How can two persons be so addicted to gambling that they'll go to such an extent? Apparently the mother is definitely not a good role model to the son. The son definitely needs a strong father figure which is what he lacks. I don't like the punishment or fine give to them. It is not going to be in anyway effective. Their punishment could have been rehabilitation and community service.
Maybe, they have an internal problems at their home. And they thought that through gambling they can solve their problem and it will an answer to their other issues. But it happen that they become addicted and that's not good because not only the mother is addict it is also become her son. Their family went to a lot of course and they needed counseling as well.
Gambling addiction can make someone do things that don't make sense, like the story above. A mother should teach kindness to her child but instead plunges her child into gambling so that her child becomes addicted to gambling as well. They both really need counseling to recover from their gambling addiction, but the question is whether the mother and daughter will do it or return to gambling once they are free. If they recover, they can tell others about their experiences and help people with gambling addiction recover.
Good point, if both will manage to survive and recover from gambling addiction, they can use this experience to influence other people to stay away from this kind of activities, their experienced can bring awareness to how gambling addiction can ruin a life. But on the other hand, if they can't manage to escape after the medication or rehab, expect to see them playing more and go deeper with their addictions.
Although sometimes gambling losses can be very painful even to the an extent of doing something irrational but what I read here is just pure wickedness and evil intentions but that's what you get for making gambling an addiction and only an addicted person could gamble away a whooping sum 8000$ which they can know can affect them if they lose that money. That's why its always good to see gambling as a fun habit and only put small money you know won't affect you because losses can really make someone do crazy things like what this mother and son did.
Without control, addiction can lead anyone to risk a lot, and with how they overspent their money, blowing out huge amount is not a hard task since they are already addicted to gambling and they are already out of control with their engagements with gambling.