Start here

Trading Addiction: Where to Start

By Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC. Gambling and alcohol therapist, Logan Square, Chicago. Reviewed October 27, 2026.

"I have a system, so it isn't gambling." Almost everyone I see for trading says a version of that, and it misses the point. Whether it's options, crypto, leveraged ETFs or event contracts, the question was never whether the activity can be done skillfully. It's whether you're still in control of it: whether you can stop when you planned to, whether the size has crept up, whether you're trading to get back what you lost, and whether anyone else knows.

I'm a gambling and alcohol therapist in Chicago's Logan Square, and I see clients in person and by secure video across Illinois and Minnesota. Compulsive trading is the gambling problem that hides best, because it looks like investing and the people doing it are often very good at their jobs. This page is the front door to everything I've written about it: how to tell when trading has crossed the line, why chasing works the way it does, and what to do about the money.

Start with the question

The free gambling test works for trading, because the questions are about control, consequences and what the activity is doing to you, not about the instrument. Nine questions, about two minutes, scored in your browser and never sent anywhere, not even to me.

Take the Free Gambling Addiction Test

The reading path

Seven guides, in the order I'd suggest reading them. Each one stands on its own, so skip to whatever fits where you are.

Has it crossed the line?

  1. Is Day Trading Gambling? 10 Signs Trading Has Crossed the Line. The tell is control, not skill. Ten signs to check yourself against.
  2. Crypto Trading Addiction: When Investing Starts to Feel Like Gambling. Crypto isn't gambling, but the way a person trades can be.
  3. High-Functioning Addiction in Professionals: When Success Hides the Problem. When doing well at work is the thing keeping you from looking.

The loss and the money

  1. How to Stop Chasing Gambling Losses. Down $500, then $1,000 trying to get it back. Why chasing works the way it does, and how it stops.
  2. Gambling Debt: How to Recover Financially After Gambling Losses. You don't have to fix the money before you get help. The order to deal with it in.

Markets that call themselves something else

  1. Are Prediction Markets Gambling? Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood & the Risk of Addiction. Where event contracts cross into gambling.
  2. How to Self-Exclude From Prediction Markets: Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood & More. Closing every door, platform by platform.

Prediction markets have a page of their own: prediction market addiction, where to start. If sports betting is part of the picture, start at sports betting addiction, where to start; for the wider view, gambling addiction, where to start.

Every trading post, newest first

Why the numbers don't exist

There is no Illinois statistic for compulsive trading. Brokerages aren't gambling operators, no regulator counts the people trading to get even, and the losses show up in nobody's report but your own statements. That absence is part of why it goes unseen for so long. The numbers that do exist for legal gambling in the state are on Illinois gambling statistics.

If you'd rather talk than read

Reading helps some people decide. Others need to say it out loud to someone who won't flinch, and who won't tell them that investing is fine or that they should just stop. That's what the free 15-minute consultation is for: tell me what's been happening, ask whatever you want to ask, and we'll figure out whether working together makes sense. You don't need to have decided anything before the call.

Schedule a Free 15-Minute Consultation

How I treat compulsive trading, what it costs and which insurance I take is on the stock and options trading addiction therapy page. If someone you love is the one trading, start with help for partners and families and the partner gambling test.

If you need help right now

Illinois gambling helpline: call 1-800-GAMBLER or text GAMB to 833234. Free and confidential, any hour.

National Problem Gambling Helpline: call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738).

If you're in a mental health crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988.

If you're in immediate danger, call 911.

If you need to stop today, the 24-Hour Betting Shutdown Plan walks through the first day step by step; most of it applies to a brokerage app as much as a sportsbook.

Last reviewed October 27, 2026. This page is general information, not financial or medical advice, and it doesn't create a therapist-client relationship.