The Rise of Mobile Gambling Is Leaving People Ruined and Unable to Quit

[douglas9]

It didn’t get bad for Jason until recently, when gambling on his phone became both available and socially acceptable.

For most of his life, he had enjoyed betting money here and there—say, during poker with friends as a teen and on the occasional casino trip. He even occasionally bet on sports through foreign-based companies.

None of it ever seemed or felt like much of a problem to him—that is, until the pandemic. The previous year, his home state of Illinois had legalized sports betting and expanded casino gambling, flooding the state with advertisements. It didn’t take long before Jason was hearing about gambling “all day every day,” he said. When he started to go through personal issues at home in 2020, he found himself at the casino trying to burn off some steam.

Soon enough, however, he preferred online gambling. The casinos, he came to believe, were less efficient—“too much non-gambling time,” he said—and led to questions about where he had been. By comparison, his phone allowed him to be “100 percent plugged in” from anywhere, without people asking questions. “I could do everything you could do at a casino on my phone,” he said. But, he added, “I didn’t have to explain where I was or anything like that. I didn't have to answer to anybody.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ake7gk/the-rise-of-mobile-gambling-is-leaving-people-ruined-and-unable-to-quit

[FSogol]

1. Good article. Sports talk radio used to be dopey pundits overanalyzing

Last edited Wed Sep 7, 2022, 08:30 AM - Edit history (1)

Sports. Now it is just a drumbeat talking up sports gambling with props, parlays, and odds 24/7. I'm sure it is ruining lives constantly.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. There is a program for problem gamblers - Gamblers Anonymous

I know someone who used to belong and it helped her. It's like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) only for those who have an addiction to gambling: https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/

[Aussie105]

3. Gamblers are looking for something.

If you can convince them if they try a bit harder what they are looking for will surely come their way, then you have an instant addict.

Some people look for that "something" in drugs, alcohol, sex, money, religion.

That "something"?
Nothing much, just a sense of self worth, self validation.
A fleeting moment of that is enough to keep an addict going, looking for more.

Where to find it though, is the Eternal Question.
And how to break out of the actual cycle of anticipation and momentary satisfaction followed by disappointment is another question.

[3Hotdogs]

5. --- or just a way to fill time.

Time, that we can't think of something else to do.

[Joinfortmill]

18. Seriously, the most effective way to increase your self-esteem is to do something for someone else.

I feel for these folks, but they are looking in the wrong places.

[AZLD4Candidate]

4. advertising cigarettes made us all smokers with cancer

advertising pain medication made us all junkies

advertising gambling will not hurt us. . .just make it look cool and you can hook 'em young.

[onethatcares]

6. and remember

the lottery proceeds will help the schools.......

Not like that's gambling our kids future or anything.

[Joinfortmill]

20. A lot of truth to that.

[JuJuChen]

7. gambling addiction is so foreign to me, I freaking lose at the tables I get up and go to the buffet

I can't see, "Well maybe if I mortgage my home for this one last game" the lure of that when all you do is lose.

[cab67]

8. except that you sometimes win.

People rarely come out ahead, but the occasional win convinces addicts that a windfall is just around the corner. They don't see that the wins don't make up for the losses.

[Harker]

17. I sold lottery tickets at work when Colorado's state lottery began.

I had a guy buy 100 at $1 each. He hit a $50 winning ticket and said, "I won $50!"

[VWolf]

24. I went to Vegas once

and ended up $400 ahead. I vowed to never go back again. It's been 4 years and I still haven't gone.

The shit I saw there depressed me like never before.

[YoshidaYui]

30. ugg! I hate gambling

when you combine gambling with alcholism than you have two major addictions that ruin lives. Ask my parents, they both drink and gamble, which is why they moved to LAS VEGAS , not for the Raiders... meh!

I was thrown out of the house because i smoked weed... I turned out okay, they did not.

[DownriverDem]

9. No surprise

We have it now in Michigan and it is just too easy to get hooked. All we see is ads for it.

[Johnny2X2X]

10. The addiction is incredibly powerful

The depravity of a degenerate gambler is as bad as anything else. Gamblers become addicted to the risk and to the feeling of winning. And then after losses they gamble more to try to get back to even. At a high level, I've seen gamblers lose their businesses, homes, and freedom. At a lower level, I've seen retired people lose all their spending money month after month because they lie to themselves about how much they are spending. It's the sports gamblers that are usually the ones who lose the most.

You see a ton of retired people gambling in casinos, often playing slots. You'll hear them say they won a jackpot of $250, so they had a great day, but they won't tell you that they spent $100 on coins to play and lost it all, so they spent another $100 and almost lost it all before winning the $250, then they kept playing and lost $100 of that. Then they spent on gas and bought lunch, so their big day of winning at the casino was really them coming out $100 or so behind. That person will go home thinking they won $250, they'll honestly believe it, and then the next day when they lose $200, they'll think they're still $50 ahead when they're actually $350 in the hole. It's uncanny.

A casino is a license to print money. Putting casino aps on people's phones is really really damaging. We regularly check my mother in law's phone to make sure she hasn't installed anything.

[machoneman]

14. True! Yet TFG managed somehow to bankrupt 2 casinos. Go figure, the great businessman. Ya sure!

[Joinfortmill]

22. Everything Trump touches dies.

[cab67]

16. Good that you're checking your MIL's phone.

My grandfather got hooked on those magazine-subscription sweepstakes (e.g. Publisher's Clearinghouse) that were so popular in the past. (No idea if they're still a thing.) This was before smartphones, so he did it all by land-line phone and mail - but every one of us ended up with gifted magazine subscriptions none of us wanted, all so he could win money that never materialized. My mom and uncle got power of attorney over his money, but he still found ways to direct money toward these scams.

Not sure if this is seen as a form of gambling addiction, but it should be.

The addiction, exacerbated by his Alzheimer's, caused my grandfather - a retired professor with a PhD - to blow completely through his savings. There was nothing left of his estate when he died, other than piles of magazines in his garage.

[Johnny2X2X]

19. My own mother

She was just playing online games, not casino apps. She was contacted through one of the apps saying because she's played so much she was entered in a sweepstakes and won. They just needed her bank account to wire her $60,000 "so she could help her children." She gave it out, but my father sniffed it out and called the bank before they could get anything taken.

A lot has been written about the mind control aspects of Facebook. Well, these gambling apps take that technology even further, it's absolutely insane and needs more regulation.

[cab67]

11. gambling addiction devastates more than the addict

My aunt married someone who made a decent income. He was a really nice guy. We all liked him.

A few years later, she discovered that he'd squandered massive amounts of money at the race track.

Because of the way their finances were set up, she was in the hole to the IRS for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even after they divorced. Her credit was in the toilet for years afterward. She couldn't get a credit card or a mortgage. She lost pretty much everything - and she never gambled.

I think of her ex with a mixture of rage and sympathy that I still haven't quite reconciled.

(I'm aware that all forms of addiction have impacts way beyond the addict. I'm only addressing this particular form at the moment.)

[Johnny2X2X]

15. You've touched on something else

The casinos have legal arms that are the most ruthless debt collectors in existence. And they give credit to gamblers in amounts that they know will ruin them. They do credit and asset checks live and give credit accordingly. They assess how easy it will be for them to seize assets. Local guy in our city owned 3 bars and restaurants, casinos gave him hundreds in thousands on credit, he ended up in jail, and they seized and sold all of his property.

These are very sophisticated operations. They're like mafia loan sharks but instead of muscle they have teams of lawyers waiting to take what they're owed and artificial intelligence to make sure that they're going to be owed no matter how lucky someone gets. They have it down to a science, and now they've taken that science and combined it with the mind control aspects of mobile apps, a lot of people stand no chance.

[cab67]

21. I didn't know that.

I've seen plenty of movies in which mafia-connected casinos dispatch goons with tire irons to speak with their debtors, but I've been to casinos maybe four times in my life, and I only blew through about 20 dollars' worth of quarters each time.

Do horse racing outfits do the same thing? So far as I know, my aunt's ex didn't really spend much time in casinos - he was at the racetrack.

(My aunt eventually realized the reason his shirts always had a gray smudge under the left armpit. He'd bring something in newsprint with the odds, and it would remain tucked under his left arm when not being consulted.)

[Johnny2X2X]

25. The race tracks are the worst

And how they operate is absolutely immoral too. And what your uncle had under his arm was likely not normal reading material, it was the local track's "tips sheets." They print well crafted daily and weekly tip sheets and sell them to gamblers. The horse racetrack's hook is to get gamblers to feel like they've got the inside information, and the way these are written is absolutely diabolical. They don't just come out and tell you how to bet, but they leave trails of bread crumbs so that the gambler can think they're following their own intuition and deducing their own "smart" bets to make. It's a con game, very very similar to Q Anon online, because it's absolute 1000 times more powerful to let the gamblers think they've seen things in those tip sheets others don't see, that they alone put all the pieces together. When in reality, the trail of breadcrumbs in those tip sheets elicit the exact betting response the tracks were hoping for. And it all makes sense, and pays off just enough to make betters think they're on the right track while they're always one bad beat away.

[Joinfortmill]

23. OMG! How horrible.

[Marthe48]

12. I play the lottery

I don't like to miss a drawing, even if I rarely win. But I stopped playing Power Ball when it went to 3 plays a week, because I didn't want to spend more money.

I can see the lure, and I sympathize with people who are drawn in to the point of ruin.

[NoMoreRepugs]

13. The unstoppable rise in social media and being "connected" is

as bad as Trumpism to a geezer like me. Dramatic rise in suicide, gambling addiction, bullying - this is progress??

[cab67]

28. This is, I think, true across the US.

Tribal sovereignty allows Native American communities to operate casinos, and let's face it - unless Trump is involved, casinos make money, which Native American communities need.

[Earth-shine]

27. I see the commercials for the apps on CNN and MSNBC.

These commercials are very flashy and compelling. The apps are offered as free downloads and designed to be addictive.

There's one for a "Caesar's" slot machine app that boasts of many different types of slots to play.

There's another commercial with Jane Seymour showing her playing and being delighted by some kind of monetized solitaire game.

[XanaDUer2]

32. I'm a naive dummy

I see those ads, but didn't realize money was involved. I thought they were free games that made money from advertising. I stay far away either way.

[Bristlecone]

29. Risk free betting up to $1000

The first taste is free. Just like a drug. They know that once they get people on board, they will be hooked.

If you live in a state that does not allow sports gambling, consider yourself lucky, so far. Those of us in states that do allow it are inundated with ads non-stop. MGM, DraftKings, Caesar’s, etc etc etc over and over. Big name stars, all hocking taking your money. Kids are exposed, etc etc.

It will not end well for many, many people.

[Johnny2X2X]

31. Risk free!!!

Yeah, these "bonuses" come with hoops to jump through that are hard to understand and require you to keep betting to access that bonus.

Gambling shouldn't be illegal IMO, but advertising for it needs to be limited, and the public needs to be educated about it more. And certain practices need to be banned, maybe even apps.

[Midnight Writer]

34. Oddly, losing only increases the addiction, as long as there is an occasional win.

One of those oddities of behavior.