Regulating gambling to prevent addiction: more necessary now than ever

The American Psychiatric Association published the 5th Edition of DSM in May 2013, in which the gambling disorder is included within the category of addictive disorders -a long-standing and recurrent demand from the clinical, social and scientific fields. Nevertheless, the harmful effects of gambling have not been considered by the Government, which is the main area of addiction prevention.The present article is a proposal for the regulation of gambling by the Government through the different levels of the State (national, regional and even local), which has the ultimate goal of preventing gambling addiction. This proposal has been presented to the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress, as part of the Congress-Senate Joint Committee for the Study of Drug Problems. The proposed regulation is based on the evidence provided by scientific studies on the prevention of addiction.