Gambling addiction campaigners have warned that young men trading cryptocurrency have begun to seek help for symptoms associated with problem gambling.
Barry Grant, project manager of Extern Problem Gambling, said he had not encountered the problem before the pandemic but that, over the past two years, four or five men — most of them young — had reported a loss of control over their crypto trading. Grant believes this may only be “the tip of the iceberg”.
“There are too many parallels with gambling and for people who have some of those personality traits, where they might become obsessive or compulsive about things, it’s bad news anyway,” he said.
Those that approached Grant presented with “classic gambling addiction progression”. “You dabble with it.