Gambling addiction Essay

A few years back my brother, Zach, started gambling. He started out with the small poker tables at a friend’s house. He would make a few dollars here and there, so he thought he could beat anyone. Zach thought he was untouchable, he thought he could be the system. It did not matter what it was. He thought he could beat it, from poker to roulette to betting on sports. He believed that he would win every time. After he got uninterested of the poker tables, he moved to betting heavily on sports. He started by betting on small high school games, nothing major. Zach would bet twenty to thirty dollars, nothing he could worry about losing. That was okay until he started betting higher wages on larger games. He then moved to college games and from there started betting on the pros. His favorite sport to bet on was the NFL. That still would not stop him from gambling on a NBA game or a soccer game. He made his biggest bounty on a NFL game two years ago. He made six hundred dollars on one game. That is the point where he got hooked. He has not stopped gambling since and is facing a real problem. This month he has already spent a thousand dollars on betting and gambling. Within the last 6 months, he has spent approximately eight thousand dollars. His gambling varies from poker games to sports. Zach favorite thing to bet on is sports though. He keeps gambling more and more and does not realize how it is affecting him at all. Gambling affects his family, his social life, and his bank account. People who gamble can have several types of problems. They are several types of gamblers. There are professional gamblers, causal social gamblers, serious social gamblers, relief and escape gamblers, compulsive gamblers, and antisocial personality gamblers. Zach falls into the compulsive gamblers categories. Compulsive gambling is where gambling is the only thing that matters in life. The gambler ignores his or her family, social life, and business. Zach does all of this. Since he has gotten hooked on gambling he ignores his family, has almost no social life, and his business is taking a hit from it. Gambling addiction is a major problem, it does not only affect the gambler, but it also affects the whole family and close friends. It can create a massive amount of tension and friction between close members of the family and friends, in a different variety of ways. Before Zach started gambling, he was always around the family. He would never miss a family event. That all changed when he started gambling. He started to spend more and more time gambling. Every day he would gamble away whatever money he had. My family started to notice, but he said he was just fine. Zach started to miss birthday, dinners, and other family events. It was really affecting our family. Not only was it affecting our family, but it was affecting Zach’s social life. Zach use to be a pretty popular guy. He knew everyone and everyone knew him, for good reasons. Now everyone knows him because of his gambling. Zach used to be a stand up guy, responsible, and was loved by everyone. His social life was pretty great before his gambling addiction. Gambling affects Work Cited Borghesi, Richard. â€Å"Widespread Corruption In Sports Gambling: Fact or Fiction?. † Southern Economic Journal 74. 4 (2008): 1063-1069. Business Source Premier. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.