Online Betting & Gaming Addiction Surges: Chennai Doctors Warn of Behavioral Health Crisis

Ashutosh*, 13, began failing in school, stopped speaking to his family, and stayed awake late into the night under a blanket with his phone. “I thought he was feeling cold,” his mother said at the de-addiction centre at Government Stanley Hospital on Saturday. “Only later did we realise he was betting on online apps. In just three weeks, we lost `3 lakh. He had access to my bank account and passwords.”Doctors in Chennai say behavioural addictions, including online gaming, betting and gambling, are increasingly being reported at de-addiction centres, running parallel to substance abuse cases. Patients range from adolescents as young as 13 to adults in their mid-30s, most of them men. While some are students failing subjects due to excessive gaming, others are older men who have pledged homes or drained savings in betting attempts, pushing families into financial and psychological distress.“Addiction to online gaming or betting is difficult to diagnose because these platforms are accessible to everyone,” says Dr V Sabitha, head of the department of psychiatry at Stanley Medical College. “What differentiates addiction from a short-term obsession is sustained dysfunction, refusal to attend work or school, irritability, withdrawal from relationships, and inability to perform basic daily tasks for over a month.” Diagnosis, she says, begins with structured questionnaires and clinical assessment.Debora Myrtle Anish, psychologist at the hospital, says those vulnerable to behavioural addiction often seek immediate gratification or are dealing with prolonged social isolation or financial stress. “Games offer points, betting offers money. Both trigger reward. Many such patients also engage in intraday trading, where stocks are bought and sold within the day, increasing risk-taking behaviour,” she says, adding that several patients have also been victims of cyber fraud.Gaming disorder was formally recognised as a mental health condition by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), which came into effect in 2022.In 2025, the Tamil Nadu Police Cyber Crime Wing registered about 12,500 cybercrime cases, a significant number of them linked to investment and online trading scams.Addiction, doctors say, is not driven solely by external factors. “There is strong biological evidence behind all forms of addiction,” says Dr Mithun Prasad, psychiatrist at SIMS Hospital in Vadapalani. “Behavioural and substance addictions activate the same mesolimbic dopamine pathway, the brain’s reward circuit, though we classify them differently on paper.”He adds that physical symptoms over time often reveal hidden addictions. “Excessive gamers commonly report chronic neck pain. In other behavioural addictions, patients may first report marital breakdowns or anxiety. The addiction sometimes emerges later during evaluation. As a result, case numbers are underreported, though such addictions are the root trigger in nearly 50% of the patients we see.”When addiction affects families, group therapy sessions, including interactions with recovered patients, are held every Friday at Stanley Hospital, says Anish.While global research on diagnosing behavioural addiction is still evolving, clinicians say tools such as quantitative EEG or encephalogram (qEEG) may help. “qEEG analyses brainwave patterns and can visually demonstrate addiction-related changes in the brain,” says Dr Prasad. “It can be especially useful for patients in denial.”(*Name changed to protect identity)