The Current - Online gambling like a racetrack in my pocket 24/7, says recovering addict

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Adam Pettle has struggled with a gambling addiction since he was a teenager, eventually racking up debts that forced him to sell his family home. The recent boom in online sports betting made Pettle feel like he had a racetrack in his pocket 24/7, and a new report warns that the industry is creating a public health crisis that should be treated like alcohol and tobacco.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. Why do I do online sports betting? It's fun. It gets the dopamine up. It's good. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable to watch. Sometimes games can be a little boring, so if you have a little bit of money in the game, it makes it a little bit more fun.

Online sports betting in Canada is booming, and Ontario is leading the charge with people in that province alone placing something like $63 billion in online bets last year. For fans across the country, it's changing how they watch sports. Here is what some people in Vancouver told us about their online betting habits. I bet a lot on UFC fighters and a lot for boxing fighters as well. To be honest, I end up losing more than I win, but it's still fun. I usually only bet like $20 or $50 at a time.

Sometimes I worry about the money, for sure. I don't know if I have $50 to lose living in city but it's it's worth it most of the time so i know a lot of people that obviously are in severe gambling debt if you don't if you can't risk going to a grocery store to spend 200 bucks on groceries and don't spend it on gambling that's what i don't know but it's easier said than done when you have that mental attachment. The dopamine rush that you get from it can be pretty high. Don't bet money you don't have. Don't bet money you don't have. As online betting has exploded in popularity, so has problem gambling.

A recent report from the medical journal The Lancet calls gambling a worldwide global health threat. In Canada, calls to gambling addiction hotlines are way up. Adam Petal is currently in recovery from a sports betting addiction. Adam, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Go back to that moment that you first won big from gambling. What did that feel like? Well, it's going back a long way, probably, you know, to when I was 11 or 12 years old I grew up at the racetrack and around gamblers and it was the feeling of pure joy you know it's it's tough to describe but it was just joy and also

like a kind of suit of armor came over me and I could take on the world and nothing could really affect me or, or, you know, hit me in the same way, as long as I was in action. This is before online betting was legal in Canada. And you mentioned the racetrack. I mean, what were you betting on in particular? Uh, at the end, every, I mean, everything I bet on, I bet on, I played cards. I love to go to the racetrack. I bet sports, uh, big time, uh, you know, I bet what color the Gatorade, uh, poured on the winning Superbowl coaches head would be, uh, how long the national anthem would last in the Superbowl,

like anything I could bet on, I did. How did that change when online gambling appeared? Uh, for me drastically, I mean, it progressed, you know, it's a progressive that on than I did. How did that change when online gambling appeared? For me, drastically. I mean, it progressed. It's a progressive illness, in my opinion, addiction, and it progressed so rapidly when I had a casino sports book racetrack in my pocket 24 hours a day. On your phone? Yeah. And where I could be home putting my kids to bed uh and gambling at the same time it was like you know then the illusion and the delusion that i was

you know being a good father and you could that that was just it became so over accessible so quickly um because i straddled both you know i started i straddled the old world of gambling and the new world of gambling so um it was like just rapid it was just like on steroids when did you know that that you had a problem with gambling uh probably by the time i was a teenager um, I knew that I didn't gamble like other people. I knew that I couldn't stop. I knew that I started hiding the way I was actually gambling even while I was gambling.

You know, I remember I went to Las Vegas when I was 16 or 17 and, you know, the trip to Vegas was like a ruse for what I was actually doing underneath it all. So I knew I couldn't gamble like other people. But then cut to 35 years later, it took me a very, very long time to surrender finally and get help. What was that moment, if you don't mind me asking? to surrender finally and get help. What was that moment? Do you know, if you don't mind me asking, when you realized that the, as you said, you know,

the sports book in your pocket was ruining your life? Yeah, I mean, it happened over 2020. I, you know, I just reached the point where I was completely defeated. I have such a beautiful family that I love so dearly and I thought the only way out would be if they could cash in my life insurance. But I was so ruined and didn't really want to be around anymore and was just so powerless to stop you know for like the last year of my gambling career that's such a funny word to use um uh i was conscious of what i was doing which was the worst you know because i was in a dream world for so many years and on autopilot

but i don't know why uh you know, whatever, you know, if it's grace or, you know, luck, maybe, I don't know. But I woke up and it was so painful being conscious, watching myself do a thing that I couldn't stop. I mean, there's a financial cost to this as well. I mean, the phrase, and it's a cliche because it's true, the house always wins. What did it cost you financially? Oh, everything. I mean, not everything. I still, you know, luckily still have my family and I'm rebuilding, but, you know, I was making a ton of money i lost um we had to you know sell our family home because of um my debts and uh we you know i i spent everything you know we lived large too and i and it wasn't just the gambling but it's also the lifestyle and the minds you know but that suit of armor that you're

talking about yeah yeah but absolutely everything you know like it's just it's impossible there is no win big enough you know and i was making enough money for all my the dreams that i had to come true and it's still it's not a financial issue when you're a compulsive gambler or gambling addict it has nothing to do with money. It's the action and it's the drug, you know, so it's like the money, it's hard to explain, but wins and losses don't matter when you're an addict. It's everywhere now. I mean, from the sports that you watch to the ads that pop up on your phone, to the billboards that are around a city that you might be in. Given what you've gone through, what worries you the most when you see that kind of access to online betting?

What worries me the most is for my children and everybody's children. When I say I had a casino in my pocket, most people have phones now at 11 or 12 which means they do too and the exposure and normalization of gambling to our kids is terrifying to me because you know the messaging from the industry is it's just a small percentage of addicts that it affects and that might be true let's like it let's say it's 10 now hundreds of millions of new people are being exposed. Our kids, the marketing is aimed at young people. So even if it remains 10%, which I don't think it will, that's 10% of hundreds of millions of new, I mean, we're just creating a new generation of addicts. of addicts. And my kids come from four generations of compulsive gamblers. My great-grandfather lost his only pair of shoes and came over from the shuttle with no shoes on because he lost them in a card game. So this is an illness that is genetic and affects generations, and I'm terrified for the next generation.

How are you doing now? And I ask you this in part because, again, if you watch sports on TV, these ads are everywhere. There was a study from Marketplace on CBC saying that viewers in Canada see gambling ads three times a minute during a sports broadcast. How do you go about avoiding those things?

Well, you can't. You can't. And to answer your question, I'm doing really, really well now thanks to an incredible recovery community, an incredible therapist, the most incredible family. But I couldn't do it alone.

And it's impossible to avoid exposure to it i couldn't watch sports i love sports i can watch sports for the first year and a half of my recovery i can i can now kind of you know through his blade fingers like i said in that article it's like watching a horror movie and i'm you know but at least when i'm watching with my son or my daughter, we're very open about it and transparent about my addiction and what it can cost you. So at least the dialogue in our household is open, but it's the Wild West. It's completely...

And it's like there's no... It seems to be not sanctioned. It's like everybody smoked in the 50s and 60s and then we're like oh it's bad i'm sorry it's bad it's bad for you i can understand i mean it's the kind of thing that i mean yeah you you've been through it so i can imagine it's a bit pointed for you um salty language included i'm glad you're doing okay um and that that you would be willing to talk about this because it's a tough thing. Adam, thank you very much. Thank you so much.

Adam Petal is currently in recovery for sports betting addiction. He is in Toronto. Nigel Turner is a scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, also in the city of Toronto. He's also an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. And his research focuses on gambling. Nigel, good morning to you. Good morning. What is the explosion of online?

I mean, this sounds obvious in some ways, but what is the explosion of online betting meant for problem gambling? Well, as the previous guest said, it means it's very difficult to get away from the marketing. You're surrounded by it. In terms of helpline statistics, so this is the number of people calling the Ontario Problem Gambling Helpline. We've gone from a situation in 2019 where the majority of calls to the helpline were related to slot machines to now the majority of calls to the help line are related

to online gambling. So that's quite a shift in the way in which people are gambling and the crisis that they are having. And the total number of calls to the help line has increased. What, just briefly, what do we know about what the ability to gamble anywhere, almost at any time, does to the brain? I mean, we heard, you know, about the dopamine hits that people are getting. We heard from Adam about the fact that it's not about the money in some ways. It's about the experience of being in the game. What is that doing to us? Well, gambling is thrilling.

It's a very exciting to the brain. Gambling is thrilling. It's a very exciting to the brain. And partly that's because our brain wants to organize the world, right? And when we experience gambling, which is actually random, our brain does its best to try and organize the world and make sense of it. And it actually enjoys that. It enjoys that experience of randomness and dopamine is released. And dopamine is a learning chemical. So it actually consolidates the behavior that you're experiencing. So you're gambling, the dopamine is released, and it makes you want, it programs your brain to keep doing that. So, And the brain loves that randomness. So you get the highest, the strongest effect out of pure random chance. You mentioned the problem gambling hotlines, and some of your

research has looked into some of the data around that in the province of Ontario. What are the demographics of the people who are calling those hotlines? Well, this is one of the interesting things. There's also been a shift. As well as being a shift in terms of what people are gambling on, there's a shift in who's gambling. The online gambling appeals more to males and it appeals more to younger people. So there's a demographic shift towards younger people calling the helpline. So there's a demographic shift towards younger people calling the helpline, whereas prior to 2019, it was equally balanced between males and females, and the distribution was well across the ages. It's now shifted towards relatively more younger males who are gambling. And what are they saying, as far as you understand it, what are they saying about the fact that they believe their gambling is problematic?

Well, the helpline, it's an anonymous helpline, and there's very little information that's recorded. But when people call in in a crisis over a gambling problem, that's recorded as a problem gambling contact. In terms of why people think that it's a problem, it's based on, mostly it's based on related to crisis over money, because it is money ultimately that is the primary harm caused by gambling. And that results in additional harm from relationships, emotional harm from losing your life savings, potential career harm, especially if somebody has access to money at work and starts embezzling, they could end up in prison. So there's a whole bunch of secondary consequences from gambling. The first and foremost is the disappearance of money from one's life. I mean, there are a lot of people who gamble and there are a lot of people

who enjoy gambling. You yourself don't mind a bit of blackjack now and again, I understand. I like blackjack. I like poker. I love the sound of a roulette ball rolling around the roulette wheel. Yeah, most people who gamble, gamble very small amounts, modest amounts, amounts they can afford. 90% of the people who gamble, gamble within reasonable limits. But there's that, the rest gamble far more than they can afford. And they are the ones who are getting into trouble from gambling. Most people actually understand

that gambling is a waste of money. And it's fun. It's a fun way to waste your money. And that's the way you should look at gambling. It's a fun way to waste your money. And that's the way you should look at gambling. It's a fun way to waste your money. It's not a way to make money. And if you think this is a way to make money, you're in the wrong field. You're doing the wrong thing. What do you make of those ads that, as I said, are almost incessant on television? I mean, there's a fun tone that runs through many of them. Are you concerned about not just the ads, but how frequently they are shown? I'm concerned about the frequency. I'm concerned about the timing, the fact that they're inundated during sports games.

A lot of youth watch these sports games because they admire the game, and they're being inundated with these ads. They're being programmed, essentially essentially to want to gamble. And I'm concerned about whether they're gambling now, which is mostly private bets if they're under the age of 19, and whether that will turn into a lifelong dependency on gambling, a problem that will emerge when they become legally able to gamble. So we're concerned about that. I think there's too much advertising. We're being too saturated. I mean, if people really want to gamble, they'll gamble without needing this to be constantly

swamped by the ads. We asked the Alcohol and Gaming Commission in Ontario. This is the organization that regulates online gambling, for an interview. No one was available to talk with us, but they sent us a statement that reads in part that they're the only North American jurisdiction that requires operators to continuously monitor

their players' betting patterns, intervene to assist players who might be at risk. As a result, over the last year, regulated iGaming operators in Ontario proactively intervened an average of almost 600 times per month to reassess patrons' risk levels, contact players directly, attempt to reduce potential risk or limit or exclude players from gambling altogether. Is that enough, do you think, to deal with the concerns that you have? Well, I don't know if it's enough. I mean, the fact that we do have people calling the helpline who are reporting having problems. I mean, I will say that, you know, compared to prior to the legalization of wide open online gambling in Ontario, like when we, it's licensed. Prior to that licensing process that started in April 2022, Who knows what you were going to get? And the amount

of information for people who are having problems was very splotchy at best, hit and miss. You may, there's some of, like I went on to a number of these gray market sites that were not legal licensed in Ontario prior to 2022. And some of them had helpline information, some of them had responsible gambling information, but there was no required regulation. So I do think that we do have a lot of good information on the sites in Ontario, but I don't know if it's enough. And I think it should be more prominent. And one of the big things that's lacking is a comprehensive self-exclusion program, which is the first line of sort of defense that people have that they can exclude themselves from one site, they're not excluded from the other sites, which I think is a weakness of the current system. But I do think the regulated market, there are some good things about that, the fact that it is regulated, that it is a known quantity. But on the other hand, I think there is more they could do to engage with problem gamblers and make it easier for them to quit. Nigel, thank you very much for this. You're welcome.

Nigel Turner is a scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, also an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Sparrow is a co-author of this recent report from the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling, also a professor in the practice of public management at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Malcolm, hello to you. Good morning, Matt. This report in The Lancet looked at the gambling industry, and it called that industry and its effects globally a worldwide health threat. Why that language? Because that was the purpose of the commission was to sort of establish the global picture and to raise awareness of gambling as a major public health issue and to do so at a

particular point in time, given the trajectory of rapid growth that we seem to be on. Why specifically public health, though? And what does that mean when it's looked at as a public health issue? It puts gambling in the same category as tobacco and alcohol, things that we probably mostly won't prohibit entirely because a lot of people enjoy them. But where there's established link with detrimental outcomes, health, financial, employment, etc. This is a big part of the issue itself.

And one of the things that the report points out is that the industry presents gambling as a source of employment and revenue, a form of leisure, harmless fun for the majority of people who gamble responsibly. What's wrong with that framing? This is actually a framing that really suits the purposes of the industry.

And what they like to say is that gamblers fall neatly in two categories. There's the recreational gamblers for whom it's nothing but homeless fun. And then there's this very small sliver of people who get into trouble and that the industry is prepared to help and support. There's a number of things wrong with this framework, first of all. And perhaps most importantly, it diverts attention from corporate conduct. It puts the whole onus for controlling harms on the individual consumer.

And meanwhile, the gambling operators are designing products to be as addictive as possible. They are using very clever technological means to create an immersive experience that will hold a person on an app for as long as possible. They want to get consumers into the zone where they lose track of time and how much they're losing. So it's putting all of the attention on the individual gambler. Secondly, it's worth noting that the whole business model for the gambling industry depends on heavy gambling. More than half of their revenue comes from people who are heavy gamblers. And many of them, even if they don't reach the sort of clinical standard for disordered gambling, they're somewhere on the at-risk spectrum. gambling, they're somewhere on the at-risk spectrum. And so, the industry's profitability actually depends on risky gambling behaviors. And you can tell that because if a heavy gambler

tries to stop in many jurisdictions, the operators will go after them and entice them back with personalized and special offers and bonus bets, knowing full well that they not only will lose the $200 or $500 that they've been given, but that they'll carry on and lose more of their own money. And if that weren't the case, then they wouldn't use these strategies. We're out of time, but let me just ask you very briefly. I mean, if this is about public health, is it possible to regulate it in the same way as alcohol and tobacco? A long-term dream would be that we would do exactly that. The Framework Convention

on Tobacco Control is a UN treaty. 180 countries signed up, and they're unapologetic about the mission. It is to reduce consumption worldwide. That is a very different idea than just providing medical help for those that develop lung cancer. It is a population level control. Malcolm, we'll leave it there. Good to have you on the program. Thank you very much. Thank you. Malcolm Sparrow is co-author of a recent report from the Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling, also professor in the practice of public management at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. These ads are everywhere, and public consumption of those gambling sites is at an all-time high in many places. Your thoughts on this? Is it too late to put the horse back in the barn?

You can email us, thecurrent at cbc.ca. We're back in 90 seconds. We'll talk about Someone Knows Something, season nine. It's coming up. Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.