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ENGLAND footballers take note: gambling is as addictive as smoking, drinking and taking narcotic drugs.

This controversial claim by German researchers is based on a study of hormone levels in men playing blackjack. The findings are important because many addiction researchers refuse to accept that behaviours can be physiologically addictive.

鈥淪ome people say you can鈥檛 have addiction unless you take a substance, but I would argue that gambling taken to excess is an addiction,鈥� says psychologist Mark Griffiths, who studies behavioural addiction at Nottingham Trent University. 鈥淚f you accept that, you then accept that sex, computer games, even gardening, can be addictive-it opens up the floodgates to everything else.鈥�

Gerhard Meyer and his colleagues at the University of Bremen recruited 10 gamblers from a casino and asked them to play blackjack, staking their own money. While the gamblers played, Meyer measured changes in their heart rates and levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva. He then asked them to play for points rather than money, as a 鈥渃ontrol鈥� situation.

Both heart rates and cortisol concentrations were markedly higher when the gamblers played for money (see Graph). 鈥淚t鈥檚 the first time someone has measured cortisol in gambling,鈥� says Meyer.

He concedes he has not found definitive proof that gambling is addictive. After all, he has yet to show that raised cortisol boosts levels of key chemicals like dopamine. But he says it鈥檚 a further step towards this. Gamblers themselves report feeling surges of euphoria when they place their bets, he points out. 鈥淓very time they bet, there鈥檚 a thrill.鈥� This echoes the euphoria experienced by drug takers, which results from a surge of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin in the brain.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the reward system of the body,鈥� explains Meyer. 鈥淭he theory behind addiction is that if you consume an [addictive] substance, more dopamine is released than normal, and this is what happens when people consume drugs or alcohol. When people gamble, they say they feel this euphoria through a behavioural surrogate. Cortisol may contribute to such mood alterations.鈥�

Meyer even speculates that such findings might reduce the culpability of people who have committed crimes. If lawyers can attribute their clients鈥� crimes to physiological cravings rather than acts of free will, they may receive lighter sentences.

Next, Meyer plans to measure blood-borne stress hormones such as adrenaline. The ultimate proof would come from measurements of neurotransmitters in the brain. But this is practically impossible in casinos, he says.