Adhd and Pathologic Gambling

ADHD patients are prone to a variety of other impulse control disorders. Rates of impulse control disorders usually do not differ in gender but the "choice" of impulsive behaviours may be different. Some experts of gambling addiction report a very high co-occurrence of ADHD and pathologic gambling and say that up to 20% of the patients with gambling addiction show traits of ADHD. Another impulsive disorder can be diagnosed in 35 % of pathologic gamblers (compulsive buying or compulsive sexual disorders) compared to 3% prevalence in the control groups.

Most therapies of pathologic gambling will not handle this topic because the knowledge is still limited. But it might be worse to look for traits of ADHD and make a multimodal treatment approach including psychopharmacotherapy.