Mother of Two Ends Life over $550K Gambling Debt

A 29-year-old woman and a mother of two has ended her life as she was struggling with online gambling addiction. Her addiction began during the pandemic lockdown leading her to borrow money from her sisters and sell personal items to feed her addiction.

Young Mother of Two Ends Life Because of Gambling

The victim, who lived in Manali New Town, committed suicide on Sunday after she lost more money on online gambling. She had two children aged 3 and 2. The police explained that the woman became interested in online gambling when the first lockdowns were introduced. Family members tried to intervene but they could not convince the woman to stop gambling.

She is believed to have lost $550,000 playing online over the years. The woman felt stressed and anxious and often confided in her sisters. On the night of her death, she was rushed to a hospital after being discovered unconscious in her room, but she was pronounced dead upon arrival.

The tragedy of this young mother has ruffled feathers with locals opposed to any gambling expansion. India has remained a closed-off market so far as gambling products are available. Many fear that any attempt to expand gambling would result in more wanton deaths and more people falling prey to the problem.

A counterargument against that is that people like the victim die because of inadequate consumer protection measures that grey and offshore websites are not entirely interested in introducing, as they prioritize customer acquisition and total spend per customer instead.

No Affordability Checks Cared for in Illegal Market

The tragedy of the woman could have potentially been averted if she had access to helpful resources and a responsible gambling website that had run the necessary KYC and AML checks, along with affordability checks, to ensure that she was able to afford to gamble the amounts that she had been gambling with.

Similar tragedies are not uncommon. In the Philippines, a mother decided to sell her infant in order to repay an e-sabong debt. The child was later retrieved by police officers who found the buyers, but the mother is unlikely to receive custody of the child again.