Last Call with Sarah and Marissa

It's Not Gambling, it's a Superbowl Square

• Marissa Whitaker and Sarah Hartman

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From online sports betting to casinos, scratch-offs, and Superbowl squares - we are surrounded by taking risks. It feels great when we win, but what about when we lose? We discuss these complexities with Jessica McCarthy from the Central Region Problem Gambling Resource Center, and where you can find help if things feel out of balance.

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Marissa: Welcome to the last Call podcast. My name is Marissa Whitaker, and I'm the prevention educator at SUNY Cortland.

Sarah: And my name is Sarah McGowan. I'm the assistant director of student health and wellness at Onondaga Community College. Our jobs are to educate students about potential risks associated with substance use.

Marissa: We approach substance use from a neutral stance, and our episodes are rooted in public health with a focus on science and harm reduction. Welcome back, everybody. Today we're going to be talking about all things gambling. And we have a special guest with us today, Jessica McCarthy from the Central Region Problem Gambling Resource center. Thank you so much for joining us.

Jessica: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Marissa: So maybe before we get into the meat of the conversation, can you tell us a little bit what does problem gambling look like with the college population?

Jessica: Absolutely. So I'm from the central problem Gambling Resource center. So what we do is we try to increase public awareness about problem gambling, and we try to connect those that are affected by gambling with services that can help them. So looking at the college end of what gambling looks like, we do want to put out there. We are gambling neutral. We're not here to tell anyone how to live, but we do want to make people aware of the risks and the warning signs and let them know where they can go for help if it's needed or to learn more. So this is data from 2020, and we're seeing that, you know, those 18 to 24 year olds are in that highest risk population that is only a year or two before mobile sports betting became legalized. So that's probably going to be a big shift in the next batch of data that we have. We're also seeing that it's more prevalent or popular with alcohol dependence. So we're seeing gambling go hand in hand with alcohol dependence, too.

Marissa: And I like that you bring up the mobile sports betting because I think so many people gamble that might not consider it gambling, like going to the casino, gambling scratch offs, gambling, betting on your favorite team. That's just team loyalty. And so sometimes I don't think people necessarily put the pieces together that when you're doing, like, this huge parlay that you are gambling when you're putting money on it.

Jessica: Yeah, absolutely. And I talk to different people all over our community in the whole central region, and it's 13 counties. And I cannot tell you how many people will say, oh, you know, I don't gamble. I just play poker on my phone. I don't gamble. I just do the casino online. Right. And so people really don't understand gambling is just risking something of value on a chance to increase that value. It's that simple.

Sarah: Yeah, very interesting. So, Jess, are there certain demographics that are at more of a risk for developing that problem, gambling?

Jessica: So we talked about that 18 to 24 year old being one of the highest risk populations. So we're also seeing males, student athletes, a couple other different demographics we're seeing are not being married, earning above average salary, or having a higher level of education. And then there's what we call poly gambling. So that would be like going in on a gamble together. So if you think of, like, the office lottery pools or fantasy sports betting, things like that, and then having multiple different types of accounts, especially with the mobile sports betting, having accounts on multiple different platforms. And then the thing about gambling, too, is it can present as other things. So where someone might think it's an issue with mental health or maybe something with substance use, people often think of gambling secondary to those other issues when they start to notice changes in behaviors and things like that.

Sarah: That's really interesting. I wonder that location piece. So, for those of our listeners that aren't super familiar with this area, we have a lot of casinos kind of concentrated in one smaller area. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Jessica: Absolutely. There is an increase based on proximity to casinos, but with the different formats of gambling now, with everything being so accessible on our phones and things like that, even that, it's changing. But, yeah, the northeast, we have a lot of colleges, we have a lot of casinos, so we definitely have our work cut out for us.

Sarah: It's also wild, like the advertisements that you're seeing in those huge, like, higher level events, like Super Bowl. I feel like the last couple of years, there have been so, so many advertisements for, like, online gambling. This year, it was like, if you make a free bet and, like, that's. That's a newer thing with. With, like, Super bowl ads, but they can do it because they have some money.

Marissa: Yeah. Gambling on stuff that has nothing to even do with the game. It's nuts. All the things you can gamble. You don't even have to know about sports to make some of the wagers. And they had.

Jessica: If Taylor Swift was gonna wear her hair up or down to the Super bowl. Like, you can bet on the coin toss.

Marissa: Yeah. And what a perfect population to do this to. I mean, so I can see why we get these 18 to 24. Being at a more. You're more at risk for a lot of things, whether that's looking at it from frontal lobe development. Exploring your autonomy. If you're on a college campus, you don't have anyone looking over your shoulder to like, do you have this money to spend? And then that can really put college students at a higher risk than maybe other, other populations. So going off of that, are there certain risks that put college students in a more vulnerable position to problematic gambling?

Jessica: The brain development isn't fully there until 25, so I call it having the ability to play the tape the whole way through. So we might be able to think, oh, yeah, I might not have my money for tuition, but do we think about the long term consequences of that? Could I get kicked out of school? Am I going to have to tell my family? And kind of just looking at that long term decision making and, you know, that impulsivity and that reward center of the brain is. Is getting rewarded when we're doing these behaviors, where we're getting that feel good pleasure response from winning or having that drink or whatever, and that reward center gets wired, and it makes it, you know, more and more common behavior that the person likes getting that feel good. And then it becomes an issue, and it can tie in with other issues like substance use, nicotine use, alcohol use, and then that 24/7 access, I think, really becomes part of this specific age group where, like you said, maybe we're on our own for the first time. We have disposable income for the first time, we have 24/7 access to this. We can be on our phone, we can be on our laptop and. And get to it without even leaving our bed. So, you know, just all those things together just kind of create the perfect storm for issues.

Marissa: Yeah. And then, I mean, thinking, too, when you had mentioned alcohol. So let's throw alcohol into the mix, especially maybe having more than one or two drinks when you start to really lose some of that executive decision making, then you have access, carte blanche on your phone to bet whatever you want, whether you have that money available or not. I mean, you could just see, like, walking through a casino when people are intoxicated. That's why they're giving you free drinks at the casinos. It loosens what decisions we might make. So to have that on your cell phone, my God, get. Not a scare tactic by any means, but it's. It's just kind of amazing how you said it's a perfect storm for all of this.

Jessica: Yeah. And it can be. It could be no matter what, right? It could be. I'm winning. I feel great. I'm getting free drinks. This is great. You know, having a blast or it could be. I just lost. I I want to not feel like this. And so, like, it could be a celebration. It could be to forget our issues. It all just can tie together.

Marissa: Yeah.

Jessica: You know, and. And we can make an excuse to do anything that we. We want to. We can find a reason. Right. So, yeah, it just. It. Which one is feeding the other? It kinda can. Can get really messy.

Sarah: So, you know, talking about alcohol and harm, a big, you know, component of our podcast is harm reduction. So, Jess, can you tell us a little bit about what does harm reduction look like when it comes to gambling?

Jessica: As I mentioned, we're gambling neutral, so we don't want to, you know, tell anybody what to do, but we want to have tools and resources out there to hopefully help people if they think it could becoming an issue. And recovery is really personal to each person, and harm reduction, I think, is really personal to each person, too. So it's going to depend on the person, but doing things like setting a budget. So I have x amount of disposable income. That's my. We'll call it entertainment. And when it's gone, it's gone, and that's it. So that could help people, you know, having that plan, limiting the types of gambling. So only allowing just, for example, like one mode of gambling. So I'm allowed one mobile sports betting bet a week, or I'm allowed one lottery ticket a week. These are just examples, but just limiting the types of gambling. So I'm not gambling on my phone, going to the casino, buying lottery tickets, etcetera, just limiting the types. There's also a really helpful program called voluntary self exclusion, or the BSE program, where a person could go into any New York State gaming Commission run casino, and they can go in, or they actually can do it online now, and they can ban themselves self exclude from senile gambling and mobile sports betting for one year, three years, five years, or lifetime. And I really like that one because I think a year self ban is. Is more digestible to somebody that's just kind of deciding to make that move than a lifetime. Right? So, okay, I can just do it for a year and see how. How I deal with it, and then you can, you know, renew it if you want to, but that is through the voluntary self exclusion program. So it's just another harm reduction tactic that hopefully can help kind of bridge that gap where someone might be having an issue.

Sarah: Marissa and I were talking a little bit about this in the days before we recorded the podcast, and we were talking about how those people that truly want to gamble will kind of stop at nothing. So some of these harm reduction tactics may be good in theory, but realistically, you have a budget and then you have your debit card with you, and then you continue to swipe there, you continue to take money off of it. So we talked also about, like, having a support system, maybe letting your support system know that you are trying to limit your gambling and then they can assist you when you feel like you don't have control or in those times when you might feel like you need to gamble.

Jessica: And there's a lot of different support systems out there for loved ones, somebody with gambling issues that can kind of help navigate that pathway, too. But yeah, I think the more support we have from loved ones, friends, people who know and, and can help guide us through the process, the better.

Marissa: You had mentioned this one we had talked before that you can't overdose on gambling. So that, I think is a really big thing when looking at harm reduction. It just, as Sarah said, you can go to the car to get your debit card. Even if you leave the debit card in the car, if you're really desperate, you can drive back home to get what you need.

Jessica: It is called the hidden addiction, but it's, it's an addiction. So there's that spectrum of some people can do it and good and some people become compulsive, can't stop despite negative consequences. So, you know, it's a spectrum and, and we all fall in different places on it. And it really is very similar to substance use and that we don't know who's going to end up where.

Marissa: And it's all a risk and what's wild. And the one thing that makes gambling, I think, I don't say harder in some ways, but when you get that payoff, when you do win, it likely isn't enough to recoup what you've spent. But if you just won a couple thousand dollars, that rationalizes and makes everything worth what you've done, because not only do you feel that high, but you've recouped some of the losses if you go out drinking or smoking weed. Best case scenario is you have a fun time. But best case scenario when you're gambling is you just want a boatload of money. So it's almost like a whole separate ball of wax to try to tackle despite all of the similarities that you just listed.

Jessica: And there's what we call like, inaccurate loss recall. So if you don't just need the picture of the person with that big giant, you know, $20,000 check that. They hit us long machine at the casino, and they've got a big smile on their face. But did they. Did they lose 40,000 to win that 20,000? Like, that's the part that we don't see and we don't know. So, um, I think even from my experience, what I've seen is even when people hit that big win, that guilt and that shame always comes back, because then we just keep going, right? So, oh, we got a big win, and, okay, I'll just do a little more. A little more. And then it. It comes back down to that. That's gone, and we're back kind of in at that square one. So, you know, it. Like, any addiction, like I said, a spectrum. And we romanticize parts of it, and parts of it seem like, you know, they're good. We had a great time. And then it comes back down to, I have an uncontrollable addiction.

Marissa: I always love to look when I'm online and I see people standing next to the jackpot pointing at it, and it says, like, 10,000. I zoom in to see. What was your bet? Yeah, you won ten k, but you just bet $40 a spin on the slot machine to get to that. So it is just what you were saying. We mistake the forest for the tree, sometimes with the winds. And I have one other question, because I'm curious if it's a harm reduction or if we could be enabling some potentially problematic behaviors, would it be considered harm reduction? If someone likes to play the slots on their phone, they're not playing for money, but they're playing for those quick hit, instant gratifications. And this is in no way personal at all. But is that, like, a harm reduction to gambling or for someone? Could that be exacerbating some. Yeah, like, really enabling some problematic stuff.

Jessica: So I would go back to our definition of gambling. So are we risking something of value? So, if we're not betting money on it and we're just doing it purely for entertainment, then I would say we're probably good. So if we're risking something of value on a chance to increase something or gain something of value, then it would be considered gambling. So does that answer your question?

Marissa: It does, but then just on a philosophical level, is what you're. You're wasting time. Like, the amount of time can set it and forget it, or for some of the people, that it is free. But if you spend all the money, well, for 999, you can get $2 million and so I can see how with someone who might be vulnerable or just doesn't care about spending that, I can see that's when money gets involved. Yeah.

Sarah: And it's interesting, too, because you hear about kids who are doing games like that, but then they have to buy coins to keep playing. And then they, like, on their parents app stores, rack up thousands of dollars in bills. So, like, that's activating that part in their brain that makes them keep wanting to do it. So I would say, you know, ultimately it's leading to a loss down the road. So right now, value. But it could. And if you have that thing in your brain that's like, this is fun, I want to keep doing it. Let me try other things. Then, you know, become problematic.

Jessica: And they purposely try to change our perception of money. Right. So they have you buy coins instead of using actual real dollars, and they have you buy points, and they have you share their game with three people to an x amount of coins. And they do all that to purposely detach that, the money from it to us.

Marissa: Yeah, it's wild. And, okay, so kind of bringing it back a little bit. I'm relatively new to football, just a fan as of a few years ago, and I am consistently blown away with just college sports betting or just sports betting in general, like on our phones. But what is the abridged version of how all of this works? Because there's a lot there to unpack mobile sports betting.

Jessica: So think of things like draft kings or fanduels. So these just were legalized in New York state in January of 2022. So it was just getting over Covid and just kind of thinking about that aspect of it. And really how it works is people just download an app on their cell phone, or you can do it online on a computer, make an account, and then they can fund the account so they can put x amount of dollars in to the account, and then they can place bets. And when I say place bets, uh, you can literally bet on a dark game across the world. Uh, you can bet on, like, cricket or bocce ball. You can bet on, you know, all different sports you could possibly think of. You can bet on a coin toss. You can bet on if somebody will wear this color socks. Like, you can literally bet on anything. And there is no betting allowed on in state college sports. So if there are two teams that are non your college teams are playing at a location in New York, they cannot be bet on. So that's just within New York state. And then student athletes can't place sports bets. So those are just some of the regulations in place. But in general, for, like, the general public is you just download the app, make an account, fund it, and you place your best. Wow.

Sarah: So one of the reasons why we really wanted to do this podcast was the mental health implications that can come from gambling. So gambling has the highest suicide risk of any addiction. Jess, do you have any more information on that?

Jessica: Yeah. So it's actually one in five people with a gambling disorder. Will a time go decide?

Marissa: I was very alarmed when I didn't know that until we started really doing research for this episode that it's the highest risk of suicidality under all forms of addiction. So that's just to really pause and examine the magnitude of that.

Jessica: I just. The stigma with money and finances, I think, really ties into it, too. And I think people can kind of grasp substance use disorder and recovery and things like that. But I just. I feel like it's different with gambling, and I'm not sure why, but like you said, the shame and the guilt and things like that, I just think that some reducing stigma hasn't caught up with gambling in the same way that it's, you know, that financial ruin can, really. Can hit people hard. And it does take a long time to come back from. And then the relationship issues on top of that and just the guilt and shame and hopelessness.

Marissa: How many of us were raised people don't talk about money, don't ask how much someone makes, don't ask how much someone's spending. So it's. It's veiled in such secrecy that it is so hard to talk about even the best case scenarios.

Jessica: Yeah.

Sarah: And we talked about cross, like, cross addiction a little bit, but so your. Your drug of choice is crystal meth, and then you switch to gambling and, you know, other people's minds. At least you're not using the crystal meth, but it can be just as problematic and harmful. You just switched, you know, drug of choice, basically.

Jessica: And that's a really good point, Sarah, because gambling is normalized in society, right. Was at a grocery store, and there was a woman that worked there, and she's pushing a cart going around to all the employees, do you want to buy a Super bowl square? Do you want to buy a Super bowl square? And, like, it's just normal. Nobody thinks twice about it. And I think that kind of helps keep that stigma alive and that. That guilt and shame while no one else is having a problem with us. Right. And everyone else can do this, and they don't have problems and it just kind of feeds that stigma. So I think it being normalized within our society in general, like, you know, well, at least I'm not doing crystal muffin anymore. Like, that's really easy to justify.

Marissa: Yeah. And I don't mean to be a puritan poly over this, but they're in so many people's workplaces, and it's so. Yeah, we obviously don't hear because we're state funded school, but.

Jessica: Never.

Marissa: But it's so, like, it is. And, like, you're looked at as a stick in the mud if, like, oh, you don't want to square. It's no big deal. And, like, if for the majority, it might not be, but we don't know where someone's coming from with some of this. So.

Jessica: I had an aunt that used to give me me a birthday card, like, as a child with a lottery ticket and a penny taped inside. Oh, my God. I'm like, it was totally. Yeah. And I think about that now that I do this work, and I'm like, oh, it's normalized. And my mommy spill lotto tickets in our Christmas stockings and stuff. And it's like nobody's even saying necessarily that nobody can do these things. But maybe having the conversation, like, do you think you win every time? And things like that, where we just kind of raise the awareness and. And, you know, and hopefully people understand that it's not a perfect win every time type of thing.

Marissa: Right. I really hope my family doesn't listen to this because I am expecting my scratch offs and my stockings. I know. So, you know, as we're talking about a lot of this stuff, what do we look for if somebody might have some of these warning signs?

Jessica: So I think the number one warning sign for any addiction is. Is the behavior different, right. If it's. If it's ourselves, if it's a friend, if it's a loved one, is. Is something feeling different? Is the behavior different? Are they distracted? I think with gambling, the phone can be a really big kind of signal wherever the person's on the phone, distracted all the time, and just, you know, asking simply, like, what are we working on? Just making open ended founders asian question, right? Do you spend money on that? How does that work? What do you do on that? So is it, you know, keeping them up at night? Are they missing classes because they are up all night doing something on the computer at the casino or whatever? Are we gambling with money that was meant for something else? Are we using our tuition money? Are we using our grocery money and then relying on others. So making that bailout call, those mental health kind of warning signs, or is somebody feeling depressed, anxious? Are they feeling desperate? And then they know where to send them for support from there.

Sarah: So going along with that, how can college students get help if they feel that their gambling is at an unhealthy level?

Jessica: So the number one contact that's open 24 7365 is the New York state Office of Addiction Services and supports hopewind. So that's for any addiction that's not just for gambling, it's not for just substance use. So it's any addiction. And their number is 18778 HopE, New York. Or you can text hope, New York to 467 369. And that will get people in touch with an operator. And how that works is that they will give them some options of what they can do for next steps, and then they offer them to speak with a problem gambling resource center. So I'm in the central region, but we have multiple problem gambling resource centers across New York state. So anywhere in New York state somebody can be connected with a resource center. We also have a self screening tool on our website, and we have a website specifically for young adults, and it's called you decide NY. So it's udecidenewyork.org. we have our self screener there. We also have connections with some really great different resources. Have you guys ever heard of smart recovery?

Marissa: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay, so smart recovery is a little different from, like, a traditional Na or an AAEH because it's cognitive based, which is just a fancy way of saying it helps change thoughts to change behaviors, so it's less focused on having a higher power and things like that. And it's more changing our thoughts. So they have online meetings and in person all across the country. So they have virtual options. They have in person options. And then, of course, we have gamblers anonymous connections, too, where people can meet with other people that are trying to work through some gambling issues, and we can hook them up with meetings in their area as well.

Marissa: That's awesome. So as we're wrapping the episode up, do you have any final thoughts or anything that you would find helpful for our listeners to know?

Jessica: Absolutely. So like we mentioned, there's a self screening tool on our you decide New York page. There's a young adult section, and there's some different resources there. There's more information about the voluntary self exclusion support program. There's more information about the New York state Oasis hope line. So just different things like that just to kind of normalize that gambling can be an issue for some people and just working it into, you know, conversations and helping reduce that stigma by talking about it and, and just normalizing that. It's. It's not necessarily a non issue for everybody.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Jess, for joining us on this week's episode of the last Call podcast, and we will catch you in the next one.

Jessica: Thank you guys so much.