Public Health Approach to Gambling

Elected governments, gambling providers, advocacy groups and gamblers are aware that it can be related to increased health problems, crime, family breakups, financial debts and co-addiction to gaming such as slot machines, Internet and the casions. If you look at gambling at a wider perspective, you would notice it produces costly damages.

A public heath approach can be taken so that an objective view on gambling can be done, acknowledging both its positive and negative effects it can bring to the community. With this approach, gambling is treated like a subject in a medical lab, with prevention and clinical intervention. Furthermore, a public health approach treats the relationship of gambling and people as a social context, and not gambling per se to individual people. A social context point of view explores gambling, but at the same time its influences on the cultural, familial and community values. The aim is therefore a general study of behavior that can prove useful in the limitation and use of gambling in the community.

In this light, gambling and its effects to health behavior can be managed within a defined continuum by a statutory body or maybe by casino owners themselves so that they can make measures on resiliency, risk, and protective factors to the people. The general result that a public health approach to gambling, then, is it allows health interventions to people within a system, especially to those experiencing gambling problems. This is crucial because gambling is newly sanctioned by elected officials in some countries with no regards to its negative effects. Consequently, when gambling problems takes its toll, it will be an epidemic (probably in the next decade) and should be treated like a medical disease.

It is but right to consider gambling effects by using different approaches that can be utilized systematically - approaches that can be useful toward new and current gambling mechanisms such as Internet gaming. To find a workable approach is the main goal of researchers as early as now. Because from the way things are running, truly, a gambling epidemic is inevitable. Many elected officials would like for gambling to grow and therefore have a hand in its provisions. They use gambling as way for their tax strategies to get through, which they depend on for revenue and for further expenditures. Also they use gambling revenue to support private businesses developments and support charity organizations.

All these support toward the growth of gambling can be hazardous to health as it leads to pathological gamblers. An approach should be created to identify and screen these gamblers or they would spread, because unlike alcohol or drug addicts chronic gamblers are invisible. They themselves don't know they're addicts until their financially broke or have damaged relationships with their families and friends. They can only be identified if and when they admit that they do. So a health approach to gamblers may be the next step to remedy the rising stakes of gambling.