Women’s Gambling Addiction: A Not-So-Known Problem

Some information about the problem of women’s gambling addiction.

As more attention has been brought to women’s gambling addiction, people tend to continuously mistake it for a “new phenomenon.” More realistically put, women’s gambling addiction is more of a “refurbished phenomenon.” Many people who have been to Las Vegas, Atlantic City or Tunica, Mississippi and have seen endless rows of slots with old women sitting in front of them may not have considered these examples of women gambling. Similar sights with Mah Jong and Pachinko can be seen in Asia.

• Half the people who contact the problem gambling charity GamCare are women
• Women tend to more commonly use gambling as a tool to escape the reality
• Since 2006, 85 percent of the women Liz Karter counsel have suffered abuse

Gambling is widely considered a hidden addiction in general. The only difference is that with the internet and mobile casino gambling, younger women are becoming more addicted. A 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey suggested that there had been a rise from 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent in problematic women gambling. From 2013, half of the people who reach out to the UK problem gambling charity GamCare have been women. Let’s look more into this problem.

Motivation and excitement can feed women’s gambling addiction

Growing up in a society that tends to put so much emphasis on winning and losing, it’s fairly easy to believe that gambling has to do with deep seeded desire to win at something. Through all the layers of reasoning and devastation, problem gambling is fundamentally about survival. By creating experiences from gambling, addicts try to change their psychological and emotional state. Although this motivation is without gender, the journey to accomplishing this can be quite different for women.

Perhaps it’s the media’s portrayal of gambling that makes most people erroneously believe that all gambling is about “the rush” or the excitement that comes from winning. Logically this is more a part of gambling addiction in men since they are the ones usually portrayed with addiction. It is believed that all people use gambling experiences to “transcend” or turn a difficult day into reality. Men have also been portrayed as accepting or even “stoked” by an audience because they feel more like a winner.

Although women do admit to getting a “high” from gambling, women’s gambling addiction tends to more commonly use gambling as a tool to escape the reality. Known to UK gambling news, Liz Karter, therapist specializing in women’s addiction, says that “it is common for women to achieve a total absorption through staring at the slot machine or the computer screen until all feeling is numbed” achieving an “almost disembodied, detached state.”

As a result of this detachment, many women don’t tend to realize the amount of money that put into this escape until it is too late. The additional burdens of monetary debt and damaged relationships tend to double the problems women have who are in this state. Such a reality becomes even less desired and may even warrant further escape. The lack of desire for an audience is why many women gravitate to slots or online gambling.

Relationships can be affected from women’s gambling addiction

The most common cause of women’s gambling addiction is related to her relationships. Often the relationships offer too much or too little for women. Liz Karter claims that 74 percent of the women she has worked with since 2006 are “single mothers from deprived backgrounds.” The author of “Women and Problem Gambling” also says she treats middle class women who constantly juggle their careers with motherhood. As a result of their stress anxiety or guilt, they feel as though they aren’t doing a decent job.

Leaping across social divides, women in this state don’t need to enter bingo halls or slot machine arcades which were traditionally seen as working class venues. Women no longer have to contend with the pressure of going somewhere that’s considered unacceptable. Instead, they can simply gamble through online sites at work or partake in mobile casinos on their phone on their way home.

A lack of support in their relationships is another reason for women to partake in gambling as well as their own fear of intimacy or commitment in relationships. Before long, women’s gambling addictions can cause its victims to distrust close relationships as they feel the “dull, relentless ache of isolation and loneliness. Gambling therefore becomes a form of self-medication.

Gambling for women can often been viewed as a greater alternative to dealing with a difficult reality than using drugs or alcohol. Many women that Karter counsels (85 percent since 2006) have experienced either domestic abuse or domestic violence.
Problem gambling has always had the underlying intention of “re-establishing” control. Many women have claimed that the risk of losing time and sense of self far outweighs the loss of money.