• Are you preoccupied with gambling (preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to get money with which to gamble)?
• Have you ever lost time from work or family due to your gambling?
• Have you ever neglected responsibilities to yourself or family to gamble?
• Have you ever pawned or sold personal possessions for gambling money?
• Have you ever borrowed money under false pretences to gamble?
• Do you need to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement?
• Do you have repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling?
• Are you restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling?
• Do you gamble as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?
• After losing money gambling, do you often return another day to get even?
• Do you lie to family members, therapists, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with gambling?
• Have you committed illegal acts such as forgery, fraud, theft, or embezzlement to finance gambling?
• Have you jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of gambling?
• Do you rely on others to provide money to relieve a desperate financial situation caused by gambling?
• Do you feel hopeless, depressed or suicidal due to gambling?

Compulsive or pathological gambling is "a chronic and progressive failure to resist impulses to gamble and gambling behavior that compromises, disrupts, or damages the gambler's personal life, family, or vocational pursuits."

Many of the questions above have been taken directly from the American Psychiatric Association's DSM IV- 4th edition Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders as evidence for meeting criteria for the diagnosis of pathological gambling. Compulsive gambling is a treatable disorder!