Gamblers tell their stories: Life patterns of gambling

as children, or neglect, is difficult to assess without a detailed description of their childhood
experiences, which was beyond the scope of this project. There was evidence of abuse
however. Some participants specifically discussed abusive experiences and often
emotional, mental or physical abuse could be detected in comments even though this may
not have been specifically identified as abuse by the participants themselves. For example,
some participants talked about their parents having been strict disciplinarian or having put
them down or having had problems with a parent or step-parent without giving any details or
referring to physical or emotional abuse even if that may have been the case. As seen
above, many of the participants experienced various degrees of dysfunction within their early
families but only four of the participants use the term `abuse’ to refer to their childhood
experiences. Three of the four who overtly identified abuse had been sexually abused as
children outside the family, and two of them had also experienced abuse at home, one
physical abuse and the other emotional abuse. The fourth participant had been mentally
abused by his father growing up as well as having being bullied at school. Two of the
interviewees who had been sexually abused had also been bullied at school. Among the
three participants who mentioned having been sexually abused as children, one was
problem gambler, one was moderately at risk and one scored low risk on PGSI.
For example, Alanna, 30, LR (1) on PGSI, single, unemployed, from a Western suburb,
gambled on horses, Tatts lotto and EGMs, was sexually abused as a child when she was in
primary school. In addition there were emotional and psychological problems in the family,
and she never got along with her mother,
Dad was a very angst ridden person for the beginning of the 80s; he did an anger
management course in 88 and then became completely emotionally void. But I love
him to bits. My mother and I have since day one had the most tumultuous
relationship, mum and I were at each other’s throat . . . I spent most of my life hating
her . . . she had post natal depression, she had a few different mental disorders,
severe depression etc., she had eating disorders, bulimia and severe obesity. . .
This shows that not only problem gamblers had experienced abuse and family dysfunction
as children; however, as mentioned earlier, there was a much higher proportion of problem
gamblers who talked about family dysfunction and hinted at abuse than low risk gamblers.
The other people who talked about child abuse or those who did not specifically talk about
abuse but had experienced severe family dysfunction had had tumultuous childhoods, for
example, being in and out of juvenile homes and being exposed to violence in different
settings. One of the participants had experienced physical and emotional abuse from his
alcoholic father as well witnessing domestic violence towards his mother, before being sent
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