On April 11, 2019, the Shouhisha Shinyo Seikyo (translated as “consumer credit co-op”) announced that it took over the gambling addiction countermeasure service from the Non-Profit Organization Iwate Consumer Support Center and restarted it.

 

Shouhisha Shinyo Seikyo is a consumer co-op established in 1969 in Iwate Prefecture, in the Tohoku region, with the aim of supporting the life improvement of needy consumers. The co-op allows lifestyle and household finance consultations and provides low-interest loans for life reconstruction and education, etc. when necessary. (To get a loan, consumers need to become the co-op’s member.)

 

The service by the co-op started on April 1, 2019 and all the services being provided such as individual consultation by telephone, interview and group counseling are all free of charge. The group counseling is handled by specialized counselors, and is held regularly at two locations in Iwate Prefecture, twice a month for persons with gambling addiction or gambling problem and once a month for their families.

 

Gambling addiction is an internationally recognized disorder which has attracted attention in Japan in recent years. In a survey conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2017 with a target number of 10,000 adults, people who were considered to have had gambling problems, at least once in the present or the past, was 3.6% of the total target number (0.9 points increase compared with the previous fiscal year), which was estimated to be about 3.2 million people. On April 19, 2019, the Government of Japan made a cabinet decision on the basic plan against gambling addiction.