Spoela Director: “We are on the right track” – despite twice as many gambling addicts

It seems like easy money, but it often ends up with an accumulated mountain of debt: because online gambling is becoming increasingly popular, the number of gambling addicts is also increasing.

This is according to a new study by the Swiss Addiction Foundation and the Grea Addiction Association, which surveyed 1,395 gamers from German- and French-speaking Switzerland. They wanted to know how player behavior has changed since the introduction of the new gambling law in 2019.

According to the study, the number of problem gamblers has doubled in three years: from 2.3 percent in 2018 to 5.2 percent in 2021. Now all cantons are joining forces for the first time for a joint prevention campaign. But nothing is happening on a national level for the time being.

“Nominated Songs”

“We keep the ball flat,” said Manuel Richard, director of inter-cantonal game supervision (Gespa), to Watson. No new measures are currently planned. The reason for this: Sucht Schweiz’s results would be viewed with caution, as only online players were surveyed.

“There is now writing about a doubling of the problem, but that is going a bit too fast for me,” says Richard. However, should the numbers be confirmed, it would be alarming and action would need to be taken.

To find out, Spoela is working on its own extensive study, which is expected to be published in the autumn of 2024. On that basis, Spa will decide whether the measures should be tightened. “This is going to be a study where we can take on the scientific methodology and get some serious numbers,” says Richard.

But Spoela also noticed that more and more money was being spent online. “Especially in sports betting, there are many who play for high stakes. We must continue to monitor whether social protection measures are adequate,’ says Richard.

Players can bypass bans

The problem is that you have to find a balance, explains the director of Spoel: “If you tighten the measures, the Swiss offers will lose their attractiveness and customers will again turn to online gambling abroad.” Although these have been banned by the Gaming Act since 2019, many people still gamble on foreign platforms.

Spa has little scope to completely exclude foreign online sites from the Swiss market. Blocking internet pages turns out to be pointless in some cases. Since 2019, Simpel has already blocked 21 different URL addresses of the provider “betworld.com”, whose headquarters are located on the island state of Curaçao.

“Individual providers bypass the block by simply sending their players a new URL. At certain sites it’s an endless game of ‘robbers and cops’ as they keep changing their domain,” says Manuel Richard.

Nevertheless, Koppel is sticking to its strategy and also defends the operation of the Gaming Act. «The system has proven itself and the Swiss lottery companies managed to increase their turnover enormously, especially in the sports betting submarket. At the same time, a lot was done to protect the players, including early detection of gambling addiction,” says Richard. The number of players banned per year has increased enormously compared to the years before the gambling law.

Increased demand for addiction treatment

Interest in outpatient and inpatient treatment of gambling addicts at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Basel (UPK) has also increased. “We notice an increase in demand from people who want to be treated by us,” says Renanto Poespodihardjo, senior psychologist at the Center for Addiction Disorders in the UPK.

Every week, two to three people seek addiction treatment. “But we assume that only about 25 percent of those affected seek therapy,” says Poespodihardjo. The UPK mainly treats young men. The psychologist estimates that women are more ashamed to seek help for gambling addiction.

The reasons for the addiction are diverse: some have a family history of addiction. Others have inner, mental pain and try to suppress it by gambling. Corona also favored online gambling behavior.

“People were isolated, sometimes lonely, during the pandemic, so they spent more time on the internet,” says Poespodihardjo. The psychologist thinks that the new gambling law has already done a lot to ensure that people become less addicted to gambling. “But there is still a lot of room for improvement,” he says. In particular, the blocking of foreign online casinos is not yet mature, according to him: “At the moment there is no threshold for gambling addicts to slide even further into addiction.”