The recognised threshold is four or more of nine, inside a single twelve month period. That is what DSM-5 uses for gambling disorder, and severity runs mild at four to five, moderate at six to seven, severe at eight to nine. Below are the nine, in plain English. Answer them about the last year, not about your worst year.
Read this before you score yourself
Two warnings, and they matter more than the number you land on.
The first is that this is not a diagnosis. A page cannot give you one. What it can do is show you the same nine questions a clinician would work through, so that when you ring somebody you are not starting from a blank.
The second is that people underscore themselves badly on this, and always in the same direction. Not out of dishonesty. Because the honest answer to "have you lied about it" is the one you have spent months not saying out loud.
Answer as though somebody else were reading your bank statements.
The nine questions
Over the last twelve months, have you:
- **Needed to gamble with more money** to get the same excitement you used to get from less?
- Been **restless or irritable** when you tried to cut down or stop?
- Made **repeated unsuccessful efforts** to control, cut back or stop?
- Been **preoccupied with gambling**, planning the next bet, reliving old ones, working out how to get money to gamble with?
- Gambled **when you felt distressed**, anxious, guilty or low?
- After losing, **gone back another day to get even**?
- **Lied to conceal** how much you gamble?
- **Risked or lost** a relationship, a job, a course or a career chance because of it?
- **Relied on other people for money** to get you out of a hole gambling put you in?
Four or more, in the same twelve months, is the threshold. Four to five is mild, six to seven is moderate, eight to nine is severe.
Question six is loss chasing and it is worded in the manual as "after losing money gambling, often returns another day to get even ('chasing' one's losses)". Question two is worded as being "restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling", which is worth knowing because you will read a great deal of content claiming gambling has no withdrawal. The diagnostic manual says otherwise, and so does anybody who has tried a fortnight off.
If you scored one, two or three
You have not been let off. You have landed in the space that the World Health Organization keeps a separate category for: hazardous gambling, which sits alongside gambling disorder rather than under it. It exists precisely because a great many people are being harmed at a level below the diagnostic line.
Three is not a safe number. It is an early one, and early is the cheapest place to do something.
The three things that tell you more than the score
Scores are blunt. These three are what actually decides how much trouble you are in.
**Concealment.** A separate account, a second phone, a deleted app you reinstall before bed, a partner who has never seen the real figure. Hiding is the load-bearing part. It is also the reason [telling one person about the money](/guides/gambling/telling-someone-about-the-money) changes more than any block does.
**Whether the money is yours to lose.** Someone putting fifty pounds a month of genuine spare income into football accumulators is in a different position from someone putting fifteen pounds of the electricity money into them. The amount tells you almost nothing on its own. What it is displacing tells you everything.
**Whether anyone else is carrying it.** Borrowed money, a partner covering the shortfall, a parent quietly clearing a card. Question nine exists because that is the point at which a private problem stops being private.
What each answer points to
**Four or more, and the money is under control for now.** Do the blocking anyway, while you still want to. [Gamstop, the bank block and the rest of the stack are here](/guides/gambling/gamstop-bank-blocks-and-blocking-apps), in the order to set them up. A block set on a calm Tuesday is doing its job on a bad Saturday.
**Four or more, and there is debt.** Do both at once. Blocks first, because otherwise next month's wages follow last month's, then free debt advice. StepChange is free and independent on 0800 138 1111, Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm. There is a proper order to the debt part, and it is [set out here](/guides/gambling/gambling-debt-what-to-do-first).
**Under four, but you did not like reading the list.** Take the two fastest layers, Gamstop Online and your bank's gambling block, and get on with your life. Twenty minutes now, against the version of this page you would be reading in a year.
**Any score at all, and you have been thinking about ending it.** Go to the next section.
The bit we are not going to skip
NICE, which writes NHS clinical guidance, tells clinicians to "recognise that gambling and gambling-related harms can be a dominant risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, even in the absence of other risk factors". The same guidance says the risk "may be highest immediately after a gambling episode".
Read that carefully. Even in the absence of other risk factors. Nothing else in your life has to be wrong for this to be dangerous.
Samaritans is **116 123**, free, any hour of the day or night. If you are in immediate danger, **999**. You do not need a plan or a certainty to ring. Losing today and not wanting to be alone with it is reason enough.
After you have answered
The National Gambling Helpline is 0808 8020 133, 24 hours a day, and they will talk to you whether you scored nine or nothing.
If the answer was closer to the top of the list than you expected, the honest next move is not more reading. It is one block and one conversation. Both are quicker than this page was.
Some people find it easier to keep the blocks, the danger hours and the person who knows in the same place, which is what [Renovyn's Shield](/shield) does. Friction, plus somebody in the loop. It is not treatment and it is not a substitute for the helpline.
Common questions
**How many of the nine do I have to have?** Four or more within the same twelve month period is the threshold clinicians use for gambling disorder, with mild at four to five, moderate at six to seven and severe at eight to nine. Fewer than four does not mean nothing is wrong. The World Health Organization keeps a separate hazardous gambling category for exactly that group.
**Can I have a gambling problem if I sometimes win?** Yes. None of the nine questions is about winning or losing. They are about control, concealment, preoccupation and consequence. A good month changes the balance and nothing else.
**Is it a problem if I only gamble small amounts?** It can be. Judge it by what the money was needed for and by what the gambling has cost you elsewhere, not by the size of the stake. Fifteen pounds you have not got does more damage than five hundred you have.
**Does gambling have withdrawal symptoms?** Something like it, yes. Being "restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling" is one of the nine diagnostic criteria. It is not a chemical detox, and the agitation, the shortened temper and the flatness in [the first week without a bet](/guides/gambling/the-first-week-without-a-bet) are real and expected.
Sources
- [DSM-5 gambling disorder criteria (Connecticut DMHAS reproduction)](https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/dmhas/pgs/dsmdiagnosispdf.pdf). The nine criteria, the four-in-twelve-months threshold, the loss chasing and restlessness wordings, and the mild, moderate and severe bands.
- [NICE NG248, Harmful gambling recommendations](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng248/chapter/recommendations). Gambling as a dominant risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, and that the risk may be highest immediately after a gambling episode.
- [NHS, Addiction: what is it?](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/addiction-what-is-it/). Addiction as not having control over doing something to the point where it could be harmful to you.
