Should welfare payments be stopped for problem gamblers?

by janeeyrelover (student)

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

An addiction is just like any other mental disorder. It slowly starts to consume your life and you can do nothing but be a slave to it; just like any other mental disorder it needs to be treated with care from a professional who is willing to council and guide the sufferer out of the addiction. We shouldn’t sacrifice a person’s welfare just because they have a mental disorder such as a gambling addiction.

This essay will be addressing the psychological reasons on why Welfare Payments should not be suspended for problem gamblers. The main arguments to support this case is that Gambling is an ongoing psychological problem and that it is immoral suspending welfare payments and will not stop the problem and that suspending welfare payments will lead to negative consequences for families involved.

Instead of stopping welfare payments, they should still be given out as they are needed for necessities but an additional counselling program should be put into place by the government, as they have the resources to do so; so that people who are addicted can find a way out and still live comfortably. Stopping welfare payments to a person just because they have a mental disorder such as a gambling addiction can be seen as inhumane as it decreases their quality of their life.

Gambling addiction is a symptom of psychological ill-health. If we treated any other mentally ill individuals in ...

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Gambling addiction is a symptom of psychological ill-health. If we treated any other mentally ill individuals in the same way it would be seen as immoral. Getting rid of welfare payments instead of treating the illness is counter-productive and will lead to many negative issues like an increase in crime which my second speaker sunny will be elaborating on. Stopping welfare payments will not stop gambling problems.

Suspending welfare payments will not only affect an individual, the welfare payments is given to the head of the household, you are suspending the payments for whole family, the need for food and penalising innocent citizens.

They do not spend all their money on gambling, they do use some money for food and necessities, by suspending welfare payments, you may be suspending the money they use for gambling but you are also depriving them of the money used for needs.

with over 80% of citizens gambling occasionally and 40% gambling regularly. Only about 1% of the adult population has a real gambling problem. How would we separate this one per cent from the rest of the population?

The issue is gambling addiction, not the welfare payments. We should invest in education schemes and counselling for problem gamblers rather than cutting off welfare to stop gambling problems happening in the first place. The issue with people that have gambling problems is that they will go from welfare payments to the soup kitchen yet will still keep gambling and this cannot be solved through stopping welfare payments.