Suicide and gambling on the public record

Objective: Current western medical wisdom is that suicide is always or almost always the result of mental disorder. Our objective was to explore the public record for a relationship between suicide and gambling, in the absence of mental disorder.

Method: The public record was examined for examples of individuals without stated evidence of mental disorder who completed suicide in the setting of recent gambling losses.

Results: We identified a 17^th century opinion suggesting gambling losses could lead to suicide, and 10 individual cases (including a decorated policeman, a professional athlete and two engineers).

Conclusions: This evidence strongly suggests that in the absence of evidence of mental disorder, gambling losses may lead to suicide.