Gambling involves betting something of value on an event involving some element of randomness and chance. This can include games like blackjack and poker, or more complex endeavours such as speculating on business, insurance or stock markets. If you win, you get the money or item you placed a bet on. However, if you lose, you are out the amount of money or item you bet on.
Many people gamble for entertainment or as a way to make money. It can be a fun activity but it is important to gamble responsibly and know your limits. This will help you to avoid gambling problems and keep your money safe.
Whether you’re a fan of slot machines, fruit machines or casino games, gambling can be an exciting pastime. But it’s also important to remember that gambling can be addictive and lead to debt problems. If you’re worried about your gambling habits, seek advice from StepChange.
Gambling can have significant impacts on the personal, interpersonal and community/society levels (Fig. 1). The personal level impacts are mostly nonmonetary and include psychiatric disorders that can drive gambling behaviour. Interpersonal and community/society level impacts are largely monetary and include societal costs, such as increased cost of bankruptcy, financial strain on family members and the impact on local economic activity in the case of physical casinos. These monetary impacts are often underestimated in studies because of their difficulty to measure, especially the social impacts which are non-monetary and not easy to quantify.