Latest news with #GamblersAnonymous
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NY man's debt explodes to $100K in less than a year due to gambling — what Dave Ramsey told him to do ASAP
When Jelani from New York called into The Ramsey Show about his financial problems, he didn't sugarcoat his situation. "I owe over $100,000. I'm kind of lost right now,' he told finance personality Dave Ramsey in a clip posted May 28. 'I don't know if I should file [for] bankruptcy. I just need some advice," he told celebrity finance personality Dave Ramsey. Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 6 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) Nervous about the stock market in 2025? Find out how you can access this $1B private real estate fund (with as little as $10) Jelani shared he owed around $80,000 in credit card debt, $8,500 in student loans and $11,500 on a car loan. His debt accumulated rapidly since Thanksgiving, when he only owed $30,000. A truck driver earning between $110,000 and $140,000 per year, Jelani revealed his debt stemmed mostly from gambling via an online dice game. Ramsey and co-host Jade Warshaw warned Jelani about the mental and financial toll of gambling and the mental traps it creates. "Typically, when you have something that's been such a big part of your life and your habits, just removing it is not enough — you have to replace it with something else," Warshaw said. Jelani admitted he quit gambling cold turkey and hadn't yet sought help through therapy or Gamblers Anonymous, prompting Ramsey to urge him to get support from someone who understands the sobriety process. As for a financial recovery plan, Ramsey laid out a no-frills approach: Create a 'scorched-earth, no life' recovery budget where all spending halts except for necessities and tackling debt. 'Eat peanut butter and jelly. Eat beans and rice. That's it,' Ramsey advised. List debts from smallest to largest and use the snowball method to pay them down aggressively. Pick up extra shifts at work and aim to increase income as much as possible. Ramsey emphasized the urgency of his plan: 'You need to do this in a year to 18 months because that indicates the intensity by which you're running straight into the problem and from the thing that caused the problem — the gambling.' Read more: Want an extra $1,300,000 when you retire? Dave Ramsey says — and that 'anyone' can do it Online gambling has grown in America. The American Gaming Association reports online casino revenue increased 28.7% in 2024 from a year earlier in the seven states with full-scale legal iGaming. That figure represents $8.41 billion in growth. Sports betting also went up nationwide in 2024, with revenue increasing 25.4% up to a record revenue of $13.71 billion. Sports betting's rise in recent years may largely be attributed to increased accessibility as more states have legalized the practice. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), an estimated 2.5 million adults in the U.S. meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem in any given year. The organization also notes around 85% of adults have gambled at least once in their lives, while 60% have gambled within the past year, and that some form of gambling is legal across 48 states and the District of Columbia. The NCPG outlines several key warning signs of gambling addiction, which include: Increasing thoughts about, or time and money spent on, gambling Feeling out of control, or continuing to gamble despite negative consequences Chasing losses, or continuing to gamble in an attempt to win back money Feeling restless or irritable when not gambling Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead How much cash do you plan to keep on hand after you retire? Here are 3 of the biggest reasons you'll need a substantial stash of savings in retirement Robert Kiyosaki warns of a 'Greater Depression' coming to the US — with millions of Americans going poor. But he says these 2 'easy-money' assets will bring in 'great wealth'. How to get in now Here are 5 'must have' items that Americans (almost) always overpay for — and very quickly regret. How many are hurting you? Like what you read? Join 200,000+ readers and get the best of Moneywise straight to your inbox every week. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
New York Post
05-05-2025
- General
- New York Post
Dear Abby: My wife goes to the casino every night — she won't stop gambling
DEAR ABBY: The woman I've been married to for the last 10 years is spending her time away from home. She isn't seeing another man or hanging out in bars. She leaves at any time of the day and goes to the casino. She also plays online throughout the day or evening. She stays out all night until sometimes 8 or 9 o'clock the next morning. I have tried talking to her calmly — and I've tried the angry way, too. I've gotten nowhere about this issue. Advertisement I believe she's being disrespectful, which will lead to the end of our marriage. How can I get through to her that what she's doing isn't good for our relationship? I'm very close to saying 'Enough!' and it's time for us to go our separate ways. — FRUSTRATED IN MICHIGAN Advertisement DEAR FRUSTRATED: If what your wife is doing affects the financial stability of your marriage, you absolutely have to draw the line. From your description of her activities, your wife is addicted to the rush she gets from gambling. Suggest that she join Gamblers Anonymous for help, and you should explore a support group called Gam-Anon for yourself. However, if that doesn't help, consult an attorney and tell your wife that if she doesn't seek help, you will be forced to separate your finances, even if it means ending the marriage. Advertisement DEAR ABBY: My sister has stopped communicating with my parents and me. However, she still maintains contact with members of our extended family. What's strange is that none of us is sure what we did to cause this. We have asked her to share her side of the story, but her reasons keep changing. Sometimes, she says it's because I'm spoiled and get everything; other times, it's because Mom didn't praise her enough. Advertisement As for Dad, we're not sure why she's upset with him. He's a quiet person who mostly keeps to himself. At first, I didn't let this bother me much, but as time goes on, I'm starting to feel really upset. Our parents are getting older and could use some support, or at least a friendly conversation. Do you think I'll ever be able to let go of my anger, or will it linger until my parents are no longer with us? — BAFFLED BROTHER IN NEW MEXICO DEAR BROTHER: Accept that you can't change your sister. After your parents are gone and it is too late to make amends, your sister may feel guilty for her unwillingness to mend fences with them over their perceived slights. Family counseling might facilitate some healing, but only if everyone is willing to participate. As to your anger over your sister's behavior, it may take a session or two with a licensed psychotherapist to move beyond it. In the meantime, do the best you can to ensure that your parents know you love them and are grateful for all they have done for you. Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
BBC News
26-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Footballer Dean Sturridge opens up about gambling addiction
"When I couldn't play football because of injury, I'd be sat on my settee. I'd have boredom, I'd have time – and I'd have the money. That's when the bets escalated and I was totally out of control," says a former professional Sturridge, born in Birmingham, was a successful striker, notably playing in the Premier League for Derby County, Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers, as well as having spells at Sheffield United and Kidderminster behind the scenes, he was struggling with a serious gambling five and a half years in recovery, Sturridge is using his experience to help others stuck on what he calls the "desert island" of addiction. Sturridge is the newest ambassador for the gambling support charity Gordon Moody, which first brought the Gamblers Anonymous concept from the US to the UK in 1971."I know the feeling of being in addiction, being lonely, being isolated, feeling guilt, feeling shame, feeling embarrassment," said Sturridge, now 51. "Everybody's story is unique, but I'm hoping I can inspire just one person."Sturridge's gambling problem began when he was young but became worse when he was faced with the fame and fortune of becoming a professional footballer. He remains Derby County's record goalscorer in the Premier League, "My first signing-on fee was a big figure," he explained. "It was supposed to be going down to buy my first car, a Ford Fiesta Firefly."I couldn't pay for it because I'd lost my signing-on fee within hours of it going into my account."Sturridge ended up borrowing money from a team-mate to pay for the car."I'd be going from the bookie to the bank... writing cheques out and going into the branch, then withdrawing money."By the end of the day you see nil in your account, when at the start of the day it had thousands in it." Sturridge acknowledges his salary allowed him to finance his addiction - but he felt the impact in other areas."When I'd be with my children [and my wife], some of the time I'd be on my phone putting a bet on," he remembers. "I wasn't present in the conversations."And that's the most disappointing thing for me that I have regrets about. But I'm glad now that I'm in recovery, I'm a better person."And I have a great opportunity now with my grandson, who's a year old, that I can show him the new improved Dean."Things came to a head when Sturridge's wife came home early one day and found him watching horse racing and placing bets. Within 24 hours, he was at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting."Walking through those doors, it was the catalyst for me understanding myself."As a gambler, I think you shut off [your emotions]; you compartmentalise, and I did that as a sportsman as well."I was always pushing my emotions to the side and trying to mask them." Now a football agent, Sturridge believes young players are more equipped to deal with the trappings of fame - but stresses that they still need support."It's important... for people like myself, for people in organisations like Gordon Moody, to go into schools and into football clubs and just help them on their journey." Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Federal prosecutors say there is no evidence Shohei Ohtani's ex-interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, has gambling addiction
Federal prosectors said no evidence backs up Ippei Mizuhara's claims that he suffered from a gambling addiction, which led to massive debts, according to court documents. Mizuhara, the former longtime interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 6 after pleading guilty to bank and tax fraud charges in June. In the spring, Mizuhara admitted to stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani to pay off sports betting debts. Prosecutors asked for $16 million in restitution to Ohtani and an additional $1.1 million to the IRS. Federal prosecutors have recommended a 57-month prison sentence with three years of supervised release, while Mizuhara's attorney asked for an 18-month sentence in a separate court filing citing Mizuhara's "long-standing" gambling addiction in which he claims to owe a debt of $40.7 million and "frequented casinos four to five times a week." The lawyer said his client is attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings three times per week. Prosecutors have responded to Mizuhara's gambling addiction claim by saying that he gave "self-serving and uncorroborated statements to the psychologist he hired for the purposes of sentencing." "All defendants claim to be remorseful at the time of sentencing," wrote prosecutors in the filing. "The question courts must answer is whether the defendant is truly remorseful or whether they are just sorry they were caught." The government's investigation, prosecutors say, found "only minimal evidence" of legal gambling in Mizuhara's past after looking at over 30 U.S. casinos to find only that Mizuhara spent $200 at one in 2008. Mizuhara, prosecutors claim, also created a FanDuel account in 2018 but never placed a wager. In 2023, he began using DraftKings after he "had already stolen millions of dollars from Mr. Ohtani." Prosecutors are claiming that Mizuhara did not rack up a large debt that ultimately led to him stealing from Ohtani, as Mizuhara claimed in his defense. Last week, an audio recording released by prosecutors showed Mizuhara impersonating the Los Angeles Dodgers star in order to wire $200,000 from Ohtani's bank account claiming the money was for a car loan. In 2021, the government alleges that Mizuhara attempted a fraudulent wire transfer from Ohtani's account for $40,000 while having over $34,000 in his checking account. "[Mizuhara] could have used his own money to pay the bookie but instead chose to steal from Mr. Ohtani," claim prosecutors. Per the federal criminal complaint against Mizuhara, he made 19,000 sports bets with an illegal bookie from December 2021 through January 2024, with bets ranging from $10 to $160,000 and an average wager of $12,800. Mizuhara placed roughly 25 bets per day. Records show that he won roughly $142.3 million in sports wagers and lost more than $182.9 million, adding up to a net loss of roughly $40.7 million. Prosecutors claim that "a significant period of incarceration is necessary" for Mizuhara stealing from Ohtani and that Mizuhara "feels ashamed from the international attention he received from his fraud schemes and web of lies."
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
How the quick high of ‘fast-food gambling' ensnared young men
Watching televised sports in 2025 can feel a little like sitting through one long gambling commercial, interspersed by occasional flashes of actual games. Those sports, meanwhile, are played in venues and uniforms plastered with the logos of yet more betting houses, airing on broadcasts that sprinkle in mentions of gambling sponsors. The experience on sports podcasts and websites and apps is much the same. But why? As the biggest event on the US sports calendar – the Super Bowl – approaches, how did we get to a place where sports have been reduced to a kind of raw material to be refined and packaged into the real product: the no-sweat, profit-boosted, five-leg, in-game parlay bonus bet? The answer is simple: because the mushrooming sports betting industry has converted an advertising blitz – pegged at more than a billion dollars a year from 2021 through 2023 by the American Gaming Association – into a highly effective machine for drawing and keeping customers, particularly young men. As one addiction expert says: 'Gambling offers the false promise of spectacular success. The psyche of young men has not changed. But every societal touchstone is promoting gambling expansion.' In 2018, the US supreme court overturned a federal law that banned states from legalizing sports betting – with Nevada grandfathered in. Thirty-eight states rushed to allow sports gambling in a half-blind pursuit of the attendant tax revenues. At the same time, 30 of them also permitted mobile and online gambling. Last year, Americans wagered about $150bn on sports, up 23% from 2023 and more than 50% from 2022. The sports betting handle in 2023 was more than $1,000 per capita in seven different states. At the same time, total bankruptcies have climbed by as much as 30% in the states where sports betting is newly legal. Calls to problem gambling hotlines are soaring. And Gamblers Anonymous meetings are seeing an influx of young, male attendees, who are disproportionately affected. Somewhere between 60 and 80% of high school students reported having gambled in the last year, the National Council on Problem Gambling reported in 2023. A study commissioned by the NCAA found that 58% of 18-to-22-year-olds had bet on sports – although it should be said that in most states this is illegal before the age of 21. On college campuses, that number was 67%, and the betting happened at a higher frequency. While most people can limit gambling to a bit of occasional fun, medical journal the Lancet published a paper in November finding that 16.3% of adolescents worldwide who bet on sports developed a gambling addiction. (The Sports Betting Alliance, an industry group, pointed to studies conducted in Massachusetts, Indiana and Connecticut that found the rate of problem gamblers across the population to be roughly between 1 and 2%.) It all amounts to a swelling problem as the way we watch, experience and engage with sports has been fundamentally altered by the betting bonanza. 'This is already a public health crisis,' says US representative Paul Tonko. 'Of all the addictions, gambling has the highest potential for suicide attempts of any mental health disorder. When the US supreme court in 2018 gave the green light to states to allow for mobile sports gambling, they did that without consideration of the negative impacts that could be associated with it.' Tonko is the rare lawmaker in Washington DC with an appetite to take on the sports betting boom, introducing the SAFE Bet Act with US senator Richard Blumentha in September, which aims to create consumer protections around mobile sports gambling and curb advertising. 'You have a very vulnerable audience that is being targeted,' Tonko says. '[The advertising for sports betting] really is designed to pull you in at a tender age, before you're perhaps able to manage that risk assessment.' Over the course of an NBA or NHL broadcast, the viewer will see the logo of a betting company or hear some reference made to gambling 2.8 times per minute, according to a study. 'ESPN is a 24-7 casino ad right now,' says Dr Timothy Fong, an addiction psychiatrist and the co-director of UCLA's Gambling Studies Program. 'The normalization has gone so deep, so fast. [Sports] gambling has gone so viral that it's beyond normalization. It's endemic.' Not all that long ago, legalized sports gambling anywhere in the US but Nevada was unthinkable. This message was shouted at the public most loudly by the very leagues that now swim in betting money. Which is to say that the gambling industry, such as it was then, had two hurdles to clear: the law and the zeitgeist. While placing a bet with a guy you knew was hardly uncommon, something about it felt illicit. It wasn't the sort of thing you would want your mom to know about. By carpet-bombing our culture with ads, though, the sports betting industry polished its reputation, one ad at a time. How can something be wrong when it's everywhere and seemingly everyone is doing it? Before long, everyone was doing it. If you were surrounded by young men, at any rate. 'The success of mobile, real-time gambling is coinciding with evolutions in technology and that's a big part of it,' says Dr Stephen Shapiro, a sports management professor at the University of South Carolina who researches sports gambling and consumer behavior. 'There would be so many more barriers to entry in the past. You would have to go to a sports book and bet in more of a seedy environment. A college-aged student would have been less likely to partake in it.' Whereas gambling used to be a solitary pursuit, young men now do it together as a bonding experience. Mobile betting is woven into the social fabric of dorm life. Mobile sports betting apps perform so well for their creators because they have been optimized to get users to gamble more and gamble faster, experts say. To chase the action, in the betting parlance. That's why betting on games is no longer limited to a lone wager on the outcome, or a player's performance over the course of the whole contest. Instead, it has been broken down into hundreds – sometimes thousands – of mini-bets on every last play and possibility, the in-game bets powered by the advanced metrics the leagues sell the betting companies. The psychology of sports betting apps is modeled on the slot machine, argues Dr Richard Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern University and the founder and president of its Public Health Advocacy Institute. The apps are designed to be played quickly and aggressively to trigger repeated hits of dopamine and, eventually, addiction. 'This has nothing to do with ordinary sports betting,' Daynard says. 'Until you had online sports betting, nobody had ever bet on whether the next pitch was going to be faster or slower than 95 mph. You're betting on all these micro-propositions. It's just an opportunity to push the button.' 'Fast-food gambling is essentially what this is,' adds Fong. 'Highly processed gambling, sanitized and synthesized by a computer that is exactly designed to hit the dopamine.' The AI-powered in-game bets appear and disappear so fast that it's impossible for the user to work out whether the odds on them are worth the wager. If the art of successful sports gambling is spotting inefficiencies or outright errors in the betting lines, that edge is negated by the lightning-fast decision-making required for these bets. And that's exactly the point, to accelerate the heedless users' betting action and the mathematical probability that they will lose. The sharp betters, after all, know better than to touch those sorts of wagers. 'Gambling addiction has nothing to do with money. It has to do with how the product makes you feel, the action, the anticipation,' says Dr Harry Levant, a gambling addiction therapist and the director of PHAI at Northeastern. 'The light-up of the dopamine occurs in the anticipation of the result, not the actual result. What's happened here is we've taken a known addictive product and we've come up with a way to market and distribute it to people at lightspeed. If you take a 22-year-old, whose risk-reward system of their brain is not formed until they're 26, and you give them an addictive product, and you push it at them at light speed, you're going to hurt them.' The smartphone, meanwhile, is itself built to function as a dopamine-delivery machine. It is the perfect device to exacerbate the gambler's worst impulses. Smartphones are designed to keep you coming back to them, picking them up throughout the day and flicking through the same few apps for fresh dopamine hits from messages, content or games. Betting apps readily offer all of those. And once they have burrowed into your digital routine, they are hard to ignore. To the gambling addict, having betting apps on their phone is a little like an alcoholic taking up residence in the brewery, or a meth addict living inside his dealer's lab. One of the biggest betting firms, FanDuel, denies that its app purposely dials up dopamine and points out that it is compliant with regulations. 'FanDuel works in strict accordance with all laws and standards set forth by each state regulator,' a spokesperson said. The Responsible Online Gaming Association, which represents most of the major sports books including FanDuel and DraftKings, said in a statement that 'All our operators' mobile platforms feature responsible gaming tools, including deposit limits, time limits, wager limits, and time-out features, which allow users to set personal limits to help ensure their experience remains recreational.' Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion As he spoke in the middle of a Monday morning, Levant pulled his phone from his pocket. He had no FanDuel account – Levant is a recovering gambling addict himself, after all – but within a few seconds and a few taps, he had downloaded the app and was a final click away from being able to bet on the next serve of a second-tier Challenger tennis tournament in Buenos Aires between two players he, and most everyone else, had never heard of. And then on the next serve and the next. 'The human brain is not built to handle that level of constant action,' Levant says. 'The product itself isn't designed for recreational purposes. Why is that bet here right now? Why is there betting on every serve?' Because, as one FanDuel slogan puts it, the thing is to 'Make every moment more.' Betting is marketed as a second-screen experience to augment the emotion of watching a game. You're supposed to cherish even the so-called garbage time late in games when the outcome is almost certain, again per FanDuel, and invest in every last play. Another FanDuel motto: 'Never waste a hunch.' The betting houses subtly suggest that skill and knowledge will inoculate you from risk. That if you know ball, you're not really gambling. There seems to be a broad belief among sports betters that they aren't merely gambling on the odds of something happening, like putting their chips on 22 black at the roulette table or telling the croupier to hit them with another card in blackjack. Rather, they believe that they are monetizing their innate knowledge and feel for a sport. An Australian study backs this up, finding that young, male sports gamblers' 'knowledge, skill, and control reduced beliefs about risks and contributed to risky patterns of sports betting regardless of their individual risk or problem gambling status.' The reading of risk is also clouded by the special offers a sports betting company will ping to your phone whenever you haven't placed a wager in a while. A different Australian study found that betting inducements gave young men a feel of greater control over betting outcomes. Yet another study suggested that those inducements produce riskier betting behavior. Still, they are hard to ignore when they blow up your phone. 'People are stepping back [from mobile betting] because they're hurting,' says Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the PHAI. 'They know this is a struggle for them. And then they are provided with odds-boosts and deposit matches very aggressively through text-messaging, in-app messaging and emails. The technology is there for these platforms to recognize that certain customers are demonstrating potentially problem-gambling behaviors.' 'These promotions are designed to keep you in action,' says Levant. 'They're doing what your neighborhood drug dealer does. They don't want you to pause.' FanDuel denies this, pointing to wide-ranging efforts to prevent and help problem gamblers. 'FanDuel and its parent company Flutter invested $100m in responsible gaming technology, advocacy and product development in 2024,' the spokesperson said. Fong, the father of two sports-besotted teenaged boys, frets that the culture navigated by today's young men only exacerbates the allure of mobile sports gambling. The podcasts they listen to and the influencers they take their cues from all echo the same message, Fong says. Namely, they have no worth if they aren't getting rich quick and outsmarting their peers along the way. 'Particularly young men go, 'OK, I've been told I need to make spectacular success,'' says Fong. 'You combine it with massive, massive advertising. All those forces are pointing towards that 18-to-24-year-old guy, tickling his dopamine circuits. Gambling offers the false promise of spectacular success. The psyche of young men has not changed. But every societal touchstone is promoting gambling expansion.' Yet once gambling tips over into addiction, the stigma remains pervasive. In fact, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the standard guideline for mental health – did not reclassify a gambling problem from an impulse-control disorder to an addictive disorder until 2013. What's more, it is perhaps the easiest addiction to hide. 'Unlike other addictions, there are no natural, visible warning signs,' says Levant. 'You can't drink $1,000 of vodka in one night. I can make a $1,000 bet right now and I'll show no visible manifestation.' In a space where young men bond over their love and knowledge of sports, and betting has become central to this dynamic, being open about lost bets challenges their image of themselves and their status within the group. Until the money runs out and their problem becomes impossible to hide, they chase their losses and dig themselves into an ever deeper hole. After all, their phone is right there, in their pockets, promising a solution. It's a more appealing prospect than admitting to their friends that they do not, in fact, know ball. Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men's national soccer team, out in 2026. He teaches at Marist College.
