America has always had a weakness for a wager — but until recently, the casino was somewhere you had to put on pants and drive to. That's no longer the case. Since the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, the industry has exploded into a phenomenon that lives in every pocket in the country — right inside our phones.
U.S. commercial gaming revenue hit a record $71.92 billion in 2024, the fourth straight year of record numbers. But the most insidious gambling frontier isn't a sportsbook — it's in the games we're downloading. Nearly 60 percent of the top-grossing games on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store contain "loot boxes," the term for digital items purchased with real money that function, neurologically speaking, exactly like a slot machine.
The newest and perhaps most controversial gambling frontier is the prediction market — a form of wagering that may seem innocent, at first glance. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket let users place bets on outcomes for everything from sports games to wars. The two platforms have since racked up more than $44 billion in combined trading volume in 2025 alone, with monthly figures topping $10 billion.
The line between gaming and gambling has never been blurrier — or, say experts, more dangerous. We spoke with Jody Bechtold, CEO of the Better Institute and an expert on gambling addiction to understand how this habit could be "the next opioid epidemic," and how to stop this compulsion before it spirals.
I'm sure you're getting a lot more interview requests than usual, given the rise of prediction markets and other forms of legalized gambling in the U.S. What are the recent conversations that you're having around gambling?
I supervise clinicians in five different states and we're all having similar conversations, which definitely tells me we're facing a systemic issue. These prediction markets obviously are a big factor: FanDuel and DraftKings are getting into the prediction market, as is Robinhood. And you only have to be 18 to participate. So even if you aren't old enough to create an account to legally gamble, you now can create an account to access the prediction markets. We're just pushing these habits younger and younger.
Apps that involve money transactions are another growing area: I was talking with some fellow clinicians today about a website called SoLo Funds, where you can borrow and lend to your peers, and then get interest on those loans. It's another form of making risky decisions, where there's no legislation and regulations around it. There's a website called Coverd, which calls itself "paying bills made fun" — you track your spending and play games in an attempt to get some of your purchases paid off. And again, it's not gambling-gambling, so there's no legislation, no regulation.
I think the prediction market is the most obvious way that people are getting around gambling regulations: You're wagering on sports or just about anything, but there's no regulations. So then each state doesn't have a way of promoting any of their responsible gambling tools. And there's no income generated for the states, because these markets don't fall under the definition of gambling, and yet it is truly gambling.
Have you seen a shift in the demographics of gambling addiction? How has that evolved as you've been working in this space?
When we only had brick-and-mortar casinos, you had to drive to them, so your whereabouts were noticed if you weren't at home. Then legal-gambling states continued to add more casinos, and make them more club-like. So you were drawing a younger demographic on a Friday or Saturday night, which became kind of a rite of passage: "I can't wait till I turn 21, and I get to go."
It's also helpful to add some context: 2018 was when the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. Before that, there were two states that had legalized sports betting — now there are 40. But some states have also legalized i-gaming, meaning that everything you can do in person, you can also do online, including purchasing lottery tickets, the Powerball… And that makes a huge difference.
In the states where you can do i-gaming, we're definitely seeing a different group emerging — women who are doing it on their phones, because they don't have to drive anywhere. It also used to be that problems around gambling were common from the late 40s on, age-wise, but we're seeing the age starting to trend younger. With sports betting, we're seeing a very young male sports bettor, and that's one of the major issues of today. Some of these men have never stepped inside of a casino before, and they don't even respond to the word "gamble." If you ask them what types of gambling they do, they'll say, "I don't." But if you ask, "What types of sports wagering do you do?" they'll give you all kinds of answers.
A lot of these gaming apps have elements like virtual currency, "coins," and rewards. At what point does a game or an app cross the line into concerning gambling behavior?
One question is, is someone putting real money in, never to get real money out? Some people will pay to just keep playing and they can't afford it. Or is someone spending a considerable amount of time on these apps? Time and money are usually the important factors that we look at. Or is it affecting their relationships? Are they not sleeping, because they're playing on these apps or on a laptop all night long? And at what point do they start to really lose control, in a sense of how much money they're spending? So that's going to be a different answer for each person, relative to their income.
But ultimately, I'd ask, are you spending more money than you can afford? And what are you getting for it? Some people will say, "I'm paying for my entertainment." And others will say, "Well, I was enjoying it, but now I'm so far behind; I'm trying to win to fix everything." And that phenomenon — of chasing the losses — is another key indicator that there's a problem.
How does the always-in-your-pocket nature of smartphones alter gambling behavior, compared with real casinos?
I mean, it's been well-documented when you have something that's five inches from your face at all times that's designed to be more addicting in nature, more people are going to experience problems. We could all do a better job limiting how much we're on our devices, social media, anything like that. So it's not just about gambling, but the fact that it's right on your device makes it more problematic.
It seems extra frustrating because so much of our "life admin," as people call it, now occurs on the phone: checking your banking info, tracking your steps, reading work messages. If you have a problem staying away from a certain app in your phone, you're in trouble.
Yeah, exactly. And people keeps going back to the idea that if you can't control it, then there must be something wrong with you — as opposed to the idea that we should have things designed better, and create guardrails. Society keeps pushing it back on the individual. You can set limits on these apps, but you have to go in and set them.
Have there been any successful pushes for legislation to force these apps and companies to establish their own digital guardrails?
Not that I'm aware of. I know that Dr. Harry Levant in Boston is really trying to make a lot of noise around changing legislation — Massachusetts is going to proceed with looking into the predatory marketing. Each state may or may not do a little bit here, a little bit there, but we don't have any federal oversight with gambling like we do with mental health or substances. Each state has to figure it out on its own. And in some states, it's well-discussed that legislators and regulators are catering to the industry because of the income that it's generating, as opposed to doing consumer protection.
I think people are starting to see this as another nationwide concern, like the next opioid epidemic, and they're starting to say, "We need to do better." But again, it depends on the state.
Gambling is such a big part of our culture and history that I guess it's not surprising how much it's been normalized.
Our culture has always made it look like everyone's gambling, so it's socially acceptable and fun. And if you're having a problem, there must be something wrong with you. When we have this many commercials for gambling on TV and online, the younger generations clearly think this is what everybody does.
It's well talked-about that parents are overprotective in the physical world and under protective in the digital world, which Jonathan Haidt said in his book, The Anxious Generation. Parents need to get much more involved in the digital world of their kids, because they're gambling at very young ages. Some parents are actually doing it with their kids, like, "Hey, let's do our brackets together."
There's a new organization called ParentsStandingTogether.org, created by three moms whose sons were involved in problematic gambling. They're helping legitimize having these conversations, and what that should look like. That voice is much needed right now.
