“The tsunami is on the horizon,” he says. “And it’s going to be very, very bad.”
Transcription:
TO MARTINEZ, HOST:
The legalization of online gambling and sports betting in many states, and all the publicity about it, is raising fears that more young people are becoming addicted. Here’s Sequoia Carrillo from NPR.
SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE: Kim Freudenberg is a high school physics teacher in San Francisco. She is also a mother of two children, which of course brought on the usual anxieties and fears.
KIM FREUDENBERG: Lots of discussions about drugs, alcohol, sex, social media and helmet use.
CARRILLO: She knows there are many, many ways that children, especially boys, can get into trouble before anyone realizes.
FREUDENBERG: I never once thought I needed to say game.
CARRILLO: What he didn’t know was that one day when his oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a live stream and clicked on a link in the comments. He took him to an offshore online casino. There, he got carried away with blackjack, poker, roulette and could use elements of the video game as money. He soon became hooked, but Fredenberg says no one knew.
FREUDENBERG: It’s not like he was locked in his room 24/7. As if I were running on the track. He played soccer. He was a great student.
CARRILLO: Quietly, their son became an addict, making and losing money, selling things around the house to keep up with his debts, and eventually stealing money from his parents. His son ended up dropping out of university at 19. That’s when his mother discovered he had been playing.
FREUDENBERG: It’s so bad. And I think parents are not aware of what is happening and how potentially dangerous and destructive the game can be.
CARRILLO: It’s a problem that, according to educators, researchers and parents like her, is affecting a growing number of young people, most of them children. In 2018, a key Supreme Court ruling allowed states to legalize sports betting, and that opened the floodgates.
MATT MISSAR: I’m a Washington Nationals fan. If I want to bet on the Nationals 15 or 20 years ago when I was a teenager, I’ll find a sportsbook and place a bet. But nowadays I can bet on every pitch in a game: ball, strike, ball, strike. I can bet on that.
CARRILLO: That’s Matt Missar, an addiction counselor in Pittsburgh who specializes in video games and gambling. He says he has seen an increasing number of young people in his practice, although no one under 18 can legally play. So I asked him: how do the children still do it?
MISSAR: It’s incredibly easy. Honestly, in the time I spent answering that question, I bet someone could have downloaded three sites, signed up for them, and been able to start betting right away.
CARRILLO: A recent national survey from Common Sense Media, the nonprofit group that focuses on children and concerns around media, found that 36% of children ages 11 to 17 in the U.S. have played games in the past year.
MICHAEL ROBB: That’s a lot of kids. A third of children are many children.
CARRILLO: Michael Robb is the head of research at Common Sense Media. And he notes that playing fantasy football with friends or being part of a March Madness group can be harmless to boys and can help strengthen male friend groups. But for a small subset of children, things can get out of hand.
ROBB: Not everyone is going to have problems. But given how much things have changed in recent years, the way they engage in gambling behaviors is already showing red signs. Something is wrong.
CARRILLO: Kim Freudenberg wishes she had seen some of those warning signs. But even for a veteran teacher, online gambling can often feel like the same thing as texting a friend or watching a video.
FREUDENBERG: If my son had to get in a car, drive to a bank, withdraw money, drive to a casino, enter the casino, show ID at the door, he probably wouldn’t be a gambling addict. He couldn’t have done all that.
CARRILLO: After some attempts at rehabilitation, your son is now back in college and doing well. She helped start a parenting support group and each week its numbers continue to grow. And she fears that there are many more parents like her across the country.
FREUDENBERG: The tsunami is… it’s like on the horizon, and it’s going to be very, very bad.
CARRILLO: Sequoia Carrillo, NPR News.
(SOUND OF MUSIC)
