Gambling addiction in Hong Kong: as World Cup kicks off betting surge, we look at the addicts and victims
With the Fifa World Cup in the news, we talk to a reformed gambler, social workers and a gambler’s former wife about the vicious cycle of addiction and the impact it can have on physical and mental health as well as finances and property
“When I started gambling I had no idea I’d end up like this,” says 29-year-old reformed gambler Wah, who does not want to disclose his full name. “I thought I’d be able to control it.”
We’re in a room at Wan Chai’s Tung Wah Even Centre, a counselling and treatment service for problem and pathological gamblers, where Wah is talking about his 11-year struggle with gambling addiction that started when he was a 16-year-old high school student. Under the legal age of 18, Wah had to ask older friends to place bets for him.
Tung Wah Even Centre counsellor Joseph Fung Ka-pan feels sorry for young people such as Wah. “Many young people think they’re equipped with the knowledge about soccer,” he says. “I’ve analysed the mentality of young soccer gamblers and they think they know more than other people.” That is why they expect to win.
With the 2018 Fifa World Cup underway in Russia, there’s good reason for concern that football gambling could increase in the city. A 2014 study jointly conducted by Shue Yan University and the Society for Truth and Light found that young adults are particularly vulnerable when World Cup fever spreads, with one in four involved in gambling activities during the last World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
“Young people also have a higher tendency to submit to their failure in gambling,” Fung adds.
