Designing interventions to avoid the inevitability of abstinence/cessation in gambling
Session Title
Treatment: Digital & Intervention Design
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation
Start Date
27-5-2026 12:00 AM
Abstract
Gambling – along with most other compulsive behaviours – does not appear spontaneously. Vulnerabilities created by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) form the necessary psychological scaffolding for dependency to thrive and for compulsion to become part of the individual’s life. The path of that individual is predictable. Either they stop playing, oftentimes experiencing harm before they are forced to stop, or they carry on, creating consequences as they continue playing harmfully. Industry-deployable interventions focus on the identification, treatment and abstinence-based exclusion of the player, but these interventions require the player to have stepped over the threshold where exclusion is required and sustainable recreational play is ill-advised. What is missing from that player journey are interventions that occur on the inevitable path from vulnerability to abstinence-based cessation. This talk looks in more detail at how the player can be supported in such a way that the need to stop completely ceases being inevitable.
Designing interventions to avoid the inevitability of abstinence/cessation in gambling
Gambling – along with most other compulsive behaviours – does not appear spontaneously. Vulnerabilities created by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) form the necessary psychological scaffolding for dependency to thrive and for compulsion to become part of the individual’s life. The path of that individual is predictable. Either they stop playing, oftentimes experiencing harm before they are forced to stop, or they carry on, creating consequences as they continue playing harmfully. Industry-deployable interventions focus on the identification, treatment and abstinence-based exclusion of the player, but these interventions require the player to have stepped over the threshold where exclusion is required and sustainable recreational play is ill-advised. What is missing from that player journey are interventions that occur on the inevitable path from vulnerability to abstinence-based cessation. This talk looks in more detail at how the player can be supported in such a way that the need to stop completely ceases being inevitable.