In Greater Bendigo, punters are losing increasingly more money at gambling venues – and, St Luke’s Anglicare is offering up support. In a new report by ABC News, the organisation has reached out to problem gamblers in the area to provide help to individuals who are struggling with gambling addiction. Paul McDonald, Chief Executive of St Luke’s Anglicare, encourages problem gamblers in Greater Bendigo to seek help from counsellors.
The organisation offers up various helpful services that aim to ensure that compulsive players are able to cope with their addiction. Recently, St Luke’s Anglicare added several new improvements to its Gambler’s Help program. This includes multilingual support services as well as culturally-appropriate counselling and community education.
The program also adopted the ‘no wrong door’ method, which will ensure the coordination of referrals to other support services and healthcare providers for problem gamblers. The organisation will make support services more widely available than ever. This will include extended hours of operation, allowing problem gamblers to obtain assistance at any time of day.
There will also be online support, which will make it easier for players to come forward and seek help. “The fact is, help begins when you recognise you've got a problem, so we’ve got to make it easy for people to talk to a counsellor,” Mr McDonald says in a release from St Luke’s. There are plenty of support services available for problem gamblers in Greater Bendigo and the state of Victoria.
It is important for compulsive players to seek help as soon as possible, to ensure that they don’t continue to chase losses.
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