Compulsive gambling is the unmanageable impulse to gamble with no thoughts of the consequences and negative effects it has on your life. When you're a compulsive gambler, you have the irresistible urge to chase your loses, hide the truth about where you have been and what you have been doing and resort to doing criminal activities to support your gambling addiction.

Most often, addiction to gambling progresses after several times of playing and there are some who gamble for years but with no urge to let it overcome their lives but for some it becomes a mean to earn money or to get away from a stressful life and the impulse to gamble becomes uncontrollable. Over time, compulsive gamblers may not even give that much notice to the money they win but to the rush they experience when winning much like the rush experienced by taking drugs. compulsive gamblers are not contented with just betting but they need to increase the stakes and place larger bets which later on results to their destruction.

Some signs of compulsive gambling are:

1. Preoccupation with everything about gambling

2. Raising the stakes and taking risks

3. Choosing to gamble instead of spending quality time with family or friends

4. Hiding the growing addiction and feeling guilty after playing

5. Trying to find ways to borrow money for gambling and resorting to theft at later stages

6. Trying to stop but unsuccessful

These are just some of the many symptoms experienced by compulsive gamblers and this kind of addiction is considered as impulse control disorder and seeking treatment is neccessary. Otherwise the addiction will continue even if it causes harm to the gambler or to the people around him.