Problem gambling ‘takes a 30bn toll on nation’s happiness’, says study – The Guardian

About a third of a million people in the UK are now classified as problem gamblers. Photograph: Alamy

Can you put a price on misery? When it comes to problem gambling the answer, apparently, is yes.

A team of economists has calculated that if the UKs hundreds of thousands of problem gamblers were to be cured of their addictions, the boost to the nations collective happiness would be equivalent to a 30bn windfall.

The work, based on an analysis of 10,000 adult gamblers presented at last weeks Royal Economic Societys annual conference, suggests that around 0.7% of adults, about a third of a million people, are now classified as problem gamblers.

The research found that problem gamblers reported much lower levels of wellbeing. This loss in wellbeing is only partly the large financial losses that spending disproportionately on such products implies, said Ian Walker, professor of economics at Lancaster University, who led the research. One can feel bad about losing money accidentally, but one can feel a lot worse from having wasted money deliberately money that could have been spent on having fun, on the kids, or on the essentials of life.

When respondents were asked to give their happiness levels out of 10, the results were striking. Those who werent problem gamblers said, on average, a pretty happy 7.95, Walker said. Those who were said a miserable 6.25. This difference of 1.7 is huge.

Walker and his colleagues calculate that doubling income would only raise happiness by about half a point. From this, they estimate that a problem gambler would need around an extra 90,000 a year about three times the average household income to become as happy as someone who was not a problem gambler.

Previous research into gambling has tended to focus on the impact it has on other people. But no one has bothered to ask this question about the costs that the problem gamblers themselves suffer until now, Walker said. If we could eliminate problem gambling, happiness would rise by as much as it would if we were collectively financially better off by about 30bn a year. This is around 2% of GNP, a huge number on a par with the harms due to alcohol, which receive a lot of policy action. Yet spending on dealing with problem gambling is a tiny fraction of spending that deals with alcohol issues.

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Problem gambling 'takes a 30bn toll on nation's happiness', says study - The Guardian