A smartphone equates to a ‘bookie office in your pocket’

Niall McNamee credits the Rutland Centre, Co Dublin, with turning his life around. The Rutland Centre has been treating gambling under inpatient and outpatient programmes for years.

Niall attended one of Rutland’s programmes in early November 2011, after speaking to his dad about how far his gambling addiction had spiralled.

“I had borrowed money from people locally on top of stealing from work. The walls were closing in. I was confronted by my boss about the money and I lied,” he says.

The following day, Niall confided in Gerry Cooney, the Offaly football manager, who, unbeknownst to Niall was a counsellor at Rutland.

“The next day I met Gerry, told him the craic and he brought me to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in the Rutland Centre that Tuesday night. I went for a treatment assessment on the Friday and by the following Wednesday I had started the five-week treatment programme. That one big decision of being open, acknowledging the issue, the relief was unbelieveable.”

At the start of March 2025, Rutland launched a new gambling addiction primary treatment programme run in conjunction with the HSE and the Department of Health. The programme offers 26 fully funded places this year to people presenting with gambling addiction.

“The primary treatment programme is when people are already gambling-free when they come in. This means they have stopped gambling at least one week before,” explains Emma Kavanagh, head of clinical services at the Rutland Centre.

“To get onto the programme, individuals will have been through a comprehensive needs assessment and intensive interview, spanning different topics from physical health to employment and ability to hold out relationships.

Remove the shame

“It’s really important that addiction is treated in that way that removes the stigma and shame. What you’re doing in the programme is you’re trying to understand why you have been gambling. It’s about helping people delve deep into why they have gotten to that place.

"The programme contains educational psychological work around understanding their addiction and trying to put in place mechanisms, coping skills, strategies for maintaining recovery and sobriety.”

The 10-week programme includes two group sessions a week, a psychoeducational lecture on a topic related to addiction or recovery, an online workshop and a one-to-one counselling session every second week.

“As part of the primary treatment programme, the HSE has also funded the 26 participants to enrol on our secondary programme and aftercare programme, which means that after people do that intensive 10 weeks, they have a year of aftercare with us, fully funded, as they reintegrate back into everyday life,” explains Emma. “Secondary treatment is about building up social support.”

As a treatment provider, Rutland is focused on the role of family. “We believe that addiction doesn’t happen in a bubble,” says Emma.

“It happens within a context and it affects everyone within that context.

The programme invites family members to join at various stages and in our aftercare programme, family are always able to join free of charge.”

Reflecting on the last few years in Rutland, Emma says that gambling is more male dominated. She also says online gambling apps means it is immediate and accessible.

“There used to be steps along the way whereby something could kick in and tell you to stop – the shop only opening at certain times or having to drive. Now, it’s 24/7. You can be contacted by a betting company any hour of the day.”

Cuan Mhuire, Athenry, Co Galway

Cuan Mhuire is Ireland’s largest voluntary provider of addiction treatment services and residential rehabilitation. They have a presence in Co Galway, Co Kildare, Co Limerick, Co Cork and in Newry, Northern Ireland.

In April 2024, Cuan Mhuire in Athenry launched its 12-week programme for gambling addiction, in addition to existing programmes for drug and alcohol addiction.

“We always had people with a gambling addiction in our programmes,” explains Anne Boland, the clinical lead at Cuan Mhuire, “but we launched a gambling specific programme because there’s a huge need.”

While there is a correlation between problem gambling and substance use, a gambling addiction manifests itself very differently.

“When a person is taking substances, everybody can see it for a long time and it’s going to be picked up sooner. But with gambling, nobody knows,” says Martin Gavin, life coach and group facilitator.

“Gambling is so silent.”

“It’s so silent,” repeats Columba Heneghan, addiction counsellor. “We go as far as to say, it’s a silent killer. A recent study [Lund University in Sweden, 2019] revealed that gamblers are 15 times more likely to take their own life than the general population.

“Gambling is very hidden. A 16-year-old boy could be up in his room and you think he’s studying but he’s flat-out gambling,” Columba continues.

“We see it here as well. A person could be in here for alcohol or drugs and maybe in week four, it surfaces that their primary addiction is gambling. It is the last one [addiction] to come out.”

The same ESRI research shows that people with problem gambling in Ireland spend, on average, more than €1,000 per month on gambling. The financial ramifications are huge.

Gambling is so silent. It’s so silent. A 16-year-old boy could be up in his room and you think he’s studying but he’s flat-out gambling

“The compulsion to gamble is so strong that people will do anything to get money,” says Martin. “Loans, borrowing money from family, stealing, they will go to any length until they run out of road.”

Anne, Columba and Martin all say that online gambling has increased the number of people gambling. “Everybody with a smartphone has a bookie office in their pocket,” says Columba.

Martin and Columba also say that, alarmingly, advancements in technology mean that gambling is starting from a younger age.

Many gaming companies are incorporating gambling elements, including loot boxes [small in-app purchases for virtual items] in online video games which introduce children to gambling.

“The child can purchase loot boxes with mum or dad’s money. They can be €2 or €3 and get them from level three to level seven. There’s a reward, and once you get used to that reward system, it’s a constant progression. Research has started to highlight that this is going to cause huge problems down the line,” says Martin.

“It’s easy to get stuck in the cycle of looking for that dopamine hit. And when people are sniffing cocaine on top of gambling, that increases the high,” adds Columba.

“Every gambler starts off innocently and ends up in carnage,” says Martin.

He stresses that rural isolation has a part to play. “Farmers work on their own. They’re not part of a team, it’s their own business and it can be very lonely. If somebody is isolated, gambling is an artificial way of escaping what you’re feeling.”

“It’s especially hard the way things are because with a rural family: everything is OK in this house as long as the neighbours don’t find out,” smiles Columba, dryly. “Nobody wants the neighbours knowing.”

There is hope

If you are a reader with a gambling addiction, there is hope and support. “If you’re stuck in an addiction, you can’t see past your nose and you think the whole world is closing around you, but help is out there,” emphasises Martin.

The programmes at Cuan Mhuire are residential, with six to 12 people in a group. The programme involves group therapy, individual counselling, lectures, personal development classes and family meetings; but crucially, as soon as participants arrive, they have a few weeks to just settle.

“Their phones are taken off them for obvious reasons,” says Columba. “It’s a mental detox because their heads are like washing machines looking at screens. It takes a few weeks to slow down away from gambling and maybe the manipulation of other people,” he says, “but by doing the programme and following up on aftercare [going to Gamblers Anonymous], there is a road to recovery.”