The Tribune

By KIRKLAND PRATT

Much is abuzz about gambling and its legalisation in the Bahamas. On the heels of a polarising and less than transparent election and with all the immediate pressing national issues, somehow the underground gaming phenomenon dominates the daily news cycle. The referendum advanced by the sitting Prime Minister who seeks to ‘put it to the people’ will determine the constitutionality of this prevailing practice in our Bahamaland.

Truth be told, and from a psychological perspective, gambling is highly addictive as is evidenced in the behaviour of the overwhelming majority of those who indulge here in our country. Addiction is defined as a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behaviour or substance inclusive or mood-altering behaviours or activities. Some researchers speak of two types of addictions: substance addictions (alcoholism, drug abuse and smoking); and process addictions (gambling, spending, shopping, eating and sexual activity).

Essentially, addictive behaviour disrupts the quality of an individual’s life. Monies are required to engage in gambling and as such the addict may find any and all means to supplement this expensive habit bar none – this sets a dangerous social precedent. In the absence of formalised local qualitative research here in the Bahamas, it is safe to say that if the number of web shops island wide are an indicator of the demand for the underground numbers racket, patronage must number in the tens of thousands of our population of three hundred and eighty thousand people. A quick drive through the Fox Hill area alone easily turns up five to six accessible web shops.

A recent government sponsored study conducted in the United Kingdom places some 350,000 people in the significant gambling problem category. In a population of an estimated population of 62,000,000 that figure accounts for a significant enough number of addicts. Experts mostly view the effects of gambling as an addiction to an altered psychological state. The thrill of risk and the intermittent rewards experienced by gamblers appear to “hijack” the brain’s natural reward systems. Drug addiction is associated with a brain chemical called dopamine, the same chemical released during gambling. What’s more? Gambling can affect the areas of the brain associated with planning and forming strategies.

University of B.C. researcher Catharine Winstanley posits that “In people that develop problems with gambling it seems that parts of that area don’t work as well as they used to”. In adults, such experiences can change the way neurons in the brain fire and in drug addicts; research has found that those changes can be permanent.

Moreover, all is not lost and contrary to what a few supposed leaders in Bahamian politics have indirectly posited, gambling is indeed treatable. The main approach to treating gambling addiction is psychological intervention and support. As is with any addiction, cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to be quite effective. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy seeks to initially identify the actual triggers that may prompt the gambler to indulge in the addictive behaviours and identify and incorporate strategies to curb the same.

From a professional place I encourage the current government to seek to initiate research into the correlation between sustained family relationships and gambling as well as the correlation between a culture of luck versus the incorporation of sound education and attainment of any kind. What is it that we as a nation are telling our youth by our actions? If you are luckily enough you can get by? Or should we encourage the next generation to study hard, keep their noses clean as it were so as to thrive and remain competitive? I am passionate about these implications and at the risk of presenting as judgemental, if the reader is any at all socially conscious I assert that mine would be a shared concern.

Keep thinking though, you are good for it.