Posted on 04/05/2026 9:25:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising two boys meant a lot of hard conversations. She warned them about all the usual dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding a bike without a helmet.
"Never once did I even think that I needed to say 'gambling,'" she recalls.
One day, when her oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a livestream and clicked on a link in the comments. It took him to an offshore online casino.
There, he got sucked in — to blackjack, poker, roulette. He could use items from the video game as money. Soon he got hooked, but the signs of his addiction were hard to spot.
"It's not like he was just holed up in his room 24-7," Freudenberg says. "He ran track. He played soccer. He was a great student."
Until he dropped out of college at age 19. That's when his mom found out that he had been gambling for nearly half his life.
He'd sold things from around the house to keep up with his debts, borrowed money from friends and, then, eventually, started stealing money from his parents.
It's a problem that educators, researchers and parents like Freudenberg say is affecting a growing number of young people, most of them boys. A recent national survey from Common Sense Media found that 36% of boys age 11 to 17 in the U.S. have gambled in the past year.
"It's a lot of kids," says Michael Robb, the head of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that promotes digital safety for kids. "A third of kids is a lot of kids."
He notes that playing fantasy football with friends or making a March Madness bracket may be harmless. It could, for example, help strengthen male friend groups. But for a small subset of boys, Robb adds, things can get out of control: "They're not all going to have problems. But given how much things have changed in the last couple of years, the way [some kids] are engaging in gambling behaviors is already flashing red signs."
It's not just teens. Gambling has soared in the U.S. since a key Supreme Court ruling in 2018 allowed states to legalize sports betting. That opened the floodgates, from one state back then to 38 in 2024.
Before that decision, Americans spent $4.9 billion annually on sports betting. By 2023, that figure had ballooned to $121 billion, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
And those were just the legal bets. No one under 18 can gamble legally, but experts say the opportunities are everywhere.
"If I wanted to bet on the [Washington] Nationals," says Matt Missar, an addiction counselor in Pittsburgh, "20 years ago, as a teenager, I'll go find a bookie and I'll place a bet. Nowadays, I can bet on every single pitch of a game."
Much of the explosion in legalized gambling is happening on cellphones, Missar notes. "It is incredibly easy."
He specializes in gambling and video game addictions and says the number of young adults he sees come through his practice has ticked higher in recent years.
"It's not just that the problem arose when they're 18," he says. "It started when they were 13 or 14 … and slowly over those years it became more of a problem."
Freudenberg wishes she had seen the warning signs. But often, she says, online gambling can look the same as texting a friend or watching a video.
She thinks removing the guardrails has created a slippery slope for kids: "If my kid had to get in a car, drive to a bank, take out money, drive to a casino, go into the casino, show an ID at the door — he probably wouldn't be a gambling addict."
After a few attempts at rehab, she says, her son is back at college and doing well. Freudenberg helped start a support group for parents of teen gamblers, and their numbers are growing.
She fears that, all over the country, there are lots more parents just like her.
"The tsunami is on the horizon," she says. "And it's gonna be really, really bad."
It’s best to quit gambling all together when you see your horse stumble and fall at the starting gate, break a leg, and have to be shot.
But considering the source, I am skeptical of this particular story.
Especially because it appears to agree with my point of view.
WTH do they get enough money to blow it????
Alk hambling debts should be legally uncollectable.
Any programmer will tell you that online card gambling is kayfabe. Card gambling at a casino is designed to keep you from winning big.
I blame loot boxes in video games for a large chunk of the gambling issues in kids
I got those at our local Boys Club. Small town in TN.
Only cost a buck and the rewards of hitting 10 was 100 bucks.
I don’t remember anybody getting 10. We were about 15yrs old.
They came out of an old school billiard hall downtown.
They call it Bitcoin.
Early Al Capone with pals?
A really nice guy at the library where I worked was secretly addicted to online gambling. Got found out when he couldn’t leave the desktop without finishing some heavy bet outcomes.
They let him do 12 step and psychiatrist therapy and keep his job.
All addictions are sad.
Like porn used to involve trying to not be seen going into a sleazy magazine and peep show place or “adult” theater, and gambling used to entail a trip to Las Vegas, the “gift” of high tech brought all the problems into someone’s home and office. Ain’t it grand?
—Long time Luddite on FR.
I never gambled partly because as a kid in junior high school I won every political and sports bet and the losers started to think I was in on something crooked so threatened me more and more. Got out of the habit and stayed out.
CBS News posted earlier this week that Australia is tightening the noose on gambling advertising in sporting events.
https://x.com/10NewsAU/status/2039539306948428154
well when you raise them playing video games, let them think life comes easy....
Load up.
It’s gonna roll big.
Then sell.
If you can fix votes (2020), then they can certainly fix computer generated
card games. Those games should be outlawed and mass posting for said should
be explained why.
Iowa was one of the first states to allow it and on football weekends, you’d see dozens of cars from Nebraska drive into Iowa, park and place their bets and go home.
At my son’s wedding, one of his friends was taking about all his bets he made on college football games that day. Didn’t sound like a lot but her was also betting 10 team parlays which if even betting a three teamer, you may as well throw your $$ out the window.
Government = Porn good, Pot good, gambling good, Abortion good, Spending good, High tax rates good. Morality - dont judge others
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