The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, has urged British lawmakers to address the growing issue of crypto trading addiction among young people. Speaking at the ConfedExpo of NHS managers in Manchester on June 12, Pritchard highlighted the increasing social need for specialist gambling addiction clinics.
Rising Addiction Concerns
Pritchard noted that the NHS recently opened its fifteenth specialist gambling addiction clinic in response to this pressing issue. She emphasized the need for society to question whether it is acceptable to continue merely addressing the consequences of addiction while methods to keep people hooked become more sophisticated. She pointed out that younger people are increasingly getting addicted to gambling, particularly through unregulated cryptocurrency markets.
Impact on the NHS
According to Pritchard, the addictive nature of crypto trading involves individuals investing their own money in assets with no fixed value, leaving the NHS to deal with the fallout. This growing problem could place additional demands on the health service. She posed a critical question to the audience about allocating finite NHS resources, asking whether difficulties should be tackled at their source or if the NHS should be left as an expensive safety net.
In June of the previous year, King Charles enacted laws to regulate cryptocurrency under the same rules as other financial services. However, in July 2023, the U.K. Treasury rejected a proposal to regulate crypto retail trading as gambling, instead treating it as a financial service. Economic Secretary Bim Afolami indicated in April that new laws would soon bring activities like operating exchanges and taking custody of customer assets under regulatory oversight for the first time.
High-Risk Crypto Trading
Many crypto users are drawn to high-risk tokens in hopes of significant gains, with memecoins becoming popular despite lacking intrinsic value. Decentralized crypto exchanges enable users to place highly leveraged bets on token prices, leading to significant liquidations when bets fail. This always-on crypto space has also seen a rise in crypto gambling platforms, such as Polymarket, which has nearly $29 million in value locked and offers bets on various events, including sports and election outcomes.
In a related move, Australia recently banned the use of crypto and credit cards for online gambling platforms, aligning the rules with those for offline gambling.
