According to recent findings the same drug doctors are prescribing to patients with Alcohol addiction can also be used to treat patients with gambling problems.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have done a double blind Study with a controlled placebo with 77 participants with gambling problems. The 77 were broken up into 2 groups. The first group made up of 58 men and women were given 50, 100 or 150 milligrams of the drug Naltrexone once a day every day for 18 weeks. Of the 49 men and women given the drug and completed the study 40 percent of the them stopped gambling for at least one month.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry showed how the participants desire to gamble had lowered significantly and the urge to gamble came less often throughout the study.

11 participants from the first group did not complete the study.

The second group consisted of 19 men and women were given only placebos. From this 19 only 10 percent were able to stop or reduce their gambling with most of the participants continuing to gamble at least 6 to 32 hours a week.

The ages of the participants varied from 18 to 75 years old.

According to Dr, Jon Grant from the University of Minnesota this is good news for people suffering from gambling addiction. This is the first time that they have been able to prove that gambling addiction can be helped with modern medicines, and that there is hope for those who had lost all hope.

The drug may not cure gambling but it is expected that it can help to control the urges these people have to gamble away their lives.