On 1 May, Sweden became the first EU country to fully ban credit funded gambling. Not a second too late.

I have seen up close what compulsive gambling can do to families. The version that plays out in real homes is nothing like the glossy advert. It is slow, isolating, and it takes more than money. It takes people.

A Swedish public health study put a number on this that I keep thinking about. Six other people are negatively affected, on average, by every person with a gambling problem. In Sweden alone, that is around 166,000 partners, parents, siblings, and children living inside someone else's addiction. The estimated societal cost is €1.42 billion a year. Gambling disorder carries the highest suicide rate of any addiction disorder we measure.

These are not abstractions. They are children at kitchen tables, partners doing the maths late at night, siblings deciding what to tell whom.

The argument for letting people fund all of this with credit was always thin. The argument against was a long, quiet accumulation of grief. The Riksdag finally agreed to read it.

I run a credit company, and I will say this one without nuance. Credit was never supposed to be the fuel for one of the most addictive products a society sells. From this month, in Sweden, it is not. The other 26 member states should be watching closely.

Proud to be Swedish today.

Jimmy Hanna
CEO & Co-Founder, Fairlo UK Limited

Source: Riksdagen.se