With 600,000 people at risk, gambling addiction preoccupies the government. Particular vigilance will be exercised on this phenomenon.
France has nearly 30 million regular or occasional players, ranging from those betting several hundred euros per week on online sports or horse bets to others buying a ticket once or twice a year. Euro Millions at 2 euros.
But the government wants to look into the phenomenon of gambling addiction. Valérie Fourneyron, Minister of Sports, and Bernard Cazeneuve, Minister of the Budget, will visit the Marmottan hospital in Paris this Tuesday, June 18 to visit the Center for the care and support of addictive practices which takes care of patients suffering from all kinds of addiction, including gambling. These two ministers intend to “exercise particular vigilance” on this addiction which is still poorly understood in France. Their goal, “to mobilize to promote a responsible practice which protects the players”.
On the subject, only one study exists. It was carried out by the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (Ofdt) and the National Institute for Prevention and Education for Health (Inpes). It revealed in 2011 that 600,000 French people (400,000 at moderate risk and 200,000 excessive gamblers) were affected by addiction to gambling (1.3% of the population). But this figure could be higher today, because the survey was carried out before the opening of the French market for online games in June 2010.
Proposals have been made to try to police in this world without rules, a situation which favors abuses. The Online Gaming Regulatory Authority (Arjel) published on Friday April 26 a report containing thirty-three proposals to curb the phenomenon of gambling addiction. Among its recommendations, Arjel proposed limiting the volume of advertising by game operators at the time of sports broadcasts by restricting it to one advertising spot by operator.
The gendarme of online games also recommended reaching out to players who would like to win, and therefore facilitate registration on the file of banned games of the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, it recommended that the public authorities prohibit any reminder from an operator to the player who has just closed his account or who temporarily stops playing.
Finally, Arjel wanted online gaming companies to create alert criteria to detect players “with atypical behavior”, such as those who bet large sums.
Because these excessive gamblers are often totally disconnected from reality, as the latest study from the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience proves. For these researchers, these are patients suffering from an optimistic bias that would modify their decisions in situations involving risky financial bets. In other words, the latter would tend to overestimate their change in winning.
Even if the economic crisis slowed down the French in spending on gambling in 2012, the total amount wagered has almost doubled in ten years, from 47.5 to 89 million euros per day.
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