A study by the University of Helsinki’s Centre for Research on Addition, Control, and Governance (CEAGC) in Finland has proposed a way to identify problem gamblers and provide them with addiction support when they apply to consolidate their debts, according to CDC Gaming Reports.
The CEAGC report, which was funded by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and Academy of Finland, found a solid link between gambling and being in debt—especially when unsecured debt is considered.
This is because secured debt normally includes loans backed by collateral, and charges lower interest rates, compared to unsecured loans—such as Payday loans— which often charge nearly confiscatory rates, which exacerbates the problems for a pathological gambler.
This study employed direct data of people who apply for debt consolidation instead of self-reported data, which is often unreliable. The data, collected between 2018-2021, was provided by the credit counseling and consolidation service Solidate. The study discovered that more than 50 percent of those who sought to consolidate debt had used their bank in a gambling transaction. The top 5 percent highest spenders accounted for nearly 50 percent of the transactions.
Finland has among the highest rates of gambling participation in Europe: 78.4 percent of Finns gambled in 2019, although most of them did so with lotteries. On the other hand, government-sanctioned gambling was 59 percent of the total, with the rest being black market, unlicensed sites.
Finland is currently transitioning away from a government-owned gambling monopoly to a market system to try to address this issue.
