> "I lost my husband two years ago to throat cancer," she explained. "He was the love of my life, and I started doing this just to — I was out of my mind and spent a lot of time at the cancer center." ... Singleton says she never recovered from the pain of her loss, and that’s why she keeps coming back to the slots.
The person quoted above is in need of counseling and support. Instead, she's getting a drip-feed of low-cost morphine to mask her loss, like a debtor going from pay-day loan to pay-day loan to stay solvent.
Academically, we seem to have strong evidence linking stress to reduced impulse control. I'm no expert in the matter, but surveys such as this [1] seem convincing. Despite this, the popular conversation seems to stay away from root causes and instead ends at the label 'addict.'
I wonder what percentage slot machine and clash of clans-styled mobile gaming revenue is due to this kind of coping-related addiction. downandout's comment [2] suggests it is probably quite high.