(Jamma) The estimate of social and health costs in Italy due to compulsive gambling addiction is over one billion and 800 million euros. A problem that affects around 120 people and which, in the absence of adequate contrast measures, could grow exponentially, if only one considers that there are around three million people potentially at risk of falling prey to pathological gambling.
The figure emerges from an analysis of data from numerous studies and research on the subject published by the Italian Health Policy Brief, a journal of economic and health policy.
Unemployment and loss of productivity, legal costs, treatment and hospitalization, as well as financial support for family members are the main items of expenditure which, also according to studies conducted in the USA and Europe, generate those costs which "must be taken into account when defining policies for the years to come, in which the economic balance will necessarily have to be at the center of government attention without considering the heavy ethical and moral implications that accompany this serious phenomenon to which young people appear to be exposed to a greater extent than to adults», underlined the coordinator of the work Walter Ricciardi, director of the Department of Public Health of the Gemelli Polyclinic.
