{"id":277654,"date":"2026-02-10T23:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/277654\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T23:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T23:07:08","slug":"i-pawned-my-car-outside-the-casino-recovering-gambling-addict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/277654\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I pawned my car outside the casino&#8217;\u2013 Recovering gambling addict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 12 February, Bishop will be 21 months clean, having paid off all his loans and is now financially free.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While Bishop&#8217;s story is that of home, many still find themselves fighting their gambling addiction.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2024\/25 financial year, gambling surged to R1.5 trillion\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rise was driven by easy online access, weak controls, and growing participation among young people.<\/p>\n<p>Regulators and gambling recovery advocates are worried.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-center\">READ | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/videos\/gambling-regulations-target-influencer-led-adverts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gambling regulations target influencer-led adverts<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Among them is Sibongile Simelane Qutana from the South African Responsible Gambling Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>She said they have tried every trick in the book to educate people about the harmful effects of programmed gambling, but advertising remains the biggest challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you look at gambling advertising, it is normalising gambling in our society and exposing minors to gambling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Qutana said that, as a foundation, they believe there is no adequate protection for vulnerable groups and the public, adding that the issue requires a multi-stakeholder approach.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 12 February, Bishop will be 21 months clean, having paid off all his loans and is now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-277654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}