Check whether your gambling has become a problem

Most people who gamble never run into trouble with it, so the question is not whether you bet but what the betting is doing to you. Clinicians and researchers look at two things: how you behave around gambling, and what it costs you outside the bookmaker’s app or the casino lobby.

The amount alone tells you less than you might expect.

Someone spending €50 a week they can comfortably spare is in a different position from someone spending €20 they had set aside for the ESB bill. What matters is whether the money was ever yours to lose, and whether you can stop when you planned to stop.

The patterns that show up first

Chasing losses is usually the earliest sign, and the easiest to explain away. You lose €80 on Saturday, and on Sunday you go back to win it back rather than for the enjoyment of the game. Bonus offers can feed this, because a reload deal with 35x wagering on a €100 bonus means €3,500 of bets before you can withdraw, which keeps you playing well past the point you meant to finish. Other early signs include raising your stakes to feel the same buzz, hiding sessions from the people you live with, and feeling irritable on days you cannot bet.

None of these on its own is a diagnosis. Together, and repeated, they are the reason the screening questions below exist.

The Problem Gambling Severity Index is a nine-item self-assessment used by gambling researchers and regulators, including the Gambling Commission in Great Britain for its national survey. It asks about the last twelve months, and each answer carries a score from 0 to 3.

Answer “never” for 0, “sometimes” for 1, “most of the time” for 2 and “almost always” for 3. Add the nine scores together, so your total lands somewhere between 0 and 27.

The standard bands are 0 for non-problem gambling, 1 to 2 for low risk, 3 to 7 for moderate risk and 8 or more for problem gambling. You will see slightly different cut-offs on some sites, because a later revision of the scale moved low risk to 1 to 4 and moderate risk to 5 to 7. The threshold that matters most, 8 or more, is the same in both versions.

Be strict with yourself on the borderline answers.

If you hesitate between “sometimes” and “never”, the hesitation is usually your answer. The screen is not a medical diagnosis, and a high score is a reason to talk to someone rather than a label. A low score is also no guarantee, because the questions only cover what you are willing to admit over the past year.

Once you know your score, you have two kinds of support to choose from, and they work in different ways. Operator tools change what you can do on a betting site; outside support deals with why you keep going back.

The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 set up the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland and provides for a National Gambling Exclusion Register, so that one request would cover every licensed operator. We checked public reporting and found no confirmation that the register is operational yet, so until it is, self-exclusion works operator by operator. If you hold accounts with four bookmakers, that means four separate requests, and a fifth site you never signed up for is still open to you.

The comparison below sets the two routes side by side.

Sometimes the person asking this question is a partner, a parent or a friend rather than the gambler. The same nine questions work as a guide, although you can only answer the ones you have actually seen.

Signs that tend to be visible from outside include money going missing, sudden loans, long stretches on the phone during matches, and a mood that rises and falls with results. Raise it calmly, at a time when nobody has just won or lost, and talk about what you have noticed rather than what you suspect.

You can ring 1800 936 725 yourself.

GamblingCare.ie supports family members as well as gamblers, and Gamblers Anonymous Ireland points relatives towards Gam-Anon style support. If your finances are tied together, protect them first: separate accounts, a gambling block on any shared card, and a conversation with MABS if debts have built up. You cannot make someone stop, but you can stop their gambling from taking your money with it.