Online gambling can be particularly difficult to step away from because it is always within reach. There is no need to visit a betting shop or casino; gambling can take place at home, at work, on the train or late at night, often through a phone that is already used throughout the day.
For many people, what begins as occasional online betting, slots, casino games or poker gradually becomes something much harder to control. You may find yourself gambling more frequently, spending more money than you intended or returning repeatedly in an attempt to recover previous losses.
If online gambling is beginning to affect your finances, relationships, work or emotional wellbeing, therapy can help you understand what is driving the behaviour and begin to change your relationship with gambling.
When online gambling stops feeling like a choice
Online gambling does not have to happen every day for it to be causing a problem.
You may already have tried setting yourself limits, deleting gambling apps or promising yourself that a particular bet would be the last one. You may manage to stop for a period, only to find yourself returning when you are stressed, bored, lonely, excited or dealing with difficult emotions.
Signs that online gambling may be becoming harmful can include:
- Gambling for longer or spending more than you originally planned
- Increasing the size or frequency of bets
- Trying to win back money you have lost
- Checking odds, gambling apps or results repeatedly
- Gambling late at night or when other people are asleep
- Hiding gambling activity or spending from a partner or family
- Borrowing money or using credit to continue gambling
- Feeling anxious, irritable or restless when trying not to gamble
- Losing interest in other activities
- Finding that gambling occupies a significant amount of your thinking
- Feeling guilt, shame or regret after gambling
Gambling-related harm can affect much more than money. It can have consequences for mental wellbeing, relationships, employment and wider family life. NICE recommends that people experiencing gambling-related harm are offered support and makes clear that recovery is possible.
Why can online gambling become so consuming?
One of the difficulties with online gambling is its accessibility. A gambling opportunity can be only a few taps away, removing many of the natural interruptions that once existed between deciding to gamble and actually doing it.
Some forms of gambling also involve very rapid cycles of betting and results. Gambling products with greater accessibility and faster play can make it more difficult for people to keep track of their gambling and may be associated with greater risk of harm.
But therapy is not simply about removing access to gambling.
It is also about understanding what gambling is doing for you.
For some people it provides excitement or stimulation. For others it becomes a way of escaping stress, anxiety, loneliness, low mood, relationship difficulties or problems elsewhere in life.
The gambling itself can then create further stress, secrecy and financial worry, which in turn creates an urge to escape again.
Understanding this cycle can be an important part of breaking it.
Chasing losses
One of the most damaging patterns associated with problematic gambling is trying to recover money that has already been lost.
A loss can create a powerful feeling that another bet might put things right. Instead of walking away, you may increase the stake, deposit more money or move quickly from one gambling site to another.
At this point, gambling can stop being about enjoyment and become focused on getting back to where you were financially.
Unfortunately, another loss can intensify the urge to continue.
Therapy can help you recognise this pattern earlier and develop different ways of responding to the thoughts and emotions that normally pull you back into gambling.
Secrecy and online gambling
Because online gambling can be carried out privately, it is possible for a serious problem to develop without the people closest to you fully realising what is happening.
You may have become skilled at hiding transactions, explaining missing money or appearing as though everything is fine.
This can create considerable emotional pressure.
People often come to therapy carrying not only concern about the gambling itself but also guilt about things they have hidden or decisions they have made while gambling.
Therapy offers a confidential space in which you can speak openly about what has been happening without needing to minimise it or pretend that everything is under control.
How therapy can help with online gambling
The aim is not simply to tell you to stop gambling.
We look at the patterns surrounding your gambling: when the urge appears, what you are feeling beforehand, what gambling provides in the moment and what happens afterwards.
Together, we can explore:
- Your individual triggers for gambling
- The urge to chase losses
- Thoughts and beliefs that keep the gambling cycle going
- Emotional triggers such as anxiety, stress or loneliness
- Practical ways of making gambling less accessible
- How to deal with urges without acting on them
- Financial and relationship consequences
- Shame, secrecy and guilt
- Relapse prevention and maintaining change
Practical controls such as self-exclusion can also form part of a wider recovery plan. Services exist in Great Britain to help people exclude themselves from online and offline gambling.
You do not have to wait until everything has fallen apart
People sometimes delay asking for help because they believe their gambling is not yet “bad enough”.
There does not need to be a particular amount of money lost before you are entitled to take the problem seriously.
If you are repeatedly doing something you have decided not to do, hiding your gambling, worrying about money or finding that gambling occupies more and more of your thoughts, there is already good reason to talk about it.
Getting help earlier can prevent the consequences from becoming more serious.
Online gambling therapy in London
We provide confidential therapy for people whose online gambling has become difficult to control.
You may already know that you want to stop completely, or you may simply know that something needs to change. Either is a perfectly reasonable place to begin.
The first step is understanding what has been happening and why.
Get in Touch
Nothing you tell us here will shock us, and nothing will be repeated. Send us an enquiry and a therapist will reply to you personally. You may also want to read about gambling addiction therapy and gambling help in London, betting addiction therapy or couples and family therapy for the people affected around you.