Women in gambling recovery noticed it became harder to cope during certain menstrual phases. New research is hoping to confirm those lived experiences.
It wasn’t until she was in recovery that Kiki Marriott realized her gambling urge always seemed to peak during a certain phase of her menstrual cycle.
Marriott, who completed residential treatment for a 22-year gambling and substance use addiction in 2024, says she noticed a time each month when recovery felt harder. During that phase, she didn’t want to attend her meetings or support groups, she told Gambling Insider on a video call.
I didn’t want to talk to anybody, and I was just really moody and horrible, and I was so close to pressing that button a few times, and I didn’t understand why.”
Then, in one of her women-focused gambling support groups, another participant mentioned her period, and a “massive lightbulb” went off.
Partnership Investigates Link Between Menstrual Cycle, Gambling Harm
After 22 years of active addiction in a society that largely ignored the in and out of women’s cycles, Marriott said she didn’t know a lot about her own body.
“[My cycle] wasn’t an open conversation in my home, so I just had a period every month, and I just dealt with that and carried on,” Marriott recalled.
I didn’t understand the hormones and the fluctuations and the bouts of depression, and then feeling really hyper, and I thought I had all these other mental health problems … but really and truly, I was just reacting to the trauma I’d suffered. No one taught me how to regulate my own emotions; no one taught me about my nervous system or fight-or-flight mode. Nobody taught me how to process anything, so I just blocked it all out with a substance or gambling.”
When she came into recovery and was still feeling erratic in certain parts of her cycle, Marriott said she feared relapse.
But after her revelation, she took steps to learn about her body’s hormonal fluctuations, and today she’s no longer scared of her ovulation week. Marriott, 40, said that’s the phase of her cycle she finds most destabilizing. But today, she knows her body well enough to prepare to meet the monthly challenge, she added.
Now, a partnership between gambling harm charity Gordon Moody and the University of Birmingham is investigating the link between the menstrual cycle and gambling harms. They want to know if hormonal fluctuations linked to menstruation, ovulation, menopause, and childbirth influence gambling behaviors, impulsivity, and risk-taking.
Hypothesis Backed by Common Experience
“Anecdotally, you know as well as I, you reach for the chocolate at certain times of the month more than others,” said Claire Snowden-Bird, Gordon Moody’s Interim Clinical Director, during a virtual interview with Gambling Insider.
That’s why this new area of research is important, she added. A better understanding of what’s happening hormonally during women’s menstrual cycles could inform gender-responsive treatment for women experiencing problem gambling. And, potentially, help those living with other behavioral or substance addictions.
Women need to be aware of this, just like women are aware of, ‘oh, I’m feeling a bit angry because I’m due on,’ or ‘I’m, you know, eating crap because I’m due on,’ ‘oh, I’m gonna start gambling a little bit more now.’ And then actually being able to do things, put things in place, understand what’s happening.”
Just knowing this is a possibility could be a huge advantage because “people can be aware of their triggers, said Snowden-Bird. “I’m really on board with this research, and I think there’s going to be a huge lightbulb moment for a lot of women.”
Despite Experiencing Increasing Harm, Women Scarce in Gambling Treatment
While there is evidence of more UK women being negatively affected by gambling, Gordon Moody says they remain “significantly under-represented” in residential treatment.
Announcing the research partnership, the organization cited “stigma, caring responsibilities and a lack of gender-specific approaches” as barriers to women accessing support.
Cheryl Williams, strategic lead of gambling-related and other harms at Adferiad, told Gambling Insider on a video call that the mental health support charity’s participants typically reflect that imbalance. Adferiad runs Parkland Place, a trio of rehab and detoxification facilities for drug, alcohol, and gambling addictions in the UK.
Illustrating the disparity, Williams said 75% of applicants for a recent pilot project were men. Women, she said, echoing Gordon Moody, face added stigma with gambling and recovery.
When seeking treatment, Williams said learning about their cycle seems to offer female clients a “better understanding” of the urge to gamble at certain times.
In 2024, Marriott was one of those clients. And while seeking in-patient treatment at Parkland, she developed a passion for helping other women.
Hormonal Shifts Becoming Part of the Recovery Conversation
Marriott (pictured here) is proud to say that she’s in recovery. “ I don’t feel any shame that I’m an addict, because it saved my life, and it’s also given me a life,” she said.
These days, Marriott’s a mentor. Each week, she has one-on-one sessions with peers to help empower them into gambling recovery. She also attends and facilitates women’s gambling recovery groups, where she said they frequently talk about the hormonal rollercoaster.
All of us are super aware of how our hormones play a bigger part in how we feel each month.”
Marriott was also a guest on the No Dice podcast, where she discussed the menstrual cycle and women’s gambling behavior with host Cat Cochrane.
She even adjusts her work schedule to be more forgiving during her ovulation week.
It takes a lot of inner work, but when you learn about your body and mind and what tools work for you, it helps you cope, she said.
Research Aims to Inform Women-Centered Treatment Policies
While UK gambling treatment programs typically approach men and women the same, said the University of Birmingham’s Renate Reniers, they are mostly based on studies focused on men.
Reniers is a research psychologist and lecturer at the university’s Birmingham Medical School. She’s also the primary supervisor of PhD student Holly Harwood, who is undertaking the landmark research.
During a video conference with Reniers and Harwood, Reniers said that after crossing paths at an event, a contact at Gordon Moody revealed that evidence from its treatment programs showed a possible link between gambling behavior and menstrual phases.
Together, they submitted a research proposal to the Medical Research Council, received funding, and recruited Harwood for the project.
Ideally, the findings will impact future policies at Gordon Moody and, hopefully, other treatment centers in the UK, said Reniers. Maybe even internationally.
Maybe we do need to have adapted programs for men and women. Or maybe we need to make sure that there are certain phases of the cycle, there’s extra support available, or that we give people certain tools.”
“Or is just the awareness enough?,” she wondered.
Are Operators Paying Attention?
If it’s true that women might be more inclined to gamble during a particular hormonal phase, gambling companies would be well-poised to see the evidence.
Williams said she’s heard whispers that a period tracking app sold its data to gambling companies. Gambling Insider has been unable to confirm the rumor.
Still, in 2025, a California court found Meta liable for using period-tracking data from the Flo Health app to target advertising between 2016 and 2019.
An Observer investigation also found UK Gambling companies “covertly tracking” website visits and sending that data to Meta without consent. The Observer said Meta then used the information to profile people as gamblers and flood them with ads from casinos and betting sites.
There’s no indication the two data troves ever crossed paths.
Research Will Measure Sex, Stress Hormones
Harwood told Gambling Insider that her research will take a “longitudinal look at the menstrual cycle” and its impact over different phases. To do so, they’ll be looking at craving and reward sensitivity in psychometric tests and taking biological samples. They’re waiting on ethics approval.
Once up and running, participants recruited through Gordon Moody will do a range of questionnaires and participate in focus groups over a course of about three months. They’ll also wear a sweat patch to measure hormone levels throughout their cycle. Harwood said they also want to collect hair samples to measure cortisol levels and see whether that plays a role.
One centimeter from the scalp is one last month of your cortisol production. So, using that we’re going to see if that can impact how behavior throughout the cycle will change.”
Harwood plans to recruit between 50 and 100 participants throughout the study. Reniers added that the research phase should run for about 2.5 years, to “hopefully get a nice amount of data.” Then Harwood will have to analyze and report her findings.
To their knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to look at women with harmful gambling behavior, said Reniers. Previous evidence came from studies whose participants exhibited low gambling severity.
Nonetheless, existing literature suggests that higher estrogen causes more risk-taking behavior, less risk-aversion, and more gambling behavior, Harwood said.
So, going in, they can predict that craving and reward sensitivity would be higher than when estrogen levels are high. Since higher progesterone seems to mediate gambling behavior, it suggests that risky, reward-driven behavior will be less likely mid-luteal when progesterone is higher.
Findings May Go Beyond Gambling, Or Make a Case for Drug Therapies
While post-research impacts depend on the results, Harwood confirmed the intention is to help make Gordon Moody’s treatment more gender-responsive.
There’s also a chance findings may show pharmacological treatments could be an additional line of defense. Harwood again noted that other studies found that progesterone can help reduce cocaine and nicotine use.
Reniers said that she’s hopeful Harwood’s work will contribute to better treatments for women, even beyond gambling harm.
It’s internationally known that women are underrepresented in research. It’s not just the UK, I think it’s an international thing. … Hopefully, research like this will contribute to gender informed treatments regarding gambling harms, but also hopefully in a wider context of other mental health problems. … If that’s something we can achieve with this work, it would be really satisfying.”
This research is also laying the groundwork for future follow-up studies by Harwood and others, Reniers said.
In the meantime, “every woman should be aware of what their hormones can do in their body,” said Harwood.
It’s very important to know what’s going on inside your body and how that can affect your behavior. But definitely at the level of people working with people with different addictions, they should absolutely be aware.”
“I only hope more publicity comes to this subject, and more researchers have a look,” Harwood added, “because it’s very lacking in research.”
Recovery Means Getting to Live, Not Just Exist
For her part, Marriott is happy that people are taking the conversation to a bigger platform. She hopes that, once published, the research will spark an even bigger conversation and raise more awareness of hormones’ behavioral influence.
“Knowledge is power,” Marriott said.
The more people that hear about this, talk about this, the more people are going to get the help, and the more people, especially women, won’t relapse. They might not relapse; it might save them from a relapse. Or it might get them a really good stint in recovery. If they hear many different types of people talking about this, they’re gonna be, ‘oh my god, I’m not crazy, loads of people are experiencing what I’ve experienced.’”
If they do relapse, knowing this may be a factor could help. And they’ll also know that next month they need extra support in place, Marriott said. Even her friends who are not in recovery have started considering the effect of their cycle on what they say and do, she added.
“That’s another positive from learning about your body: just knowing what you can and can’t entertain in a certain phase of your cycle.”
Offering some last words to anyone considering getting addiction help, Marriott suggested that recovery makes living, not just existing, possible.
You get to live instead of exist. I always like to put that into what I do, because I love that saying… There are so many of us in active addiction; we are existing; we don’t get to live. And I get to live every day now, which, the good, the bad, the ugly, is beautiful.”
The post Learning Hormones May Influence Gambling Urge Was ‘Lightbulb’ Moment for UK Woman. New Research Aims to Prove It. appeared first on Gambling Insider.
