Gambling Effects On Marriage

Posted By admin On 04/04/22

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Effects Of Gambling On Marriage

Like any other activity that gets in the way of couples’ intimacy and family time, gaming had the same effect. Researchers were surprised to discover, however, that for couples in which both partners played, 76% reported that gaming was actually good for their marriage. The gambling industry has done a superb job of marketing gambling as a social activity or pastime. Poker is regularly on TV, fantasy sports is part of sports, a night out at the casino is normal, and so forth. They've made it as the 'in thing' to do. This is how most people get hooked. There is nothing glamorous or fun about gambling. Gambling is one bad habit that if it grabs a hold it takes over your entire life, wrecks you marriage, alienates your family, leaves you in financial ruin and destroys your life. Like alcohol abuse, gambling is often a root cause for domestic violence and child abuse. Compulsive Gambling Symptoms, Causes and Effects. Gambling is one of the most insidious of human vices, as it presents the illusion of easy money yet can quickly lead to financial ruin. The odds are never in your favor whether it is poker, blackjack or anything else; gambling is a successful industry because the house always wins. What Impact Does an Affair Have on the Victim Spouse? When one partner goes outside of the relationship for emotional or physical needs, the other partner may end the relationship, or forgive and stay in it, but either way, extra-marital affairs have major, negative effects that can be felt for some time.

On behalf of The Marks Law Firm, L.L.C. posted in Divorce on Thursday, July 31, 2014

This spring, the Missouri legislature passed a bill to allow casinos to run lines of credit for individuals – a minimum of $10,000 and no maximum. Governor Nixon did not sign the legislation, but he did not veto it, so it became law and goes into effect August 28.

Negative Effects Of Gambling

While the law may have the effect of increasing casino business, it will also have the rather obvious effect of putting more gamblers into debt.

Previously, Missouri had strict limits on what a person could bet and lose in a given time period. Now, both of those restrictions have disappeared so that a person with sufficient income (or even credit cards) could ask a casino to float a “marker” of a significant amount – and lose it all in one night.

How could this impact a divorce? In Missouri, debts incurred during a marriage, just like property acquired during a marriage, are presumed the joint responsibility of the parties. So, if one spouse decides to go to the casino and open a line of credit for $25,000 only to lose all of it at the poker table, that spouse has incurred a marital debt that could put the other spouse on the hook for half.

Historically, courts in Missouri have considered gambling debts accrued during the marriage in different ways depending upon the knowledge of the other spouse. If the other spouse could establish that he or she had no knowledge of the gambling and/or the debt, the court would see that as a form of either marital misconduct or dissipation of marital assets. In such a case, the court could decide to place all of the responsibility for the debt on the gambling spouse and even order that gambling spouse to reimburse the unaware spouse of her half of the marital assets lost to repay the gambling debt. For example, if the gambling spouse took out a loan against a 401(k) without telling the other spouse, half of those funds – plus any taxes or penalties incurred, and interest income lost – would be awarded to the unaware spouse.

If the non-gambling spouse is aware of the gambling and the debt, the non-gambling spouse may have a harder time recovering the lost assets. The court will look to whether the non-gambling spouse acceded to the gambling or tried to protest but found no way to “cut off” the gambling spouse because of the joint ownership of assets.

Gambling Effects On Family

Once a spouse files for divorce, that spouse has a remedy to protect the marital estate against further depletion of gambling debt by seeking an order of the court prohibiting encumbering or dissipating any asset without the consent of both parties. Such a mutual restraining order will assure the non-gambling spouse that any misconduct during the pendency of the divorce will be deducted from the property of the gambling spouse.

Because gambling could be considered a form of marital misconduct, the court could use problem gambling as a basis for an unequal distribution of the marital estate.

One can debate the pros and cons of gambling as social or economic policy, but with regard to divorce, it can create serious financial problems. If you have questions about gambling and divorce, contact us – we can help.

The Perils and Pleasures of Online Gaming for Married LifeScientific American

Role-playing games like World of Warcraft allow players to become buff, sword-yielding warriors online — which helps explain why dedicated gamers can while away hours in front of their computer screens. But a new study shows that players’ commitment to virtual reality has real-world consequences: it can negatively affect marital satisfaction.

Of course, it’s hardly surprising that excessive video gaming might make your partner unhappy — but it’s not for the reason you’d think. Brigham Young University researchers found that it wasn’t necessarily the long hours spent online that spouses had a problem with. Rather, they got upset when gaming caused offline arguments and particularly when a spouse’s excessive gaming interfered with the couple’s bedtime routine: couples who did not go to bed at the same time reported less marital satisfaction.

“It’s not the hours that make a difference,” said Neil Lundberg, one of the researchers and a recreation-management professor at Brigham Young, in a statement. “It’s really what it does to the relationship — whether or not it creates conflict and quarreling over the game.”

(MORE: Brain Changes in Video Gamers: Addiction or Just People Having Fun?)

For the study, published in the Journal of Leisure Research, researchers surveyed 349 married gamers: in 132 couples, only one person gamed — 84% of the time it was the husband. In the other 217 couples, both partners gamed, but in cases where one person played more than the other, it was again the husband 73% of the time. On average, the study respondents were 33 years old and had been married seven years. (Previous research has found that more than a third of players of multiplayer online role-playing games are married; 22% have kids — how they have the time to game is beyond us.)

Overall, researchers found that 75% of gamers’ spouses wished they would put more effort into their marriage, and when one person spent a lot more time gaming than the other, it usually led to dissatisfaction and arguing. Like any other activity that gets in the way of couples’ intimacy and family time, gaming had the same effect.

Researchers were surprised to discover, however, that for couples in which both partners played, 76% reported that gaming was actually good for their marriage. Interacting with one another’s avatars online led to higher marital satisfaction in real life, the study found — as long as both people were happy with their mutual participation. Interestingly, couples who gamed on the same team were less likely to report being satisfied than those who played on separate teams — possibly in part because more advanced gamers got frustrated when their less skillful spouses couldn’t keep up.

(MORE: Brain Aging: What’s Nintendo Got to Do with It?)