It strikes me, these days labeled as the first of the long-awaited phase 2, to hear a word frequently spoken by patients being treated for Gambling Disorder"let's hope…". 

It is now evident that the disturbance gives gioco d’azzardo both a real public health problem both with regard to the international and Italian context. The main causes of this phenomenon are the continuous and rapid growth of game possibilities on the territory and the increase in the use of forms of gioco d’azzardo online.

In the panorama of pathological addictions, gambling has overwhelmingly taken place in the last decade and today in Italy we are experiencing a real emergency in terms of the number of cases and the variety of forms of manifestation of the phenomenon. From 2007 to today the Orthos project, directed by Riccardo Zebetto, welcomed about 400 players from all over Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, France and England to short residential intensive psychotherapy treatment. The majority of them come from the Tuscany region, which with its foresight has financed the intervention for its citizens, thus limiting the damage that is produced in the social fabric to which they belong.

Project financed by the Lazio Region for the prevention of the risks deriving from pathological gambling, through targeted activities, pursuant to LR 5/13 - Deliberation of the Regional Council n. 314/2014

Psy +Onlus participates, in partnership with Coop. Soc. Parsec, Auser Association and Coop. Soc. Il Cammino, to the project to prevent risks deriving from pathological gambling financed by the Lazio Region called LIG - Lazioingioco.
The offer of games of chance in Italy has shown an exponential growth in the last decade, coming to constitute a visible and characterizing presence on our territory; what was once an activity intended for a restricted sector of the population, which frequented casinos or the so-called "gambling dens", today is offered daily, 24 hours a day, to new sectors of the population (for example women, minors, pensioners) .

March 15, 2014 - lost on Cesv, via Liberiana 17, Rome - edited by Psy Plus Onlus e Orthos project

In recent years, the opportunities for gambling have multiplied and branched across the territory, differentiating and pervading every social space. In recent times, numerous Las Vegas-style game rooms have flourished in Rome which in terms of turnover and social damage have nothing to envy to the real casinos.