Dr. Richard Velleman

So we had this...

A marvelous opportunity.

And I should say, we did this research in Finland, and the lead researcher, my close colleague, Emi Kapila from the University of Tampere in Finland, was the lead researcher on this.

So this is research we did in Finland over the eight different periods.

I think there are various ways.

I mean, the first thing, it's useful to get this information out so that people know.

If people don't know they're at risk, then they're much less likely to be able to take evasive action.

So saying to people, hey, hang around with gamblers, whether it's your family or your friends, it puts you more at risk.

You need to know that.

Even if you think you're never going to do it, you're more likely to, in the same way as is the case with alcohol or smoking or drugs or anything like that.

Hanging around with people who do something means it's behavior you're more likely to do.

Talking to people about it.

So if you're friends with someone who's a gambler and you're not a gambler, then you could talk to them about the risk to that.

And you obviously don't want to mess your frame shifts up, so you've got to do it in a nice way and so on.

But it is important to do that.

I mean, and you need to create an opportunity where people feel they can talk about their gambling problems.

Gambling problems are incredibly serious.

They're often more serious than alcohol or drug problems.

The rate of suicide is much higher in gambling problems than it is in alcohol or drug problems.

So I think it's really important that you create opportunities for people with gambling problems to seek help and to talk to other people about their difficulties.