Mortality risk in gambling disorder with Yang-Chieh Brian ChenMortality risk in gambling disorder with Yang-Chieh Brian Chen
Addiction Audio
Dr Yang-Chieh Brian Chen talks with Dr Annika Theodoulou about research on mortality and suicide risk in people with gambling disorder using a nationwide Taiwanese cohort. The conversation outlines how gambling disorder is defined, how the study was done, and what the findings might mean for clinicians, patients and public health.
19:25•9 Oct 2026
Mortality, Suicide and Gambling Disorder: What a Taiwanese Cohort Reveals
Episode Overview
- Gambling disorder is defined as persistent, recurrent gambling that causes significant functional, financial or relational impairment.
- Using a nationwide Taiwanese database, people with gambling disorder showed around six times higher all-cause mortality and ten times higher suicide mortality than matched controls.
- A sibling cohort design helped separate the impact of gambling disorder from shared genetics and early life environment.
- Many patients present with depression, anxiety or other psychiatric problems rather than gambling as the main complaint, so clinicians are urged to screen carefully for gambling and suicidal ideation.
- While effective medication for gambling disorder is lacking, specialist clinics and psychological therapies can help reduce harmful behaviour and potentially prevent suicide.
“Our study found that persons with gambling disorder may have a significantly higher mortality rate… six times in the all-cause mortality rate and a 10 times increased suicide mortality.”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? Addiction Audio turns that question towards gambling disorder, with a sharp focus on how it links to death rates and suicide risk. Here, psychiatric resident Dr Yang-Chieh Brian Chen chats with host Dr Annika Theodoulou about his large population study from Taiwan, looking at all-cause, natural and unnatural mortality among people diagnosed with gambling disorder.
Aimed at researchers, clinicians, students and anyone curious about addiction science, the conversation keeps things clear and grounded, while still going deep into real clinical concerns. Brian lays out what actually counts as a gambling disorder – persistent, recurrent gambling that causes “significant functional impairment” in finances, work or family life – and why online gambling has made things much harder to monitor and regulate.
Using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, his team compared people with gambling disorder to matched controls and even to their own siblings, trying to strip out the effects of genetics and early environment.
The headline finding is stark: “persons with gambling disorder may have a significantly higher mortality rate… six times in the all-cause mortality rate… [and] a 10 times increased suicide mortality.” Brian talks through possible links with depression and other psychiatric comorbidities, while stressing that their data show gambling disorder itself stands as an independent risk factor for suicide.
For busy clinicians, this episode underlines how easy it is to miss gambling disorder when patients present with depression, anxiety or other issues, and why systematic screening for suicidal ideation really matters in this group. For families and people worried about their own gambling, there’s a clear message: not all gambling is a disorder, but if it’s causing serious harm, specialist help and therapy-based treatments can make a difference.
If gambling is more than a hobby for someone you know, what risks might be hidden beneath the surface?
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