Martín was 18 years old when he visited a casino for the first time, and something inside made him think: “I have to go back.” Years later, the pandemic brought him closer to online betting, which made his “social gambler” behavior take on more worrying characteristics.
“One day I found an online casino, I had money in MercadoPago (a virtual wallet), I played it and I won. The next day I played everything I had won and lost it, and that’s how the compulsion began to awaken in me,” he recalled on Friday, July 12, in conversation with ACI Prensa.
Receive the main news from ACI Prensa by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channels today:
When he played, he locked himself “in a bubble,” he said, and he didn’t want anyone to see what he did with his cell phone. The worst thing, she said, was exposing herself: “In the desire to get money to continue playing, I exposed myself to a lot of circumstances,” she recalled.
“I was worried, anxious, because I had gotten a lot of credits,” he said. “That is another point against this situation we are experiencing: kids with an application on their cell phone can request credits and use that money to continue playing,” he warned.
“I am aware that this is an emotional illness, because it is inventing another reality, escaping from the real world to live in a fantasy world, where a compulsive gambler will always look for the big win, and will never find it. The house always wins.”
It was almost two years ago, after losing his gambling business, that, covered by debt and in a state of desperation, he had to go to his parents to borrow money.
Alerted by the situation, they first took him to a rehabilitation center, and there they contacted him with Gamblers Anonymous, a group of men and women who share the same suffering: depending on the game to the point that their lives “become unmanageable.” and where “the only requirement to be a member is to be a compulsive gambler and want to stop playing.” Since then, he has been abstinent from gambling.
Today Martín is 30 years old, lives with his mother and defines himself as a “compulsive gambler in the process of recovery.”
A disease that can lead “to prison, madness or death”
If he had to give advice to someone who is going through a similar situation, Martín does not hesitate: “They should seek help. Let them be encouraged. If they want to get out, they have to treat it, because compulsive gambling is a lifelong disease, and it can only be treated for 24 hours. It is a silent disease, but it can lead you to prison, madness or death,” he summarizes.
Martín’s is one of many cases of young people—even school-aged minors—that worry the Catholic Church in Argentina.
A few days ago, the Social Pastoral teams of numerous Argentine dioceses reflected this concern in a message entitled Betting is not a gamewhich warns about this phenomenon that causes social damage and “undermines work culture.”
In that sense, they consider that the practice “should never have been allowed,” and ask the authorities, who have not yet done so, to take immediate measures to prevent minors from accessing the sites that have been legalized.
This activity, the Church assures, “is growing exponentially among the youngest who are especially vulnerable to the stimulation of gambling”, with “dramatic and, some of them, tragic cases.”
Mr. Ramiro Pino, a psychologist specialized in addictions, explained to ACI Prensa that in the case of gambling, “when compulsivity appears, dependence begins to appear, and then there is the impulse: the person loses self-control, the circuits of reward become more and more demanding to repeat the compulsive behavior and then this ritual is generated to be repeated all the time.
This “has physiological consequences; it has material consequences; and in productivity, both at school and at work, because the person stays playing at dawn, so that has an impact all the time.”
Compulsive gambling: an exponent of consumer culture
Regarding the cause of the problem, and more specifically its increase today, Pino points out a cultural dimension: “Today we live immersed in the culture of consumption, in a culture where we measure the capacity for personal success based on the ability to consume, the type of goods and services you can access. The goal in life has become to have the greatest amount of money you can, to consume the best goods and services you can.”
The particularity of the game, indicates the lawyer, “is that it works on the very origin of the theme”, because it implies the fantasy of achieving “a good economic, material passage, of this cultural destiny that we are immersed in today, of the consumer society ”.
“It is like the maximum exponent of consumer culture: the illusion of the easy way to earn money, and it is an illusion because then problems appear,” since “when the person begins to become dependent on gambling, they lose silver”.
“Why does the game hurt us? Because it makes us lose money. And why are we in the game? Because we are looking for money. And why are we looking for money? Because our entire cultural proposal is based on the fact that you have to have as much money as you can, and then measure your consumption capacity and your success in life from there.”
Diagnosis, prevention and favorable environments
Regarding the task of the Catholic Church in this sense, the psychologist, who for ten years has worked in the Hogares de Cristo – the ecclesial device for the prevention and care of addictions -, recognizes that “in the Church it is sometimes difficult for us to “To respond to the problems that appear, it is difficult for us to anticipate by putting together structures, so sometimes our responses can be a little more disorganized.”
“What we have to do is continue building a diagnosis of the problem, continue building strong preventive initiatives, and above all continue building what any human being needs for good development, which is a favorable environment and humanizing ties,” he listed.
When it comes to prevention, the most accurate criterion, he indicated, is the “homeostatic” criterion, that is, balance: “That in someone’s life there is a place for everything, then the boy who has a space for study, a space for friends, a space for sports, a space for family, a space for recreation, it is difficult for it to become disordered.”
“Not everyone becomes addicted. “This type of addictive behavior, both screens and games, like pornography, like substances, work on a previous disorder,” she assured.
For this reason, “the best warning guideline is to help families understand what is necessary for development, provide good humanizing bonds that accompany the child throughout childhood, the adolescent in the identity crisis, and to be able to develop their identity to face the vicissitudes of life, and for that it is essential to have a healthy environment,” he summarized.
He also highlighted the importance of the school’s work with families, both for the early detection of this type of addiction and for its timely treatment. For this, he considers necessary “sports and cultural proposals that allow there to be a place for everything in the child’s life.”
The betting figures in Argentina
In mid-June, the newspaper Clarion published a report that indicates that, of the large number of online betting users, almost 80% are part of the illegal circuit. In figures, there are more than 11 million unique Argentine users who use unofficial betting platforms, that is, without regulation.
Recently, the chamber that groups companies that operate bingos and casinos filed a complaint against more than 250 illegal sites currently active.
In the province of Buenos Aires alone, 2,031,720 bettors have been registered since 2021, according to a report from the Institute of Lotteries and Casinos of the Province (IPLyC) to which Clarín had access.
The regulation depends on each province. As of 2020, the practice is authorized in Santa Fe; while in the City and Province of Buenos Aires, it was approved in 2021. Córdoba and Mendoza gave the go-ahead in 2023.
Compared to other regions of the country, the practice is more widespread among those who live in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, with 9.07% versus 7.46% in the others.
According to Ibope (Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics, its acronym in Portuguese), the most chosen online betting option in Argentina is linked to soccer (41.2%), followed by bingo (37%) and boxing ( 16.8%).
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.