I REFER to the latest survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling which was highlighted by your newspaper (BT, May 29).

A disturbing trend among debtors coming to Credit Counselling Singapore (CCS) over the last few years is the growing proportion of debtors who attribute their debt problems to gambling. This grew from 10.5 per cent of cases counselled in 2006 to 28 per cent for the comparable first three months in 2008. The average debt outstanding for counselled cases citing gambling as a cause between 2006 and March 2008 is $65,000 owing to seven financial institutions and comprising largely of credit cards and other unsecured credit lines.

Apart from the growing 'acceptability' of gambling as a leisure activity by ever younger people, we now see more gamblers with debt problems. Easy access to credit cards and other unsecured facilities have enabled a gambler to continue to the point where debts become unmanageable, and his job and the welfare of his family are severely impacted by his gambling habit and indebtedness. Very often, family members get into debt themselves in an effort to save the gambler. Rehabilitation of problem gamblers is made more difficult by their debt problems.

Gambling is therefore a very costly addiction and more focus must be placed on the role of credit in fuelling this addiction. Banks should examine their policies to see if they are indeed exacerbating this problem by their aggressive marketing. At a minimum, they should put in place some mechanism to identify debtors with gambling problems at an early stage. Family members should be allowed to advise financial institutions of a debtor's problem gambling, thereby cutting off their credit and preventing the build-up of more debts. This will be much more effective than placing an entry ban at casinos. Banks should cooperate with counselling agencies by having a loan restructuring programme for problem gamblers undergoing addiction counselling.

Overall, there should be a nation-wide campaign to raise public awareness of the link between problem gambling and credit. We need to emphasise that a person who starts using his credit cards and unsecured credit to facilitate gambling is already a problem gambler.

This article was first published in The Business Times on Jun 3, 2008