Chief executive Amanda Pritchard of the National Health Service (NHS) for the United Kingdom is urging legislators there to act to stop young people from developing an addiction to cryptocurrency trading. Speaking on June 12 at the ConfedExpo of NHS management in Manchester, Pritchard underlined the immediate need of regulation to handle this increasing problem.

Reacting to “a real and growing social need,” the NHS inaugurated its fifteenth dedicated gambling addiction center earlier this year. “As a society, we need to ask: Are we okay to simply continue picking up the pieces while the methods employed to keep people hooked get ever more sophisticated?” she said.

NHS Opens Fifteenth Specialist Gambling Addiction Clinic

Pritchard underlined the growing chances for younger individuals to develop an addiction to gambling, especially markets for unregistered cryptocurrencies. “Evermore opportunities spring up for younger people to get addicted to gambling, including — as staff told me when I visited the national problem gambling clinic earlier this year — on unregulated cryptocurrencies markets,” she said.

The Times noted Pritchard subsequently added, “The addictive habit sees people investing their own money in something with no fixed value, with the NHS left to pick up the pieces — this growing problem could create further demand for the health service.”

Demands Control to Address Addiction to Cryptocurrency Trading

Pritchard underlined the significance of early actions to solve the core of the issue. She questioned: “Will we tackle problems at source, or do we accept the NHS becomes an expensive safety net?”

King Charles established regulations controlling cryptocurrencies in June last year under the same guidelines as conventional financial services. But opting to control it as a financial business, the U.K. Treasury in July 2023 rejected a May proposal from legislators to control crypto retail trading the same as gambling.

More rules are arriving, according to Economic Secretary Bim Afolami in April, which will enable operations including running an exchange and firstly custody of customer assets inside the regulator’s reach.

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High-risk coins appeal to many crypto enthusiasts hoping for large profits. Though many promoting themselves as having no backing value, memecoins have lately become somewhat popular once more. Often leading to large liquidations when bets go bad, distributed crypto exchanges let users place highly leveraged bets on the price direction of tokens.

Additionally rising in the online, distributed, always-on crypto realm are crypto gaming platforms. DefiLlama claims one such site, Polymarket, has had its value locked reach around $29 million. It provides specialist bets, such whether Elon Musk will forbid Apple products at his businesses, in addition to betting on a wide range of events, including sports and election results.

On June 11, Australia outlawed credit card and bitcoin use for online gaming platforms, therefore bringing the rules level with offline gaming platforms.

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