Gamblers Anonymous and Peer Support Groups in Asia

What Gamblers Anonymous offers and how to reach it

Gamblers Anonymous is the best known peer support option, and it is the one most people mean when they ask about "GA meetings." It is a fellowship of people who meet to stop gambling, built around a 12-step program, and it is free. There is no membership fee, no registration and no waiting list. You turn up, you listen, and you decide whether to come back.

The global website is the place to start. It carries the meeting directory, an explanation of the program and the self-assessment questionnaire, and it is organized by country so you can see what runs near you or online¹. If you are in a city with no listed meeting, the online meeting list is the practical fallback, and it works from anywhere with an internet connection.

What a meeting actually looks like matters if you have never been to one. Expect a room of people at different stages, some new and some with years of abstinence behind them. Expect first names only. Expect no pressure to speak on your first visit, and no one asking for your surname, your employer or your bank details. The format is usually a short reading, then people sharing how the week went, then closing. Meetings typically run 60 to 90 minutes.

For families, the parallel fellowship is Gam-Anon, which follows the same structure but is for the people living with a gambler rather than the gambler. In Asia, family support often comes through the same national services that run the helplines, so it is worth asking what is available for relatives when you call.

The 20-question self-assessment: how GA screens for problem gambling

GA's 20-question self-assessment is the entry point many people use before they ever attend a meeting. The questions ask about time lost to gambling, money borrowed, sleep, honesty with family, and whether you have ever considered self-harm over gambling losses. It is a screening tool, not a diagnosis, and the scoring is deliberately blunt: a handful of yes answers is usually enough to suggest the pattern is worth taking seriously.

Other services use shorter tools. Singapore Pools account customers can take the Problem Gambling Severity Index, a nine-question test with no right or wrong answers, to see where they sit⁵. Singapore's National Council on Problem Gambling also publishes its own self-test for anyone wondering whether they have a problem⁶. If you want to understand what these questionnaires measure and how they differ, our guide to gambling self-tests walks through PGSI and the other common screens.

The practical value of doing a self-test first is that it gives you language for the conversation. When you call a helpline or walk into a meeting, "I scored high on the PGSI" or "I answered yes to eight of the 20" is a faster way to explain where you are than trying to describe months of behavior from scratch.

Recovery Support Network: Japan's pachinko and pachislo helpline

Japan's specialist service is the Recovery Support Network, usually shortened to RSN. It is a telephone counseling service focused specifically on pachinko and pachislo addiction, which makes it unusual: most helplines cover gambling generally, while RSN was built around the machine gambling that dominates the Japanese market². Its stated purpose is early intervention through telephone counseling and support toward recovery.

That focus matters practically. If your gambling is pachinko or pachislo, the person on the other end of the line already knows the parlors, the machines and the way the habit builds. You will not have to explain the basics. If your gambling is sports betting, casino trips abroad or online poker, a general line may fit better.

RSN is funded by the pachinko industry itself, through contributions from industry organizations, which is worth knowing when you decide how much weight to give its advice. It is a third-party consultation body rather than a regulator or an operator, and it exists to take calls from players and families.

RSN helpline: about 5,000 consultations a year, with hours to check on the RSN site

RSN handles roughly 5,000 telephone consultations a year². That number is a useful reality check in both directions: it shows the line is busy enough to be a real service, and it shows that most people with a pachinko problem never call it.

The line is staffed rather than round the clock, so check current hours on the RSN site before you plan a call. If you need something outside those hours, Japan has other routes. The national gambling addiction leaflet published by the health ministry lists support contacts, and the NPO National Association of Families of Gambling Addicts runs a self-help group for affected people and families on 090-1404-3327⁴. For horse racing and other public betting, there is a consultation line on 0570-007-221, open Monday to Friday except public holidays and the year-end and New Year period⁷. Nagoya Keiba also publishes a gambling dependence page pointing to counseling⁸.

If you are outside Japan and want to know what runs where you are, our gambling helplines page lists numbers, hours and languages across the region.

What RSN's line also handles: 'strategy method' scam inquiries

RSN's remit is not only addiction counseling. It also takes inquiries about so-called strategy method scams, the schemes that promise a system for beating pachinko or pachislo machines. These are a recurring problem in the Japanese machine gambling world: players pay for a "method" that cannot work, and the money is gone.

If you have been approached by someone selling a strategy, a machine-reading technique or a guaranteed system, that is a call RSN is set up to take. The same applies if a family member has been paying for one. It is a practical, concrete question rather than a counseling one, and it is worth knowing the line covers it before you assume your issue is too small to call about.

Peer support or professional counseling: which route fits your situation

Peer support and professional counseling do different jobs, and most people end up using both rather than choosing between them.

Peer support, meaning GA and similar fellowships, gives you people who have been where you are. It is free, it is available at short notice, and it runs on a schedule that gives structure to a week that gambling used to fill. What it does not give you is clinical assessment, medication advice or treatment for a co-occurring condition such as depression or an alcohol problem.

Professional counseling gives you a trained clinician, an assessment and a treatment plan. In Singapore, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is staffed by trained para-counselors and mental health professionals, and it runs daily from 8am to 11pm with callers able to stay anonymous³. The National Council on Problem Gambling also runs counseling services, self-exclusion and visit limits, family exclusions, third-party exclusions and exclusions by law⁹. Appointments with the appointed agency, The Resilienz Clinic at Novena Medical Centre, can be arranged through the service¹⁰.

Elsewhere in the region the split looks similar:

A simple way to decide:

• If you want to stop and need people who understand it: start with a GA meeting or an online meeting, and add a helpline call for practical questions.
• If you are not sure whether you have a problem: do a self-test first, then call a helpline and describe your score.
• If there is a mental health condition alongside the gambling: go to professional counseling, and use peer support as the weekly structure around it.
• If you are a family member: ask specifically about family services. GambleAware in New South Wales, for example, offers family members their own confidential counseling sessions¹⁷, and Hong Kong's Ping Wo Fund helpline on 1834 633 is open to problem gamblers and their families⁴.

For a fuller picture of what treatment involves and what it costs, see our guide to gambling addiction treatment. If you are supporting someone else, help for families of problem gamblers covers the routes open to you. And if gambling has brought you to the point of feeling unsafe, our crisis help page lists urgent lines across Asia.