IGA show review: The digital age of problem gambling
How has problem gambling evolved online in recent years?
Fifteen years ago, callers who indicated their preference for any form of gambling or location of gambling to our helpline represented less than 1%, whereas in 2024 they represented nearly 15% of all callers. We’ve also seen increases in callers who are seeking help for online gambling. Although this is not something you would generally associate with online gambling, we’re seeing increases in callers seeking help for high-frequency cryptocurrency trading, high frequency stock trading and many other activities that are also centered around high-risk online wagers.
Could those increased calls also serve as a positive sign there are more resources available, or rather represent that problem gambling has been increasing in recent times?
Well, when we tell you how much problem gambling there is, we’re typically citing something called a prevalence survey, and what we’re interpreting is the prevalence of a problem gambler existing, or what is the prevalence that somebody will experience a gambling problem at some point in their lifetime. Unfortunately, due to a lack of funding, we have not had a prevalence survey in California for nearly 20 years, so I cannot definitively say gambling problems have increased or decreased since we base it off the most recent data we have.
What we can generally say is there is a qualitative belief in the field that online gambling is likely to increase prevalence rate
This is actually substantiated by research out of European markets, but again, we don’t have that research to substantiate it in our markets. The research we do have tells us that whether or not prevalence increases, the speed and frequency of losses, the speed and frequency of which somebody develops an addiction and the harms that they experience through their addiction all occur more rapidly. Whether or not more people are developing a problem as a result of online gambling, those who do develop a problem are being harmed more and harmed quicker because of the increased access.
In California, as in most markets, the helpline number is posted in the majority of casinos and places where you can gamble legally, but not posted in locations where you cannot gamble legally. Qualitatively, not quantitatively, we can infer that if we’re seeing massive increases on people who are calling for help related to offshore betting, online gambling online casinos, poker or sports betting, all of which are not legal in California, it is likely that there is a much greater number of people in need that are not calling.
What are some of the challenges you’ve been facing in California specifically with problem gambling and CALPG?
Honestly, the largest problem in California, it’s an old story and an old hat… it’s just funding. One of my favourite statistics is that substance use disorder in the US is about 3.8x as prevalent as gambling disorders. So for every one gambler, there are 3.8 people suffering from a drug or alcohol addiction. Nationally, funding for substance use disorder is just under $382 for every $1 funded for problem gambling services. Thus, with a little bit of division, as much as everyone hates math, you can see that substance use is funded at a rate of about 100-1 when it comes to gambling disorders.
California is fortunate that we have the largest budget for problem gambling services of any state in the country, until you remember that we have 43 million people and, on a per capita basis, we are in the bottom 20% of funding nationwide. Our challenge is always that we work really hard to do more with less. We’re very proud of the fact that we succeed at that.
We offer a statewide treatment programme and 20 different health services, prevention programmes, marketing, which is all available to those who need it at no cost. But at the end of the day, the programmes lack the funding to be broader and larger than they need to be. The public education that is necessary for more people to seek help is again lacking the funding and we started this by saying that I’m citing data from a 20-year-old survey. Again, it’s an old hat, it’s just money, but that is definitely our challenge.
Something we’ve heard, especially at the IGA conference in San Diego, is that responsible gaming and problem gambling have become a tad confused in recent times, but how do these two initiatives help players in differing ways?
Absolutely. I would say it’s important to start by establishing the gaming industry utilises the word gaming, and as such, we use responsible gaming and problem gambling.
Problem gambling is not the clearest terminology, but it is the clearest terminology that we have
A gambling disorder is being addicted to gambling. There is a lower tier of that where you’re being harmed by your gambling, but may have not developed the actual issues with brain chemistry that result in an uncontrollable urge to gamble.
The term responsible gaming starts to become confusing, because are we talking about going to a casino and gambling responsibly or are we talking about playing a video game? That’s where some of that confusion is beginning to come from. I would say problem gambling and responsible gambling probably make more sense when you talk specifically about a casino. And from there, you need to create a separation.
The other confusion point here is people think that if you gamble responsibly, you’ll never develop a gambling problem. That’s not true. If you gamble responsibly, you will greatly reduce the odds of developing a gambling problem and, arguably more importantly, you will position yourself to recognise when you’re on the path to developing a problem sooner.
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