That concern is fueled by an uncertainty of how best to treat the disease termed pathological gambling, and by the emergence of Internet gambling opportunities, with little ability to keep out underage gamblers, they say. A summary of the report on pathological gambling issued today by the National Research Council in Washington says that in any one year, nearly 1 percent of all adults in the United States, or 1.8 million people are pathological gamblers. The rate among teens is even higher.
Pathological gamblers engage in destructive behaviors.
The American Psychiatric Association first described it in 1980 as a chronic and progressive failure to resist impulses to gamble despite adverse consequences, ranging from borrowing money from family or friends and losing time at work to being arrested for offenses committed to support gambling. Men are more likely to become pathological gamblers than women. Suicide rates are higher among pathological gamblers, they are more likely to suffer from drug or alcohol addiction, and more likely to have mood disorders. The emergence of Internet gambling opportunities also concerned authors. This raises the question as to whether we are seeing gambling entering a much different sort of era.