The Dark Side of Gambling-Crime

[horrorfan]

We all know what effects compulsive gambling has on the finances, on relationships, on the emotional status of the individual but let’s take a look at the crimes that are committed by problem and compulsive gamblers. Individuals addicted to gambling will often turn to crime on order to obtain money to gamble with. Recently a Palm Beach condominium board president was arrested for embezzling over $33,000 from the association. She cited a bad gambling problem as the reason why. This is all too common of an occurrence with compulsive gamblers. An accountant from Tampa stole 1.7 million dollars from a firm he was working for to support his gambling problem last year. The white collar crimes involving gambling are frequent but the darker side is the violent crimes that are perpetrated by gambling. A teenager shot and killed over an illegal dice game in Miami, an innocent teen with superstar potential on the football field killed over someone else’s gambling debt and a man beaten by family members because he drained the savings account of his wife so he could gamble. These are the crimes that affect people to the core and they happen too often. There also scams involving gambling where someone claims to win the lottery but can’t cash the ticket and needs help to do so. The “mark” is talked into giving “seed” money to the victimizer and in a flash is left by the person and out whatever money he/she gave them. If you or someone you know has a problem, call 1-888-ADMIT-IT for resources.