Bingo. A fun and easy night out. Right?
It can be.
But Bingo can also become addictive, and a compulsive Bingo player can seriously impact her/his life with negative consequences. We review how Bingo can become addictive and offer the Top 5 symptoms of Bingo addiction below.
Many people start gambling online for fun, but when this fun combines with the opportunity to win money, it develops into an irrevocable addiction to gamble. There are lots of people who play bingo. Online gambling addictions can affect your overall life. With the extensive usage of the technology, the gambling industry has brought casino under our fingertips. As long as it’s safe and limited to a period, gambling is a fun activity.
Online bingo is often dismissed as a form of gambling addiction as it’s so easily accessed and isn’t considered as addictive as other forms of gambling. A bingo addiction can be detrimental to a person’s health just as much as any other addiction can and can cause havoc in the person’s life and affect their loved ones. Gambling addiction—also known as pathological gambling, compulsive gambling or gambling disorder—is an impulse-control disorder. If you’re a compulsive gambler, you can’t control the impulse.
A brief history of B-I-N-G-O
Today, the game of Bingo is offered in casinos and online, and the number of players has increased. Initially, the game can be traced back to a lottery game called, “Il Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia” played in Italy in c. 1530. In the eighteenth century, the game matured and in France the reading out of numbers began. So how did a game intended to raise money for church events start to affect people’s lives?
Bingo can become compulsive
Many years ago I sat in the Church Hall on Bingo nights, at the senior citizen’s club, or at the VFW Hall, believing it was an innocent form of entertainment. I felt the same excitement and adrenalin rush that I felt years later, when I sat in front of the slot machines in casinos. You see, symptoms of slot machine addiction or Bingo addiction are the same … and start the moment that you feel that rush, get the high.
I can remember the ladies on each side of me with more than fifteen cards laid out on the table and their hand holding the dauber, flying across the cards as they listened to the called numbers. The table in front of some of the loyal players would be covered with photos of their family, lucky statues or pendants, and an occasional rabbit’s foot. It was a serious game.
In the past twenty years I have learned that many Bingo players become addicted and need treatment, counseling, or Gamblers Anonymous meetings. One night at our GA meeting a lady told me she was addicted to Bingo and I thought, “How can you get in trouble playing Bingo?” While she shared her story she told the group, “Well I get $620 each month from the State and I spend $490 at the Bingo Hall.” That left her $130 to live on for the month.
Symptoms of Bingo addiction
It does not matter what game we become addicted to, if we show symptoms of gambling addiction, we have a problem. In fact, a Bingo player goes through the same phases as the card player, slot player, sports bettor, etc. in the cycle of compulsive gambling addiction . Moneyline bet ends in tie. The phases are the winning phase, the losing phase, and the desperation phase. When a player starts to notice the consequences of gaming, they can start to feel depressed and begin to isolate, lie, and blame others for their problem. Some other symptoms of Bingo addiction include:
Online Bingo Gambling Addiction
Bingo starts to disrupt lives – Arguments with family about time spent playing the game, lying about money lost, missing birthdays or other family functions, and even interfering with their jobs. Some Bingo players have left their small children at home or in cars outside the Bingo parlors while they played the game.
Escape – Bingo addicts play to relieve the stress of something gone wrong in their lives, real or imaginary issues.
Preoccupation – People who are addicted to Bingo obessessively think about playing the game when they are not sitting at the Bingo table, and making plans for their next visit.
Tolerance – A Bingo player who has developed into a compulsive Bingo gambler needs to play more often or add more cards, to reach the same initial high or buzz that they got when they started playing.
Withdrawal – When the addicted Bingo player makes an attempt to stop playing, they experience symptoms of restlessness, insomnia, and irritability. The discover that they cannot stop.
Online Bingo and increasing problems
Today, Bingo has evolved into popular online games where a player only needs a credit card, and can sit in their pajamas in front of their computers and play all day. There are more than 2,000 online gambling websites and more being added. One online bingo industry stated it had 80% female audience. Dr. Bowden-Jones, head of the National Problem Gambling Clinic based in Shoho in London, stated that some women play up to ten hours a day online.
Help for Bingo addiction
The positive news for an addicted Bingo players is that there is help. Help for compulsive gambling can be found via support groups such as Gamblers Anonymous, through self help programs, in counseling psychotherapy, or even in outpatient or inpatient treatment centers specializing in gambling problems. In treatment for compulsive gambling you can learn about your behavior and download wisdom from those who have been successful before you.
Please leave your questions or comments below!
Marilyn Lancelot is a recovering alcoholic and compulsive gambler with twenty years of recovery. She has authored three books, Gripped by Gambling , Detour, and Switching Addictions. She also publishes a newsletter on-line, Women Helping Women for recovery from gambling. This newsletter has been published for more than 10 years and is read by women and men around the world.
© Provided by WWJ Radio Detroit(WWJ) With online gaming and sports betting being finalized in Michigan, an expert and former gambling addict is worried about a jump in the number of problem gamblers.
Michael Burke, Executive Director of the Michigan Association on Problem Gambling, says one to three percent of Michigan's population already has a gambling problem.
'Every time we introduce a new form of gambling the number of people with problems will increase,' he told WWJ Newsradio 950's Vickie Thomas
According to Burke, one in five gambling addicts will attempt suicide.. And he was one of them.
'It seems to be their way out of it,' said Burke, who put a gun to his head after stealing $6 million from clients at his former law firm.
'A gambler will take money from their family or from their work to have money to gamble with,' Burke said. 'But normally to take care of problems that were created by their gambling.'
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Burke spent three years in prison for embezzlement and now has a new mission: Assisting other problem gamblers.
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'I ended up losing my license to practice law; I just about destroyed my family,' he told Thomas. 'And so I've dedicated the rest of my life to helping others.'
Burke shares his life story in a book available from Amazon here.
Remember, never gamble more than you can afford to lose. Facing a gambling problem can be an overwhelming experience, and people who get in over their heads can feel like there is no way out. If you need help, call the Michigan Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-270-7117.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board on Tuesday authorized nine operators to begin online sports betting, or both online gaming and sports betting, at noon on Friday, Jan. 22.