As State-Sponsored Gambling Spreads, the House—Not the Home—Always Wins

“Our family only has a chance if I’m not around to bring us down any further, I’m so sorry that I’m putting you through this.” That’s what Scott Stevens wrote in his suicide note to his family in 2012. Stevens had a wife of 23 years, three daughters he adored, and a lucrative career. He had a master’s degree in business and finance, earning the position of Chief Operating Officer and a six-figure salary at a lucrative company. He hardly fit the stereotype of a gambling addict, but he lost close to $5 million in a single year and embezzled $4 million from his company to fund his addiction. His hidden gambling addiction consumed him for six years before he ended his life at the same soccer fields where his daughter played.

Predatory gambling is harming Americans of all demographics today, devastating families, and forming dangerous and even deadly pathways for children. Predatory gambling has spread, largely unchecked through the legalization of casinos, retail, online sports betting, and, even more recently, online casinos. Today, 47 states (including D.C.) allow some form of gambling, including sports betting. We’ve given gambling a pass that would never be granted to other dangerous and addictive products. 

We know, of course, that addiction is bad for both individuals and their families. The family not only suffers from the harmful effects of a family member’s addiction but spouses and even children are often exposed to the addict’s use of the drug or product in question. This increases the likelihood that the child, or spouse, might become addicted users themselves. 

Now imagine how easy it is for a young person today to start gambling after simply watching a football game. They never even wanted the product—it was forced on them during an innocent family pastime thanks to around $2 Billion spent on advertising. Unlike a drug addiction, they no longer need to find a shady dealer to get their product every time they need a hit. They can simply pull out their phone. 

What follows is a downward spiral of obsessing over getting their next gambling hit, scrambling—or perhaps stealing—to get the money to pay for it, personality changes, and isolation. The addiction can even lead to violence toward family members, broken families and, tragically, even suicide. 

We’ve given gambling a pass that would never be granted to other dangerous and addictive products. 

Commercialized gambling is now recognized by the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V as a product as addictive as cocaine, opioids, and heroin, creating similar changes in brain chemistry. But that may be where the similarities end.

Despite its addictive nature, getting a gambling “hit” is a mere phone tap away in most states, and no one even glances sideways or identifies it as a risky behavior. This may be why 60% of the U.S. population gambled last year with an estimated 2.5 million problem gamblers in a given year—compared to the 5.5 million Americans who used cocaine.

While cocaine is classified by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule II drug, considered “dangerous” with a “high potential for abuse,” commercialized gambling, though just as addictive, exists only because of the approval state governments grant to gambling operators (dealers, for the sake of this discussion). That means states from Red to Blue partner with a monopolistic enterprise operating in their backyards using a business model that thrives off of addiction.

Put another way, imagine your teenage son’s or spouse’s crack dealer being given a license by the state to operate legally, creating addicts out of its own citizens. And, the more addicted the state’s citizens become, the more money that flows into the dealer’s—and the state’s—coffers. The public outrage over such a thing would be fierce and swift.

With the “dealer” at their fingertips in the case of online casinos and sports betting, those addicted to gambling don’t have to spend time arranging back-alley deals to feed their addiction. Instead, sportsbook giants like DraftKings and FanDuel will happily serve them up “free bets” and a host of “VIP incentives” to “keep them in action”—i.e., keep them losing money and addicted. That means the gambler has more time to spend on his addiction, with the average problem gambler facing debt from $50,000-$100,000—a crippling sum for most families. Nearly a quarter of all problem gamblers file for bankruptcy. Some families simply can’t unbury themselves from crushing gambling debt.

As the addiction spirals and the gambler chases losses, the strain on the family becomes more palpable, even if they don’t know about the addiction. Family members report temporal and emotional neglect, betrayal, insecurity, lies and communication breakdown, and resentment.

States from Red to Blue partner with a monopolistic enterprise operating in their backyards using a business model that thrives off of addiction.

Worse still, the likelihood of intimate partner violence increases by about 10 percentage points with legal online gambling, and problem gamblers are more than twice as likely to get divorced than the general population. A dearth of studies exists on the impact of gambling on children, noting “unequivocal” negative impacts on children in every aspect of their lives from parental gambling, including an increased likelihood that the child will become addicted to gambling herself. Studies confirm strong indicators that gambling parents are also more likely to physically abuse their children.

And, tragically, far too often, as in Scott Stevens’s case, gambling addiction leads to suicide. Addicted gamblers have the highest suicide rate of any group suffering from an addiction, including drug addiction. In fact, one out of every five problem gamblers will attempt suicide. With approximately five million Americans classified as problem gamblers, that means one million Americans are at risk of attempting suicide.

When individuals suffer from gambling addiction, however, their state government not only supports, but profits from, the product of the individual’s addiction. In the end, the easy access to an addictive product, the family breakdown and violence, and even the loss of life are calculated as collateral damage. On paper, the individual’s financial and familial losses are worth more to Big Gambling—and the state—than a strong, working family making fiscally responsible decisions.

In the end, the House will always win, leaving American families in shambles. We must no longer neglect the problem of predatory, state-sponsored gambling. For any individual or organization that cares about protecting families and children, gathering our stones and sling to fight the predatory gambling Goliath must be a top priority.

Autumn Leva is Director of Strategy & Campaigns for Stop Predatory Gambling. She has been advocating on behalf of America's families and children in public policy for 15 years.