I recently read about a story in my local newspaper (Colchester UK) about someone who stole £13,000 from his girlfriend's phone via her banking app so that he could fund his gambling addiction. He was found guilty of theft and sent to prison.

I wonder if there is any merit in building an app that helps gambling addicts by letting them play the same games that they would play on their phones, with a few caveats:

1 - It's all virtual money, just like a demo account on a stock trading service where you can test it out without real money being involved. You don't use real money, and the app is free to download and play. The goal isn't to make money from the app, it's to help treat gambling addiction.

2 - Where the games would tempt you to place another bet and say "better luck next time?" or "so close" and tempt the player to make another bet, this game would do something different:

- When a player loses on their go, it would say "if you'd staked real money, that would have cost you £2 etc". - It would also remind you of the total balance, and say "if you'd played for real, then you would be down £200 tonight, but because you played this game instead, you've saved yourself £200." - When a player wins on their go, it would say "congratulations on winning, that was your first win in the previous 6 go's".

The idea is to change the cognitive behaviour of the player so that a) they get to play a game that they enjoy playing and find addictive to play, but crucially b) they don't lose any money, and because they are shown the reality of what gambling is like from an accounting perspective, their cognitive association with gambling is changed.

It's better to play a fun game for free then to play a game that drains you of all your money.

How is that idea. Good, bad?