KEY FINDINGS FROM 60 MINUTES BROADCAST ON ONLINE SPORTS BETTING AND YOUNG GAMBLERS
Friends, Please take a look at the CBS 60 Minutes broadcast from last Sunday on the explosion of gambling addiction among young people caused by the surge in Online sports betting occurring in the U.S.
· America has recently brought its age-old love of sports betting out of the shadows and onto our phones… and this has created an all-time mismatch, pitting man against machine: gamblers—overwhelmingly young men; versus gambling companies, armed with sophisticated AI, data, and engineering.
· In the five years since New Jersey legalized online sports gambling, calls to the state’s problem gambling helpline [have] nearly tripled. The largest caller demographic? 25-34
· Harry Levant (Gambling addiction counsellor): I have patients who gamble in the shower. I have patients who gamble before they get out of bed in the morning. I have patients who gamble while they are driving. There are no guardrails.
· Jon Wertheim (moderator): Every clinician we’ve spoken to has said, “We’re noticing a rise in problem gambling.” There are a lot more problem gamblers now by every metric than there were pre-2018.
· Mark Gottleib (Public health attorney at Northeastern University): We- we have seen, certainly with tobacco, a lot of rules to control the way these products are promoted. And we’d like to see that with these products as well. Right now, it’s sometimes described as the wild west, right? Because there’s almost no controls at all.
Please keep these items in mind when the next Online sports betting bills show up at the legislature. It’s time for the New Mexico government to get out of the predatory gambling racket.
Cordially,
Dr. Guy C. Clark, chairman
Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico
