 Newsletter Signup
Stay informed with the
NEW Casino City Times newsletter! Related Links
|
Gaming News
Pills to Treat Gambling Ills28 October 2003MASSACHUSETTS – As reported by the Boston Globe: ``Compulsive gambling used to be seen as a moral lapse, treated with a good dose of religion or a stint in jail. But in recent years, as casinos have spread across the country, doctors and scientists have begun to see problem gambling as the result of malfunctions in the brain -- and they are testing whether treatments used to tame other addictions will help gamblers, too. ``No one has found a magic pill or even come close. But, in many ways, scientists are finding that gambling is much like alcoholism and drug addiction, for which there have long been pharmaceutical treatments to block the 'thrills' and cravings. ``Over the past few decades, 'there has been a shift in the conceptualization of problem gambling,' according to Marc Potenza, director of Yale University's problem gambling clinic. 'It's gone from being seen as a sin to a bad habit to a biologically based disorder.' ``…With the state Legislature now debating whether to allow as many as two full casinos and three slot machine parlors statewide, those issues are becoming less theoretical…" |