The game swallowed the entire American sports culture. Until the beginning of 2018, sports betting was illegal under federal law; Today, it is legal in 39 states and Washington, DC (and quite easy to access via stolen door channels even in states where it is not). During the NFL games, game advertisements are more often disseminated than Beer advertisements. Commentators analyze not only if a team can win, but if it can earn at least the number of points by which they are favored on Paris applications. Almost half of men under the age of 50 now have an account with an online sports book, and the Americans spent around $ 150 billion in sports betting last year. I regularly receive advertisements on my phone by giving myself $ 200 of free sports betting, as long as I play $ 5 first.
As bets have invaded American sports, other forms of play are also increasing. According to industry data, American casinos are more popular now than at any time. The age of their average boss has ramp for years, but as sports betting has been legalized at the federal level, it has dropped by almost a decade, at around 42. Some signs also indicate game problems. No centralized entity follows dependence on the game, but if its scale is even closer to the new scale of sports betting, the United States is not equipped to face it.
In his power to ruin and even end up lifeThe dependence on the game is remarkably similar to dependence on drugs. Imaging studies show that pathological players and people with drug addicts share brain activity models. They are more likely to feel a liver disease, heart disease and sleep deprivationWhether it is the anxiety of hiding dependence on the game or because someone bet on competitions, such as cricket and table tennis, which occur in distant time zones. The best national survey available, which dates well before the rise in sports betting, revealed that 2 to 4 million Americans will undergo a gaming disorder at a given time in their lives; One in six people with a game disorder tries to commit suicide. Even if their death certificate says differently: “I had several patients who died because of the emotional pain of their game disorder,” said Timothy Fong, a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of drug addiction and co -director of the UCLA game game program, told me.
Fong, like the other researchers with whom I spoke, said that the rapid game forms, in particular those that allow you to place several bets at a time, tend to be particularly addictive. For decades, sports betting mainly involved bets on which would win a match, by how much and the total points marked – the results resolved during the hours. Now the applications offer bets in the endless game decided in a few seconds. Last year, I watched the Super Bowl with a friend who bet on the national anthem lasting less than 90.5 seconds – smart money, according to analysts. He lost when Reba Mcéntire completed the last words of the song twice.
The ability to place one bet after the other encourages a characteristic behavior of problems with problems – although deeply in the red, instead of moving away, they bet larger. “The visualization of the sports game as a way to earn money is likely to end badly,” said Joshua Grubbs, game researcher at the University of New Mexico. “Players who think that the game is a means towards economic success or financial payments almost always present many more symptoms of control of problems.” And some applications actively scramble the already misty line between betting and other financial activities. For example, the Robinhood financial platform, where millions of people exchange memes actions and manage their retirement accounts, began to offer online sports “Event contracts” (A type of investment whose payment depends on the correct forecast of merchants for the outcome of a specified event) during March Madness this year thanks to a partnership with the Financial Exchange Kalshi. (A spokesperson for Robinhood told me that this “emerging asset class” differs considerably from sports betting because users, not the house, fix the prices and can more easily leave their positions. The state gaming regulators have called Foul, but the federal government has so far not made the decision to end companies. While the courts determine if all this is legal, Robinhood has decided to leave customers Exchange on the Indy 500 and the French Open.
Several recent trends suggest that problematic game could increase in calls in the United States to states that the lines of coincidence have increased. (This could be explained in part by the advocacy groups which market their assistance lines in a more aggressive way than ever; the game companies also knock on the figures on their omnipresent advertisements.) FONG said that he had recently been invited to speak to a consortium of family lawyers, whose divorce customers began to ask: “How can I protect my children against the damage of their father? Researchers and advisers are particularly worried young single men Who play in fantastic sports leagues, bet on sport, day trade and plan to play a good way to make money. Anonymous gamblers Deploying groups for young people. “I treat guys who would never be caught in a casino,” said James Whelan, a clinical psychologist who directs treatment clinics for dependence on the game in Tennessee.
These imperfect proxies measures, as well as incomplete data which flow from a few states, are the best indicators that researchers have on the extent of game dependence. Experts do not know how long an increase in problematic game could last: certain studies suggest that the prevalence of game problems tends to equalize after a peak, but these results are generally limited to physical casinos and remain debated on the ground. According to the researchers with whom I spoke, no study has established the prevalence of dependence on the game in the United States, because sports betting has spread. Federal agencies dedicated to alcoholism and drug addiction billions of dollars in research to American universities every year. However, for decades, the federal government – the largest fundaler in American research – has affected zero dollar for research activity or addiction specifically, despite the collection of millions per year. (Administration of drug addiction services and mental health, which collects national health data and research funds, refused to comment.
The treatment of playing games of chance is “50 years late when we are with drugs or alcohol or any other substance”, Michael Sciandra, the executive Director From Nebraska Council on problem gambling, told me. Doctors and therapists, even those who specialize in the treatment of drug addiction, rarely depress game problems, he said. Among the handful of gaming game treatment providers dedicated across the country, many deploy cognitive behavioral therapy, which suggests that studies can at least temporarily improve the quality of life of patients and reduce the severity of their game problem. But treatment differences approaches And the tiny trial sizes make it difficult to say exactly the number of patients that therapy helps. Two drugs It has also been found that used to treat alcoholism and opioid dependence reduced the severity of game dependence through a handful of small clinical trials. But the evidence necessary for the approval of the FDA would require significant and expensive clinical trials that no one seems eager to finance, told me Marc Pottaza, the director of the Center of Excellence of Yale.
Since the federal government does not finance the game treatment treatment, each state decides what resources to be made available. A caller of Tennessee at the National Assistance Line 1-800-Gamber could be assigned to the assistance line of their state, then connected to the network of clinics subsidized by the government, Whelan crosses the state. But in states with offers, workers generally refer appellants to peer support groups such as anonymous gamblers or online resources on budgeting, says Cole WogomanDirector of the National Council on Problem Gambling, which manages the assistance line. Studies have shown that each of these strategies is less effective than therapy.
Texas could be an example of how the United States is not prepared to deal with any increase in problem players. The laws on state game are among the strictest in the country, and yet it always sends the second largest number of calls (behind California) to 1-800-gamber. In November, the Texans could vote on a constitutional amendment to allow sports betting. The state of more than 30 million has no funding for the treatment of the game and only three advisers certified in the game, according to Carol Ann Maner, which is one of them. The official state center for the game help, which Maner leads, was founded just this spring.
Once they have found the money, Maner and his colleagues finally plan to create the state’s own line of assistance. But first, they must recruit and train more therapists for a job which, thanks to a lack of state and federal funding, could require diverting uninsured customers. It is an intimidating task. Finding the applications that Texans can use to get around the game restrictions is easy.