Gambling “epidemic” sweeps young people and teenagers – 2024-03-03 08:18:28

The turnover of games of chance in Greece has been increasing by leaps and bounds since the period of the pandemic. “Bell” for addiction at younger ages

From the mullet played with two dice to the stock market of the 1990s to today’s billion dollar market, gambling has taken many forms in Greece. De-addiction agencies speak of a creeping crisis that, especially with the development of applications and the pandemic, is developing into a terrifying plague. From the “traditional” betting slip we have reached the addiction of young people regardless of class, origin and income to slot machines and online casinos. Addiction leading to loss of assets and suicidal tendencies.

Just yesterday the case of a group of high school students in Volos became known who, having got involved with electronic gambling, reached the point of blackmailing a classmate. The latter was forced to steal money from his family to give to his addicted classmates.

The data gathered by gambling addiction organizations such as KETHEA ALPHA and the Oasis Addicted Support Center are revealing. These are the agencies that the Mitsotakis government wants to close, when they save lives and are the last safety net for our fellow human beings.

The “gray zone”

There are currently 17 legal betting companies and thousands of illegal companies operating in Greece. The “white list” of platforms on which Greek players can play legally and safely is still expected from July 2021, as announced by the Gaming Supervision & Control Commission (EEEP).

In the meantime, the “grey zone”, i.e. the activity in an unregulated business environment without a license from the EEEP, serves more than 30% of the market, as the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance Haris Theocharis had admitted at the “Economist” conference in 2023.

In 2022, according to a Kappa Research study, 800,000 Greeks played in “gray zone” companies. The dizzying turnover of illegal betting reaches 6 billion euros per year!

According to KETHEA ALPHA, in 2018 the average age of people addicted to gambling was 38 years. 57% of them had been playing for “over ten years”, while 42% had been gambling for 2 to 4 hours. 59% hid their addiction “sometimes”, 25% played “only secretly” and only 16% “openly”.

“Gambling after the pandemic has gone online and much more. Addiction is reinforced through bonuses. It’s like the price sellers are giving the users a price. With another 100, 200 or 300 euros they will be sweetened and the rest will be jealous” he says characteristically in
Documento Damianos Duitsis, addiction counselor and president at Oasis.
Unbelievable are the total amounts that Greeks play annually according to the data collected by the addiction support center. In the first eight months of 2023 alone, they gambled €22.7 billion (a 28.2% increase compared to the same period in 2022). In 2019 they gambled 16 billion, 23 billion in 2021, 29 billion in 2022, corresponding to 14% of GDP, while in total in 2023 37 billion euros were directed to games of chance. Almost three-quarters came from the internet.

The figures come only from the officially registered turnover of casinos, lotteries, bookmakers (many of which are of unquestionable reliability), online gambling, without the illegal clubs where minors go.

“During the coronavirus, I started with gambling. I used to play poker, but what I liked the most were the bonuses of 100-150 euros, in which you have to play ten times the value and you keep what you win. So it pushes you to play more or less, depending on whether you win or not. I saw young waiters and bartenders over a mobile phone playing slots and gambling to the point of paranoia,” says Petros, who is now 38 years old, to Documento. Social distancing with quarantine has been the perfect opportunity to bombard internet users with betting app ads, attractive offers and all kinds of promotional messages.

The tips”

“Gamblers who come to Oasis have 4 or 5 mobile betting apps. We call the applications “edges” – they are the marketers -, as drug addicts say,” adds Dam. Duitsis. Within 2021, the EEEP licensed 15 online gambling providers. The state has an interest. In total, the gambling activity filled the state coffers with 743 million euros in 2022 compared to 549 million euros in 2021.

“What kind of state are we? Singapore? Hong Kong; How come the ESR and other bodies are not intervening in this barrage of advertisements on the internet as well?” wonders the president of Oasis.
This is confirmed by Petros, who has been “clean” for five months from cocaine and gambling: “When I go home I hear ads for betting and casinos. I hear paid announcers talk about deals or returns. To see the replay of a match there must be a 15 second commercial. At every opportunity there is also a betting ad. I have lived in Amsterdam where gambling, prostitution and drugs are legal. I cut the grass there. I went like a hasiklis from Greece and saw the way they sell it and exploit it. They have a clear target. I protect the Dutchman, and the standard of the Dutchman is that I should not smoke. I am not a drug tourist, no disrespect, with respect to users. In Greece it is as if they want us to become Thailand”.

“My gambling was exclusively electronic,” Panagiotis tells Documento and shares his experience with us. He started as a “social gamer” for three years. Gambling was his weekly occupation: he was only 16 years old and at 19 it developed into an addiction.

Parents and family

“The problem of gambling is the same as that of alcohol, drugs and violence. The main problem is that young people have access to the internet too easily and without any control. That includes gaming, social media and pornography” explains psychologist Nicoletta Bekiaropoulou and notes: “From 12 and over, children can use any device and create an account, either with their parents’ consent (many parents they don’t understand the risk) or without it. They just steal the card, swipe it on their mobile phone and play.” Unfortunately, the phenomenon of parents trusting them even with the card is not rare. They follow a “I play, let my son play” logic.

Continuing Nik. Bekiaropoulou points out that “when someone starts playing at the age of 12-13 they can earn a large sum of 200-300 euros. For a child this is a fortune. It creates a feeling for them as if they are doing weed for the first time, and this happens at 12, at an age when everything is more intense and the defenses of adult life are not there.”

Reasonable parental control is the solution that can save a child according to the psychologist. Not the complete removal of money, but the child not having access to a cell phone from such a young age, because he has no resistance. Nor should he be given large sums of money to play with.

Oasis organizes seminars in high schools and high schools of Thessaloniki and Nik. Bekiaropoulou, who participates in them, wanted to share a comic-tragic incident in a seminar: “We talk to them about all addictions and we emphasize gambling, because we know that most of them gamble. We had been to EPAL and while we were talking to them they were gambling with their mobile phones! We need frequent communication with people like us, information to the children and especially to the parents. The same for the teachers, because they are now afraid that what they say will be canceled by the children”.

The… passion fruits
The testimony of two addicted young people

According to Oasis, 50% of gamblers in drug addiction treatment are suicidal, with 17% having attempted it. What Petros says about his addiction is revealing: “I was sitting in my room with suicidal thoughts, closed cell phones, windows, everything… That’s when I started to understand that I had escaped. I was an entrepreneur with restaurants, a social life, a partner, living abroad. I lost all my will to live and hope to get out of this situation. I started gambling in the Greek bookmakers during the coronavirus. I stopped using cocaine, which I had combined with my social life, and started gambling.” When he reopened the focus returned to his drug of choice, which is expensive. The unlimited betting and bonus tactics were sinking him even deeper and he was losing even bigger amounts.

Panagiotis, who started playing at the age of 19, in the army, had the exact same experience: “From football I went to slots and online casinos. With the addiction I found excuses not to go out, not to go on trips so that I could save money for gambling. Today I complete more than 780 days clean”.

Panagiotis, as a worker in his parents’ family business, embezzled more than 15,000 euros! “They had blind trust in me. I kept the books for them.” His parents helped him go to KETHEA ALPHA. There he felt he was not alone. “I may have had company, family, but I felt absolutely alone. At KETHEA I learned to face myself, my fears and my demons. Several times it crossed my mind to play again. The thing is, when you’re clean you don’t want to lose the effort you’ve put in for a moment. To get there, to say I will play, something else inside me has pushed me and troubled me”.

Every addicted gambler to overcome the psychological calvary starts from very low, with the feeling of shame being what prevails initially. “I had borrowed, I had stolen, everything… I owed more than 30 people. You’ll find a way to make money… until someone finds you. You become manipulative and manage to get them. I’m in an open surgery and I’m trying to help myself,” Petros explains.

“No longer only Greek matches are played, but also from Venezuela and from all over the world. Pure madness! We are daunted by the breadth of options. In the 22 years with the gamblers I have been in contact with, I have experienced five suicides of our fellow human beings,” concludes Dam. Duitsis. Thinking that they had lost everything, they ended their lives.

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