Monica Shafaq, CEO of Gordon Moody, delivered a thought-provoking exposé about the link between mental health and problem gambling.
She made an appearance on the latest episode of the Safe Bet Show, hosted by Martin Lycka, SVP American Regulatory Affairs & Responsible Gambling at Entain.
As the conservation unraveled, Shafaq leveraged her experience as a well-versed mental health advocate to characterise problem gambling as a visible marker of someone’s troubled life.
Monica Shafaq/Source: Gordon Moody
According to the Gordon Moody CEO, 70% of people who come through the charity’s doors seeking help with problem gambling have been previously diagnosed with a mental health condition.
“They tell us that often gambling is used as a diversion to block off what might be going on in their lives,” she said.
“Over 30% of people who come to us also sadly contemplated harming themselves and putting their lives at risk. We know there’s a huge association between suicide ideation and mental health.”
Harnessing dialogue and using proper tools
To help bring such cases of personal suffering to a minimum, Shafaq advised the sector to put more effort into changing the narrative that gambling generally leads to harm – a notion which could in theory, falsely so, create the perception that people who gamble are intrinsically doing something bad, when they are indeed gambling within the norms.
“Actually, the harm is a result of something else that is going on in people’s lives, which is usually as a result of a mental health condition.”
As a charity that offers residential gambling-related treatment, Gordon Moody’s mission, as explained by its CEO, is to help build a stable bridge between helplessness and recovery. To do that, the charity deploys a number of innovative strategies
“We’re the only organisation in Europe that provides specific residential treatment support for people who have been affected by problem gambling,” Shafaq continued. “We also have the only female residential treatment centre in the whole of the world.”
If someone is unable to enrol in the charity’s six-week residential treatment programme, they can instead opt-in for a 10-week online counselling service that includes two weekends of in-person care at one of Gordon Moody’s treatment centres.
To hear more about the charity’s work, and how it might change after the introduction of the UKGC statutory levy, you can watch the full Safe Bet Show episode below.
