, these are only readily available for those who have the means to access them. For many that are at their wit’s end with gambling addiction, the amount of accessible funds they have on hand to choose private help may have dwindled to near nothing a long, long time ago.
