Rebuilding Trust: How to tell if your partner has stopped gambling

When someone is struggling with a gambling problem, it is common for there to be a history of secrecy and hiding things — especially around money. A question for partners is “How can I trust that the gambling has stopped?”

I think my loved one might be ready to manage their own money, but how do we decide?

If you’ve been managing your loved one’s finances while they try to change their gambling habits, you’ve probably helped them far more than you know — but eventually, there will come a time when they’ll need to take their money management back and carry on independently. Hopefully you will have decided on an endpoint when …

I don’t want to manage their money anymore. How do I tell them?

If you've been helping a friend to manage their money while they try to change their gambling habits, it might come to the point where you decide you can no longer help. Here are some tips to help you have the conversation.

You’ve been asked to manage someone’s money: Now what?

If a friend has reached out to ask you to help them manage their money, you may be confused about why and don’t quite know what to do. Asking a trusted friend or family member for help to handle money is a common strategy that many people use to stop or reduce their gambling. It’s …

Growing pains: When childhood distress stretches into adulthood

If you had a difficult childhood and now find yourself wanting to make a change to your gambling, it can be helpful to understand that there may be physiological or emotional factors that led you to this situation, as it can help you to figure out how to act from here. Counsellor Sam discusses the link between childhood trauma and adult distress.

How to talk to your teen

Encouraging your teen to think critically about gambling can help prevent them from developing problems in the future.

Young people and gambling

Youth gambling is a concern for many parents especially with the increasing presence of gambling in sports and online. There may be one person suffering from gambling in every high school class. Ideally young people won’t gamble at all, if they do sometimes it can become a serious issue which may result in depression, missing …

The conversation – talking to a family member or significant other who is gambling

  Partners, family members and friends often ring the NSW Gambling Helpline (1800 858 858) wanting advice about how to talk to their loved ones about their gambling. Many times they want to talk about how to begin the conversation. Other times the family member or significant other admits gambling has been an ongoing discussion …

Support is key!

Asking for support can be challenging even though all the evidence says that you are much more likely to be able to overcome a gambling problem if you have at least one person who can support you. One of the challenges is talking to your support person about a lapse – which of course we …

The gambler’s fallacy – a risk for relapse

If you have been gambling for some time and you find you are having more trouble controlling the amount you spend, you might notice that you often have thoughts that make you want to gamble more urgently.    Many people battle with these thoughts and try different strategies to distract themselves from focusing on them.  For …