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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."
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Parents say it often goes “undetected“ because the parents aren’t paying attention. And are doing nothing to stop it.
“because the parents aren’t paying attention”
Have you been a parent and tried to watch every single thing your kids do? Are you going to put family filters on your home router until they go to college? Deny them a phone until they leave for college? How can you watch everything they do online? It’s impossible. And when they leave the nest at 17, 18 or 19? Then what?
The biggest tell with drugs and gambling is the need for money. The kids never have a spare dime, always badgering you for money, things disappearing from the house (pawn shops). Or changes in relationships with friends and family. But, but the time these signs are visible, it’s way too late. And most parents will go through a period of denial that could last a year or two. They can see the evidence but refuse to believe it.
I write this from first-person experience.
Government now controls all the vice-rackets the mafia used to run - weed, gambling, opiates
“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.”
Spank the kids and keep them clear of public schools and you won’t have to go through War and Peace to keep them safe.
But we are talking San Francisco here...
It's ok to advertise gambling on TV because they have that little disclaimer at the end that gives you a phone number if you have a gambling problem.
I can't imagine how many people have become addicted to online gambling since all those Fanduel sites have popped up offering free spins if you open an account.
I can't gamble. I went to a casino twice in my life, the first time I won at slots and the second time I lost. I realized then that I could easily become a compulsive gambler and lose my entire life savings.
Ha! I ran those in H.S. in the 70s. Dad got them on Monday night. I was making 10% of take. Even had teachers asking for slips.
MultiCard Keno here. I’d like nothing better than to sit in a casino and play Multi Card Keno every day. However. my wallet won’t allow it and I know it. I still play when I can but know when to stop. And I’ve won a lot playing too!!
They should go back to drinking. That makes the gambling losses easier to take.
For a while. LOL
I remember those.
We would sit around on Friday at lunch in the high school cafeteria. They were handed out like menus at the local diner.
I remember my Dad getting pissed when he saw me with one. That is when he explained to me who ran illegal gambling in our home town.
I remember when my kids were smaller. I brought them to Chuck E. Cheese one day. I remember when I was a kid. It was all just a video games and what not.
So with my kids, After about 15 minutes of being there, I realized that just about every single thing the kids are playing was essentially at its core gambling machine. That had stuff where you would just put money in and pull a lever, or you had those claw machines that reached down to pick up toys, or some other variant, which is mostly luck based. In all the games are based around winning prizes and jackpots, versus just the value being the inherent fun of the game itself, such as when I was little playing the video games
And I remember watching my son keeps shouting how he was trying to get the jackpot so he could get tickets to buy the little trinkets and junk at the front desk.
I never brought them there again, and I’m convinced that what I was doing was basically training them to become little gamblers.
Yes, but I don’t have to excerpt.
I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. The mob ran that racket where I grew up. (And yes, I was a minor when I first bought one.)
LOL...you found a pic of my Dad in the Bowry in 1934!
Back during a lull in the Air War of Vietnam,we look into he of duty life of an airman. In those days,there were still kids going overseas, that ent to high school, had part time jobs. Such was this young man. Of all the adult entertainment, there were posted mechanical games of chance, aka one-arm bandits.These machines enthralled the young man, glamoured him to whenever he was near one to “donate” a five cent piece. In fact, his “donations” became a burden to his necessary money It reached a point where at a small Thai rice stand, the entrepreneur had a large green accounting book, and was writing this airman’s name and lent cash. The entrepreneur told him, “I give you 5, you give me 6”
The arrangement between these two grew, I’ll one day, accounting paid back for every lent, the airman paid the entrepreneur his WHOLE monthly military pay.Slowly, the fun left, and the need grew, no matter whether wing 5cents, or losing 20 5 cent pieces
Did he lose another month’s pay, 6 for 5?
No.He went into such a tight, the base skycops had to monitor him. He recovered, improved, and came back whole. He brought a git to the entrepreneur, for her aid in discovering myself.
Therefore was no GOA,no help organizations, just the young an himself.
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