This article is from page 1 of the 2008-04-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
THE growth of Clare-based poker schools and online gambling has led to people losing their businesses in high-stakes gaming sessions.
And according to the Bushy Park Treatment Centre in Ennis, the num- bers presenting for gambling addic- tion more than doubled last year.
Centre Director, Margaret Nash said that there is anecdotal evidence of people who have lost businesses to other players in local poker schools.
“You have well-run businesses transferring over. You could be a business owner today and working for the person you gave the business to next week.”
In all, the centre admitted 14 peo- ple with gambling addictions — an increase on the six admitted in 2006. Ms Nash said that online gambling is now huge and that online companies have strategies to lure players back by forwarding them advances.
On the rise in gambling addictions, she said the primary causes were online gambling, horses and poker schools which “were quite big in the
Ennis and Clare area”.
‘The debts are quite big. People es- cape their debts by getting into fur- ther problems with gambling. They have no choice but to go for treat- ment. It is a serious problem.
“Gambling isn’t about winning, it is about the buzz of trying your odds and having a formula that you believe gives you better information — a better formula than the next per- son. It is not about the winning. The buzz is about putting €100,000 on the nose of number seven.
“The hard part of gambling is that there are no symptoms or signs for the family until it gets serious but in hindsight, the family may real- ise that the symptoms are similar to other addictions and these are black- outs, loss of memory, affecting your eating, lack of sleep and agitation.
“Online gambling is huge and banks are beginning to realise that people have problems. There have been cases where banks have called people and there has been no obvi- ous expenditure and big withdraw- als of three and four thousand euro,” said Ms Nash.