Addiction to gambling is an illness officially known as "pathological gambling," an internationally recognized designation. Despite the critical nature of the illness and the serious effects it has on those close to the sufferer, few other diseases are as disregarded as pathological gambling by both the psychiatric medical society and the administration, compared with other diseases.

US diagnostic criteria officially recognized pathological gambling as a mental illness in 1980. The World Health Organization also classified it as a disease 15 years ago. The prevalence of pathological gambling in industrialized countries is between 1.5 percent and 2.5 percent among adults. In Japan, too, an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million people suffer from the disease.

The shockingly large number of patients is not so surprising given the fact that the Japanese gambling industry is worth between 30 trillion yen ($285 billion) and 40 trillion yen a year, which is more or less the same as Japan's overall medical expenses.