Battling betting addiction: Silent cries of a pastor, police, prisoner, and psychologist

It’s a day after salaries were paid in Ghana’s capital, Accra, and a police officer is scanning through the city as if there has been a robbery.

He navigates his car through the heavy traffic that the overcrowded city has become known for, and murmurs the words, “I need to stop this,” as he sweats profusely, despite the car’s air conditioning being fully on.

He arrives at one destination, then moves to another, hoping for some good luck or a hint to apprehend these non-existent robbers.

Fortunately, for Accra folks, there was no robbery in the capital. Unfortunately for him, he’s just robbed himself of his hard-earned insufficient salary and his family’s daily bread for the month.

This police officer has just gambled his entire salary away, barely 24 hours after he received that smile-inducing bank alert. He’s lost everything. 

Every single cedi to Aviator – an online game where bettors wager on a moving plane, and hope to cash out before it flies away. 

“What will I tell my wife and kid?” He quizzes.

He breathes heavily and scrolls through his contact list. Who will be his saviour this month? Not the loan facility available for the security service. He’s been cautioned not to show up there again after taking too many loans that he’s yet to repay.

Grave mistake

READ ALSO: Meet Michelle Agyemang – Ghanaian teenager who saved England at Women’s EURO 2025

But how did he even get here in the first place? 

He opens up to Pulse Ghana’s Mandela Yaw Anuvabe…

I was not introduced, it was something I saw somebody, a colleague officer, doing on his phone. So, I thought he was using that application that you use to boost your phone so that it can run fast or work fast. Later, when I drew closer, it wasn’t that app. [It was] this Aviator app.

As the saying goes, curiosity kills the cat, except that this time curiosity is about to ruin the life of a police officer. This was early 2023.

New to gambling and largely ignorant about sports betting, he was simply fascinated by the Aviator game. That same night, he started betting with small amounts of money, but he already got the feeling that “the house always wins.”

Instead of stopping there, he increased his wages after seeing others cash out huge amounts of money on the same app. Pressured, he followed suit.

He brushed away several warnings, thinking he had it under control. 

Some of my colleagues who got to know that I am into that were warning me that I should stop, but I knew that I had it under control. So, it’s not something that will overcome me or something I’ll get addicted to, or something that I will spend so much into it. No. So myself, I think I had it under control, knowing that I was only betting a little amount.

Slow poison

READ ALSO: 10 World class players who never won the Ballon d’Or

But, betting addiction doesn’t work like that. The Medical Director and Clinical Psychologist for the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Doctor Isaac Newman Arthur, explains:

Yeah, so, there are two basic types of addictions. We have substance-related addictions. So, we have marijuana, cocaine, we have alcohol, and those other things. Then we have behavioral addictions. So that one, we may look at addictions to pornography, masturbation, addiction to gambling, or betting.  

So, sports betting is also part of sports betting addiction, which is also another type of addiction, when you look at addictions, because they all interfere with the communication pathways of the brain.  There are pathways of the brain for reward, for pleasure, for excitement.

He adds that gambling addiction is a tricky form of addiction that attacks the communication aspect of the human brain.

Sports betting, and all these bets and gambling actually work on the brain as though you are on marijuana or cocaine or something, but the mechanism may be different. They all interfere with the communication part.

As time went by, the police officer slowly started getting addicted as his brain’s communication was tweaked. He admits:

When I realized that I had lost much and was trying to chase my losses. So, that made me bet more. And more especially because my salary account is linked to mobile money, so I could [deposit] a bigger amount directly onto my mobile money account and transmit it or move it into the betting account for that bet.

Fighting the thrill

READ ALSO: Panenka: How the world’s most famous penalty kick came about

The thrill of winning huge and potential rewards pushed him deep into the abyss of betting addiction. This, Doctor Arthur says, is common with betting addiction.

The feeling that you’re achieving, the feeling that you are succeeding or you will succeed, that anticipation actually interferes with the communication part of the brain, right?

The thrill was getting intense, and this police officer was gradually losing it all. In less than a year, this same person who started betting with as little as 10 pesewas began losing his entire salary to Aviator. He recalls with a trembling voice one of such days.

Yes. Yes. One day, I lost GH₵3000 overnight. The salary that I waited for a whole 30 days with so much endurance before it came… less than 24 hours, I lost it all. And I was left with nothing.

Nothing for his family to feed on for an entire month. He couldn’t believe his eyes, so he went back to the app to clarify if this was a nightmare.

And I began to ask myself, ‘What is this?’ And I can’t help myself too. Meanwhile, I’m not even alone. I have a wife and a child that I’m taking care of. I lost it. When I get back to the app, there’s nothing I can do about it.

His voice still quivering, he laments:  

It’s gone. It’s gone.

Dreams and nightmares

No. This wasn’t a nightmare. His salary, part of which had already been used to clear loans he took to bet, had just vanished in a few minutes. It flew away in seconds just like the Aviator plane.

This led to his Accra escapade. Scanning the busy city looking for an escape. A loan from anywhere to survive the month with his family. A few stops here and there, with nothing to show for. Calls to colleagues, friends, and acquaintances in search of a way out.

No help was in sight. All was lost, and it looked like his family had to fast for an entire month.

Finally, a good Samaritan who works at a microfinance offered him a loan.

He used to be someone scared of taking loans, but betting took that phobia away.

Faulty moral compass

He’s also a pastor, but betting made him go against his morals. Betting addiction, according to Dr. Arthur, has nothing to do with one’s social standing or moral allegiance.

So, it has nothing to do with the status of the person, the morality of the person, the spirituality of the person, or the educational level of the person. Those things in themselves have the capacity to cause an addiction. So, it doesn’t matter. Anybody who starts it is likely to become addicted, not because of who they are, but because of what they have gotten themselves involved in.

READ ALSO: Battling winter, racism & injuries: Isaac Arthur on life as fledgling Black footballer in Europe

Final confession

However, the police officer who’s also a pastor admits betting is wrong, but at the same time downplays its moral effects because, unlike years past, gambling is now digital and ubiquitous. It’s now part of the everyday life of the Ghanaian youth.

It’s easily accessible on their mobile devices and communities with shops littered across the country.

The pastor confesses:

Because we’re doing it virtually, I don’t see the bad side of it, but in reality, that’s what we’re doing. It’s a gambling thing. Gambling, as well as lotto, the bible doesn’t say we should stake lotto, but the situation will push you to stake. Whether you win something or not, to take care of yourself.

In two years, he lost approximately GH₵60,000 to Aviator and says it “can make you become like a beggar.”

Addict turned advocate

Far away in Nigeria, Lobistars was struggling to get by and battling a 13-year gambling addiction. His story corroborates the police officer and pastor’s ordeal. Lobistars, also a married man, was an exceptional young man before betting took away his shine.

Betting addiction set him years back and affected his family life. However, before Pulse Ghana’s Mandela interviewed him, he had managed to crawl out of that abyss. But it didn’t come easily.

One faithful weekend, he crashed out. He lost a bet and went on a lamenting series on X (formerly Twitter) after Italian Serie A side Atalanta drew goalless with Venezia on March 1, 2025.

From that time on, his story changed forever. In exactly five months, he’s amassed over 120 thousand followers and currently uses his page as a gambling awareness platform.

As an advocate against gambling, Lobistars has turned down several betting gigs because he believes it only leads to winning more souls into betting and consequently addiction.

This, Doctor Arthur acknowledged, is one of the signs of a recovering or a recovered addict.  He shared:

So, one of the signs that a person has overcome their addiction is their ability to use their experience as a tool for impact. It’s one of the signs. If the person is still shy and is still hiding and stuff, it is likely they’ve not fully overcome their addiction.

There are good signs on the part of the police officer and pastor as he agreed to speak freely for this special feature, but there’s a problem. He also disclosed on the day of the interview that he had squandered all his salary on betting again the day before.

READ ALSO: Why Fatau Dauda’s experience will determine Ghana’s performance at 2026 World Cup

Escaping the abyss

How can he get out? Doctor Arthur advised anyone in a similar situation to walk to any nearby hospital for treatment. He detailed what goes into such treatments:

Addiction is just like any other specialist care. So it’s just like you go to see a gynecologist or whatever. So it’s the normal amount of money we spend when we go to any hospital, unless it’s an in-house kind of treatment where you go to a rehab and at the rehab, in addition to the treatment, accommodation and all those things may come with some cost, but it’s just like seeking healthcare for any other reason.

Depending on the frequency of visits and treatment, one can spend around GH₵300 to GH₵1000 monthly to treat betting addiction in Ghana. 

The police officer and pastor is yet to seek professional help as he battles to repay his loans. To survive the other month he lost his entire salary, he found his way to the national police headquarters to seek another loan facility. But he was thrown out for owing so much.

Locked behind bars

A few minutes away from the national police headquarters, a 32-year-old accountant is sandwiched between two prostitutes and giggling on their way to party the night away at Purple Pub in Osu.

Edward Unicorn was loaded that night and had just invited a friend to join him to have fun alongside the prostitutes. He had over GH₵40,000 on him.

Monies he stole from the Ghana Police Church. Who steals from the police? That’s the desperation that betting addiction leads one into.

When dragged to court, the 32-year-old informed the judge that he had used the funds to place bets and requested that the court allow him bail so that he could work and repay the debt.

A theft charge was brought against Unicorn. He explained his guilty plea as quoted in a Graphiconline article on September 14, 2024, below:

I spent the money by playing Aviator. I staked it and never won. I was desperate to win but lost. I was addicted to Aviator, so my brother referred me to a doctor at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. I called him twice, and I never went to see him. I put in the GH₵40,000 bit by bit. I was desperate to win.

READ ALSO: How ice cream became an unlikely lifesaver during Africa’s worst stadium disaster

He was found guilty on his plea by the court, which was presided over by Mrs. Sedinam Awo Kwadam.

She directed that Unicorn pay GH₵5,000 and that the Ghana Police Church receive GH₵2,775 that was recovered.

He worked for the church in June 2024 and was in charge of collecting money from ushers who brought the church’s offertory.

In addition, Unicorn was in charge of payroll preparation, monthly reports to the Financial Committee, and the administration of the church’s mobile money accounts.

He misappropriated all these funds and used a chunk of it on bets with his friend. 

Knowing he would be apprehended, the prosecutor claimed, Unicorn feigned a mental illness and was brought to the Ghana Police Hospital before being sent to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, where he received treatment and was released.

Unicorn was jailed for two years.

A young, ambitious man now spends his days trapped behind bars. Aviator takes another soul.

Spirit behind the plane

For the pastor, he believes there’s something spiritual about the game. He recounted a female church member who claimed to have seen a human skeleton on the aviator plane. He interpreted it as a revelation that no matter the amount you deposit, you’re bound to lose it all.

But does spirituality have a part to play in any of these?

Throughout the interview, Doctor Arthur kept mentioning the bible and spirituality. So he was asked what role that plays in treating betting addiction, and he explained:

It’s a holistic treatment. Spirituality plus therapy. Even spirituality is also part of therapy. There are all kinds of therapies around spirituality that help, right? And so, we encourage people to be in therapy while they actually do whatever they want to do; pray, meditate, or whatever. Those things are also essential. The trouble comes when a person is just praying and it’s not working, and they are still not coming for therapy. A combination of it is better than just one, just one of it.

Amplify their cries

Treatment for betting addiction can last on average three to six months, but in severe cases with consistent relapses, it can last a lifetime.

As the betting industry continues to grow, many remain tight-lipped about the addiction problem. Many have taken their lives. Many have lost their livelihoods. Many continue to silently weep within as they lose the spark to life that they once had.

MUST READ: World Cup: Qatar’s human rights record dominated headlines. Why’s USA’s rampant gun violence not getting same global attention?

The Gaming Commission has a lot of work to do to tackle the problem. 

This can’t be the end of Ghana’s youth.