Online Gambling

WATCH: What You Need to Know About America’s New Wave of Gambling Ads

 

As gambling companies further intensify their ongoing barrage of sports gambling ads targeted at the American people, we recently hosted a national panel on what you need to know about the massive wave of sports gambling advertising and promotions spreading across the U.S.

Above is the video to watch our important national event “America’s New Storm of Gambling Advertising: A Threat to Public Health” from earlier this year. It featured Mark A. Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, and Harry Levant, Director of Education for Stop Predatory Gambling.

Mark and Harry powerfully revealed the truth about what is really happening in our communities and across our country. After you watch it, we strongly urge you to share the video on your email list and and your social media networks, inviting people to learn for themselves how serious the problem of predatory gambling has become.

We also strongly encourage you to share the video with every local, state, and federal official in your region, along with members of the local and state media.

The full video is posted to our YouTube channel and can be watched here: https://youtu.be/12FtoYCE9jU

We also put the panel into four smaller parts if you can’t watch the whole thing all at once.

PART I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEVyikeJfJs

PART II: https://youtu.be/UgyIcxIw-u0

PART III: https://youtu.be/wP1YUTpfdM0

PART IV: https://youtu.be/YQf9-xMMF7k

About the Speakers:

Mark A. Gottlieb is the executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law, where he is also a lecturer and clinical instructor. Mark has focused his research and advocacy on tobacco litigation as a public health strategy for most of his career. His article, “Casinos: An Addiction Industry in the Mold of Tobacco and Opioid Drugs” (co-authored with Daynard and Friedman) was recently published in the University of Illinois Law Review. You can read his article here.

Harry Levant is the Director of Education for Stop Predatory Gambling and a public health advocate from Philadelphia. A gambling addict in recovery who made his last bet on April 27, 2014, Levant is dedicating his professional work to helping people and families to overcome struggles with gambling addiction and other substance disorders. In his role as an advocate, Levant will graduate from La Salle University with a Masters in Professional Counseling in May 2022. He is a member of numerous professional organizations including Chi Sigma Iota National Honor Society for Counselors, the American Counseling Association, the Pennsylvania Counseling Association, and Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers of Pennsylvania. He also earned a law degree from Temple University Law School.

Moderator: Les Bernal is National Director for Stop Predatory Gambling. Stop Predatory Gambling believes people are worth more than money. A 501c3 non-profit based in Washington, DC, its members work to reveal the truth behind commercialized gambling operators to prevent more victims.

It is only because of the selfless financial generosity of our members that we are able to fund important events like this national webinar. If you support our mission to reveal the truth behind commercialize​d​ ​gambling operators to prevent more victim​s​, ​​please ​​become a member of our national network by making a gift of any size you can afford today.

Thank you.

Les BernalWATCH: What You Need to Know About America’s New Wave of Gambling Ads
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Why Commercialized Gambling is Different Than Any Other Business

Below is the testimony of Les Bernal, National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, before a Georgia Legislature study committee on gambling in October 2019. As part of his presentation, Bernal explains why commercialized gambling is different than any other business. A copy of Bernal’s slides can be found here.

Les BernalWhy Commercialized Gambling is Different Than Any Other Business
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How Online Gambling Drains Millennial Finances

Gambling has been normalized among young people and is an unconscious drain on their cash. The constant temptation of having a gambling app in your pocket leads to a stream of spending that’s hard to control. Phones are distracting enough as it is, whether it is the unanswered WhatsApp messages in your pocket or 200 Instagram pictures you’ve yet to like. Now betting companies are exploiting the iPhone generation’s obsession with our phones to hook us into betting more, and more frequently.

According to Financial Times, more than one-fifth of 18 to 24-year-olds confessed to gambling in 2017.

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LesHow Online Gambling Drains Millennial Finances
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Average debt of problem gamblers in Wisconsin exceeds $34,000

They max-out credit cards, drain their savings and checking accounts, seek payday loans, borrow money from relatives and friends, steal from employers and write bad checks. On rare occasions, they even rob banks. On average, they are $34,078 in debt by the time they seek assistance.

These are characteristics of those who called the helpline at the Wisconsin Council on Problem Gambling in 2017. The council received 12,674 calls for help last year. The heavy financial losses are a catalyst to other serious problems. Gamblers have reported thoughts or attempts of suicide, bankruptcies and falling hopelessly behind on house and utility payments.

LesAverage debt of problem gamblers in Wisconsin exceeds $34,000
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Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was a gambling machine addict

Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had a serious gambling machine addiction. Read the latest New York Times story on his gambling behavior. Electronic gambling machines were at the center of his life.

Yet news coverage continues to use terms like “professional gambler” when describing Paddock. He was not a professional gambler.

No professional gambler uses slot machines and video poker machines like Paddock did. The machines create the illusion of skill but a user is mathematically guaranteed to lose all their money the longer they play them. Once you press the button on the machine, there is no skill involved. The computer inside the machine (known as the Random Number Generator) decides whether you lose or win. The player has no control over the outcome.

The image below is from the landmark book investigating electronic gambling machines Addiction By Design (Pg 112):

The business model of casinos is based on people like Paddock losing over and over again. While he may have won occasionally, it’s a statistical certainty that he lost huge sums of money the longer and more frequently he played as the graph above shows.

Paddock was playing hundreds of hands per hour (about one hand every six seconds) for many hours straight. Almost day after day.

No credible gambling addiction expert unaffiliated with gambling operators and independently-funded would describe him as a “responsible gambler.” ‘Responsible gambling’ is little more than a marketing slogan made up by commercialized gambling operators and their partners. Its intent is to place the spotlight on the citizen and away from their predatory and fraudulent business practices.

Whether Paddock’s out-of-control addiction to electronic gambling machines was a central factor in what happened last Sunday will be determined by the FBI investigation. But news coverage and public discussion should not normalize Paddock’s single-minded obsession with gambling machines and the exploitive business practices used by the casinos to keep Paddock gambling continuously.

Les Bernal, National Director, Stop Predatory Gambling

Les BernalLas Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was a gambling machine addict
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O.J. Simpson parole hearing is an example of the new kind of gambling wagers

Allowing government-sanctioned sports gambling across the U.S. would corporate gambling operators to offer wagers on virtually anything far beyond sports. O.J. Simpson will be out of jail soon.

OJ Simpson’s hearing in front of the Nevada Board of Parole is one example. The sportsbook Bovada.lv advertised to citizens to place bets on the outcome.

Under the proposition bet: “Will O.J. Simpson be granted parole in 2017?” the lines were “Yes” (-300) and “No” (+200). The means to make $100 on a bet for “Yes” you would have to risk $300 while a $100 bet for “No” would net you $200, making “Yes” a heavy favorite.

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Les BernalO.J. Simpson parole hearing is an example of the new kind of gambling wagers
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Gambling Away Our Moral Capital By William Galston and David Wasserman

This essay ran in The Public Interest in 1996. It remains one of the most persuasive about the ways in which state-sanctioned gambling severely damages American society and worsens people’s lives.

Gambling away our moral capital

LesGambling Away Our Moral Capital By William Galston and David Wasserman
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