Sports betting boom fuels concerns over problem gambling | 60 Minutes 

An angle you missed on this story is how most of the apps only want losing bettors using their apps. If you are a long term winner they will limit your account to less than $2 per wager which makes their app useless to you. They don't ban you, just limit you. There is plenty of content on RU-vid about this.

10 days without gambling here .. lets hope I can fight this horrible addiction that ruins so many lifes

Think of it like this. I once put 100$ into a slot machine over a course of an hour, and won 1500$. So now I go around and tell everyone that I won. But what I dont tell people about is the 20 other times I put 100$ in the machine and lost it. Never trust a gambler who tells you they've won, because they arent about to pull out their spreadsheets to show you the full picture.

The fact that these companies are raking in billions of dollars tells you just how good your odds of losing are.

My dad told me there were 3 things to never try at any costs in life because everyone eventually lost everything in life to it: Drugs..... Gambling.... Evading taxes. I'm telling my daughter there's a 4th....Social Media.

That computer in the movie Wargames said it best; The only winning move is not to play.

Tip from a recovering gambler: Take steps to shift your mindset from the immediate gratification of a dopamine hit. Speak with a therapist. If you're going to gamble, you should gamble on yourself. Invest your money in your education, tools and networking.

"I worked my whole life" Dude, you are 25 years old.

I’ve gambled everyday for the last 15 years and I’m not addicted yet.

The REAL problem with these gambling companies is that they actually ban players, the players that WIN money that is. All the losers get to bet as much as they want. That is a racket and should be litigated.

9:44 - Talk about a sociopathic level of eye contact.

I can’t believe that guy sat there smiling and told you with a straight face that adding gambling to your phone doesn’t make it any more addictive.

The sports betting commercials are out of control😢

Online gambling gripped me since it became legal in my state 10 years ago (the year I turned 21). Up until the age of 30 I threw just about everything I didn't need to survive into online slots/card games. Gambling addiction is intense and hard to shake. I probably told myself I'd never gamble again 100s of times. It's like having a program installed in your subconscious that takes over your thoughts and willpower. I would strongly encourage any young people to stay away from gambling, it is not worth it. There's nothing positive a bout it, it's degenerate entertainment. Put that focus into building something for yourself, developing a skill, making money, or just enjoying things that are positive.

A buddy of mine is a teacher at a local high school, and he talks constantly about students spending their whole paycheck on bets. JUUL and sportsbettinging have overtaken high school across the US

I’ve been saying this for years, gambling is more dangerous than smoking cigarettes. If you smoke a cigarette, you may not die overnight but cigarette commercials are banned. You can lose your entire wellbeing in one night of gambling, yet every other commercial you see is a new sports book. While I enjoy throwing a bet here or there, the advertising needs to be regulated.

The AGA Rep could not have been less credible...embarrassing

When the tidal wave of sports betting inundated my youtube ads every 2 seconds I knew something was amiss.

Old vices new styles is the age we are in

Bank roll management is paramount

“Gambling is the only addiction where you can win a whole bunch of money.” -Norm Macdonald.

I quit gambling because the emotional effect of losing $20 to a slot machine far outweighed the emotional effect of winning $20. In other words it was not fun either way.

I recently reached 40, so I witnessed tobacco commercials banned in sports events, and eventually everywhere. There is a detail you didn't mention here. While the tobacco commercials were broadcast at certain times (adult TV time), today gambling advertisement is ubiquitous and it is reaching everyone. I love watching sports with my children, and there is no exception that you see or listen something related to these gambling apps in any moment of the day. It is very invasive.

Betting ads went from passive, to active, and now sportscasters stop talking sports, look directly at the camera and talk to the gamblers. A friend of mine told me he can no longer watch sports b/c of all the predatory intrusive gambling ads. It’s out of control. This isn’t about legality or morality but it’s about taking advantage of helpless addicts. It has to stop.

Crazy how fast this happened. I had a friend who worked for draft kings in the early years. He predicted this stuff in like 2015. If it’s this bad now, it’s only going to get so much worse

A travesty to not even consider or discuss how sportbooks ban winning users. There should be laws against this behavior by sportsbooks and casinos if they want to operate.

My buddy got me hooked on horses. We ain’t buddies no more 😂

As a problem gambler, kudos to you on shedding a light on this problem. Draftkings flaking on this interview last minute is a cop out and they deserve no one’s business for not willing to address the questions head on.

What are the odds this video will help someone seek help for their gambling?

Crazy how normalized gambling has become over the past couple of years. I remember when it was kinda taboo to be a gambler now it’s basically the norm

Without a doubt, these companies know exactly what they're doing. We are prey.

I hate how sports betting is shoved down our throats when just trying to watch a broadcast

So sad how it took this long for people to wake up to the reality of the dangers of gambling.

Integrity is gone in pro sports. Everything is questioned for a bet.

Every single game I watch 50% of the ads are sports betting- every analysis show has lines constantly running under the screen

This is just the beginning it's going to become 5,000 times worse 😢

Lol I laughed when said the integrity of the game hasn't been changed so far..

Gambling is fun for entertainment but not as a means of making money. Too many people think they can consistently beat the PHD statisticians, and think they know better than the people looking at data. I would love to see the percentage of people who are net winners over the course of more than 20 bets. As someone who uses statistics to control for risk at work, the hubris is great for business.

Its the sudden accessibility of gambling on a scale never before seen thats fueling the rise in gambling addiction. Pull out your phone, tap on the screen at almost anytime, and get that sudden rush whenever you crave it.

That AGA rep’s literal job is straight out of the movie Thank You For Smoking.

I live in Las Vegas and I've sports bet regularly for 25 years. Number one tip: NO PARLAYS. If you must, no more than two legs.

4:04 The gaming app lobbyist is the worst. He sounds just like a tobacco lobbyist schill from the ‘70s… “there no evidence that cigarettes are addictive and cause lung cancer…hell, you’re more likely to get cancer from painting your house”

The increasing amount of ads for sports betting is insane.

One of my teachers told me the lottery is a tax on stupid people and I took that to the heart. Feel the same way about sports betting

Just about the only major news program that doesn’t suck. And that schmoe at the end claiming gambling isn’t addictive is a real tool

That Gaming Association guy is so out of touch.

I can attest to this. I am 32, male and lost over 200k, a lot of that on Draftkings and Fanduel. It's fcked up addiction I'm still trying to overcome.

What did people expect would happen. States are desperate for money and companies are desperate for profit. At any and all costs

Hearts out to the people who suffer. I think I've gambled on 2 sports games with friends, $10 on who wins, every time I felt dumb loosing money and have no want to do it again. I can't imagine wanting to throw your money away every second of the day. Sounds very stressful.

I live in Vegas 47. I’m a casual sports better. When I want to do sports bet I go to the sports book. I have 0 sports betting app in my phone and that’s how it’ll always be. Pro tip: fellas u don’t have to bet everyday pick ur battles wisely good luck!

Buddy moving to a flip phone was the smartest bet he ever made. I'm right behind him...

I remember getting a registered letter from the US government for playing PokerStars Texas hold em 1 and 2 cents. I had to watch and acknowledge a video from DOJ explaining I am breaking the law. So, I cashed out account for a whooping 197.34 cents. I started with 100 3 years previously. I only played with real money only to stop the ALL IN every hand with funzies money. Now I have coworkers who gamble their entire paychecks on their phones.

We truly live in a country that values capital over people

Duh. I think this every time there is a gambling app commercial during a live sports game. People will say "well alcohol is advertised during games and that can cause problems too"... but I don't think it's the same. If the effects of alcohol was available to be inserted into you with the click of a button on your phone, then maybe it would be the same. But I think being able to bet on your phone in real time is far worse.

Im 37 and started going to the casinos at 21 in st louis which we have many lol i promise you at 24 i was done and i learned how back that addiction really was. I try to talk to all young adults and encourage them to not go down the rabbit hole. We work so hard for our money to just gamble it off and something that isn't at the very least an asset. I repeat keep your money and enjoy it and do something with it dont just flush it down the toilet

I had a friend who "won" in an underground casino and was "taxed" on the way out but he was so happy to keep breathing amd walking that his story is all the winning he needed. He went back and played again!!!!!

Nobody in this video ever hit a parlay in their life

And no one expected this 5 years ago!! How dumb is everyone

It messes with the brain chemicals

I used to be a die hard sports fan. Im not against gambling its just not for me. However once all this started ramping up i found myself being less and less interested in sports. I went from being someone who would spend my entire weekend watching college and nfl football to barely even knowing who was in this years super bowl. All anyone cares about now is hitting parlays. They dont even care about the game they care about the bet

Thanks for shedding light on this. I can't do much myself, but I stopped watching live sports because of all of the betting ads. Sports betting like this is bad for people.

AI changing the odds in live time sounds suspicious as hell. I don't know how anyone could get addicted to a system like that. It literally sounds like the game "What number am I thinking of?".

Bill Miller, President of The American Gaming Association says, "I don't believe there is an addiction to mobile betting anymore than there is an addiction to utilization of your phone." By his own logic is he not confirming that gambling on phones makes gambling more addictive, even as he meagerly attempts to pass blame to "utilization" of the phone. He is a true sicko.

The AGA rep is flat out wrong. Modern social media and live service games have leveraged the same behavioral science to make their experiences as addictive as possible, the only difference is the currency exchanged is your time/attention-span instead of money.

My friend says Australia is worse; and at the lower levels, many tennis matches are fixed, because expenses are so high and prize money is so low. 😮

I personally know over 10 + people at the place where I worked at is hooked on Draft king and Fanduel. The bad news it's growing

As a Englishman who has spent time in my job looking at the impacts of gambling, you guys are sleepwalking towards disaster. The leagues are more worried about corruption than the addiction. The way the leagues are glamorizing it and getting in bed with the sport books is concerning. They'll be distancing themselves in the next 5 years

We see the same issue in the Netherlands where they legalized gambling online. Many young people now addicted.

Mid 20's ?? Dam they look like they're in their early 30's to be honest

I turned 21 the 1st year betting was legalized in Illinois… it was fun at first but you realize how addictive it gets.

If you're going to sports bet, you have to have bankroll management. You can't just drop $500 on a random bet. You have to stick to a unit size, 1-3% of your total bankroll.

It’s a terrible addiction. And it’s ruining enjoying the game :( please ban it again. Gambling is worse than drugs

The predatory ways sports broadcasters have gone about gambling ads is insane. It’s a shame.

States have the lottery and scratch offs. I see people wasting their money buying hand fulls of state scratch offs and lottery tickets at convenience stores while standing in line waiting on them. I hope to see a story done about this.

Here’s another headline “Sports betting leads to fears that the games are fixed,but the media says nothing about it because of how much advertising revenue they are getting”. The people who own sports books are not going to leave that much money to chance.

Putting money into long term savings > putting money into gambling

Profitable bettors are limited by the Sportsbooks. That's the real crime here. These books are fine taking your life savings and making millions off of you, but if they get a sniff of a guy or girl that's up more than usual on their book, they'll limit the amount of bets and how much they can bet.

There’s no way that sports betting hasn’t messed with the integrity of the games

One of the huge problems is that it's more accessible! I just watched a 30 minute video where a psychologist pointed out that to change problem behaviors, accessibility must be limited.

2:50 It's only a matter of time until there is a major sports gambling scandal. Professional athletes are, for the most part, young men with phones.

never give up, keep chasing those parlays you're due to hit one!

The Guy with AGA sounded almost exactly like the Big Tobacco CEOs from years past. We see how that turned out.

This is no surprise to u. First, as soon as betting was made legal, we knew this was on its way to being a problem. Second, when we saw advertising such as Draft Kings in every other commercial and sponsored shows, we knew this would get out of hand. From the get go, we thought this should have never started.

Addiction is addiction. You don't need to study gambling addiction because there have been studies about other addictions. Addiction is the sickness; gambling, alcohol, narcotics, caffeine, sugar, etcetera are the drugs.

We got rid of tobacco and alcohol advertisements....why is gambling still allowed? I usually watch ad-free streaming and was shocked in watching NFL playoff games how many ads for gambling sites there were. Disgusting.

I’m the only person in my friend group who doesn’t bet on sports. It’s annoying hanging out with the boys and all they talk about are their bets.

use to be a addict, i’ve said the high of winning a big bet is better than any drug i’ve ever done. glad i’m done with that hope people who need help can get it

yeah shoutout to those new online slots they got… lost damn near 2 GRAND 😡

These folks are adults. Rule #1 of gambling. Don't bet $ you are not willing to lose. This is a self control issue. Adults are addicted to dozens of things. And millions of people are not. This lies solely on the individual.

Hating sports is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

In Vegas I used to love when the visitors would clear out on Sunday nights lol. The saying was "Bet big or go home".....I knew they were going home anyway. I saw kids on Sunday mornings at the Flamingo getting trashed and betting their balls on their home teams. To be truthful, I never saw the Vegas experience going nationwide. I absolutely believe this story because you can see how young guys don't drive responsibly so no doubt they can't handle the freedom of Vegas on a daily basis. Families used to move to Vegas because of gambling. That won't help now because betting is everywhere now. Good luck out there and bet smart, or not at all.

I was killing Prizepicks hitting 6 man parlays on Nba and Mlb. They started limiting my tickets to 40 dollars only no more 100 dollar slips. Thats when i knew they had been data collecting and they were not going to let me continue to win. If its fair why would they do that, made me Wonder and now i know why, it's by design. THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

The Feds need to create a new kind of “Do Not Call” List, that allows degenerates to ban themselves from all gambling apps for 5 years. It’s completely unfair, that all you have to do to relapse is download an app. You can never get away from it.

This is a good take on the issue but I would give a 1 out of 10 for completeness and maybe a 5 out of 10 for accuracy. Saying some leeway should be given to books because they didn't see the level of wagering increasing before the legalization is inaccurate. They have been working for over a decade to create more and more in game wagers to keep people betting nonstop. They rolled it out on mobile in Las Vegas before other states legalized to start a working model of what is now in game live wagering. They don't even need AI since they spread these out at ridiculous numbers it's impossible for them to lose in aggregate. Also the most glaring omission is that not only don't they ban problem gamblers (they cater to them) but they actually will ban any bettor they suspect is a winning bettor long term meaning they have an edge on the house. They should've interviewed some professional sports bettors and would've found this out immediately.

Great segment - sports gambling is a huge problem right now it’s only gonna get worse

Everyone I know who gets into betting is unable to stop. It snowballs into an addiction.

Watching this makes me want to make another parlay 😂

Gambling is definitely an easy addiction. I really only bet on football and basketball. We don’t have draftkings or fanduel here in Florida (thank god I’ve seen people bet on anything on those apps). I gamble myself but I have limits, I keep track of how much I deposit, win and lose. It’s fun for me nothing more than that. Anybody struggling with addiction I wish them the best and free from it

I was addicted to opioids for 6 years I’m clean now honestly gambling addiction look really rough

Totally foreseeable and FORESEEN societal problem. I suspect Noam Chomsky knew. But he also knew (I suspect) not nearly enough Americans foresaw in order to raise enough of an outrage to prevent. Kinda like tobacco.