Most things we do online have some kind of consequence.
Contact an old friend by email or on a social networking site, and hopefully you’ll rekindle the friendship. Buy something from an online store, and a couple of days later it will turn up on the doorstep. Book a holiday, and three months later you’ll be basking in the sun.
Then there are the not-so-good consequences. Like when you click on a link in a phishing email and at the end of the month you see some very strange transactions on your bank statement. Or you don’t have security software and you pick up a shedload of malware. Or maybe strike up a romantic relationship, only to find that your suitor is just a profile made up by a fraudulent dating site.
Repeat victimisation
But seldom does what you do online involve a vicious circle. You do something – it causes a reaction, but it doesn’t keep going round and round. There’s repeat victimisation, but that’s different.
So this morning, I was listening to a story on BBC Radio 5 Live about footballers who are taking out payday loans to fund their gambling addiction. Colin Bland – Chief Exec of the Sporting Chance rehabilitation clinic founded by Arsenal and England legend Tony Adams – told Nicky Campbell: “It’s not uncommon to have a player in a cycle of payday loans and gambling. We are working with a lot more current football players. We have had players who have got caught up in the scenario of taking out payday loans to place bets. We’ve had several of those over the last couple of years so the vicious circle continues.”
Easy access to the internet
Footballers represent the high profile victims of this addiction. However, it’s not just footballers, but thousands of ‘ordinary’ men and women who are caught in the same trap – much of it fuelled by how easy it is to access both on the internet with the plethora of betting sites of all descriptions … and payday loan sites. The more addicted they become to gambling, the more they sink into debt and the more they ‘have’ to borrow from loan companies at extraordinarly steep interest rates, which they try to pay off with their winnings from the next round of gambling, and so on.
What’s the answer?
Well, everywhere you turn you’re accosted by advertising from – yes, you guessed it – online gambling and payday loan sites. There’s nothing illegal about them, but together they do make it very easy for people to feed their habit.
There are winners … the gambling and payday loan sites actually. I’m not saying they don’t have a place and should be banned or anything like that, but if you have an addictive or obsessive personality … don’t go there.
And if you’re already ‘there’, turn to one of the many addiction or debt advice services available. Because it’s never too late to sort things out.
For information and advice on safe online gambling, click here. For information and advice on payday loan sites, click here.
