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A large proportion of gambling addicts have underlying personality disorders
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
At the Australian National University, scientists suggest that most gamblers have hidden personality disorders, which can affect the treatment process. Experts recommend diagnosing personality disorders in patients with this type of addiction before prescribing treatment.
Gambling addiction causes intrapersonal and interpersonal problems in a person. Just over 2% of people on the planet suffer from gambling addiction.
As earlier studies have shown, people with gambling addiction often have mental disorders (anxiety, alcohol or drug addiction, mood swings, etc.).
Researchers in a new scientific project examined studies conducted so far to find out whether gambling addiction is linked to personality disorder or not.
As a result, it was found that people with gambling addiction often had antisocial, borderline, histrionic or narcissistic personality disorders.
Pathological gamblers were more likely to have borderline disorder than those who could control the gaming process. Borderline disorder is characterized by instability of interpersonal relationships, self-esteem, and nervousness.
As it turns out, the development of personality disorders and gambling addiction are linked to the same social and biological factors, in particular, problems with parents, childhood trauma, violence, depression, drug addiction, anxiety, and difficulties in managing emotions.
Gambling addiction, as well as patients with borderline personality disorder, usually involves social isolation, low self-esteem, and difficulty communicating with peers. In addition, this category of individuals exhibits impulsivity and suicidal tendencies.
According to Australian experts, additional diagnostics will make it easier for doctors to determine the treatment method. Statistics show that patients with gambling addiction and personality disorder are three times more likely to interrupt treatment than those who suffer exclusively from gambling addiction.
The doctor needs to show more understanding for “difficult” patients and motivate them more to treat them.
Gambling is quite popular in modern society, in Britain about 70% of the population regularly play such games, and about 0.6% of adults are unable to control the gaming process, i.e. suffer from gambling addiction.
Scientists conducted a study involving healthy people and gambling addicts.
Positron emission tomography scans revealed no differences in the number of opioid receptors in the brain (opioids are involved in cellular communication).
These results surprised experts, since it was believed that gambling addiction is similar to alcoholism or drug addiction (with alcohol or drug addiction, patients have more opioid receptors than healthy people).
Scientists decided to increase the volunteers' endorphin levels and repeat the tomography. After taking amphetamine, the amount of endorphins in patients with gambling addiction was lower than in a group of healthy people, in addition, scientists found out that gambling addicts get less pleasure from the high content of endorphins in the body. According to experts, the results obtained will help to develop more effective methods for treating gambling addiction.
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