• About Us / Contact
  • Responsible Gambling
This site contains commercial content
SportsHandle
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Colorado
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Kentucky
    • Louisiana
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • New Jersey
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Ohio
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetMGM Bonus Code
    • Bet365 Bonus Code
    • Caesars Sportsbook Promo Code
    • ESPN BET Promo Code
    • Fanatics Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetRivers Promo Code
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
  • News
No Result
View All Result
SportsHandle
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Colorado
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Kentucky
    • Louisiana
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • New Jersey
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Ohio
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetMGM Bonus Code
    • Bet365 Bonus Code
    • Caesars Sportsbook Promo Code
    • ESPN BET Promo Code
    • Fanatics Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetRivers Promo Code
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
  • News
No Result
View All Result
SportsHandle
No Result
View All Result

What’s Wrong With Responsible Gambling?

Seemingly helpful messaging has its share of critics, it turns out

Mike Seely by Mike Seely
March 16, 2023
in Industry, Regulation
gambling addiction

Shutterstock

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

At the midpoint of Problem Gambling Awareness Month on Wednesday, Northeastern Law School’s Public Health Advocacy Institute brought together a panel of academics and advocates, mostly from the U.K., for a webinar dubbed “It’s Not the Dough, It’s the Dopamine: The Dangerous Myth of the Responsible Gambling Model.”

Right there in the title, one could tell it would be rough sledding for the concept of responsible gambling and its attendant messaging, something that’s considered extremely helpful at best and benign at worst in most circles. Richard Dynard, a Northeastern law professor well-versed in the travails of Big Tobacco, began by citing several parallels between the cigarette and gambling industries, including technological innovation, widespread marketing, purveyors proclaiming themselves to be part of the solution to any negative side effects, and framing the decision of whether to smoke or wager as a personal choice. (Another legal vice, alcohol, would later be introduced along similar lines.)

Jim Orford, a former professor of clinical and community psychology at the University of Birmingham in England, went on to talk about how widespread legal wagering abroad had become in the past 60-plus years.

“When I was a youngster, the only thing you could bet on was horse racing, and it was illegal to bet on horse racing away from the track,” he said, noting how attitudes toward gambling shifted from “tolerated” to “normalized” and “commercialized” in the early 21st century.

In what would serve as a common theme throughout the three-hour discussion, Orford regretted that so much gambling industry money had financed supposedly independent research and messaging, and he included academia as a field that had allowed itself to be infiltrated by such financing. He closed by urging Britain to rewrite its gambling laws to “acknowledge that gambling is not an ordinary business,” but rather an addictive one.

‘Shame and stigma’

In a moving testimonial, panelist Liz Ritchie, whose son Jack committed suicide at 24 while in the throes of gambling addiction, lamented how little information she received as a parent about the potential harms of gambling. She then noted that in her son’s suicide note, he made it clear “that it was gambling” that motivated him to kill himself and that he felt “he would never recover and felt it was all his fault.”

She then spoke of a “switching in the brain when gambling goes from a voluntary interest to an involuntary compulsion,” calling it “a major psychiatric condition.”

Sign Up For The Sports Handle Newsletter!
I also want to receive information and offers about online sportsbooks (eg. odds boost, welcome offers)

Will Porchaska, Ritchie’s colleague with the organization Gambling With Lives, spoke next. Like other panelists, he took issue with RG messaging’s emphasis on personal responsibility and the notion that gambling is a behavior that can be easily controlled by most people, adding that “the responsible gambling narrative puts shame and stigma on people who are suffering from a psychological disorder.” 

Recovering gambling addict and current gambling counselor Harry Levant closed out the discussion by saying that “dismantling responsible gambling” and replacing it with a public health approach was his ultimate goal, something that might involve the explicit labeling of gambling as addictive or harmful to a large swath of the population instead of a smaller, highly vulnerable percentage.

A difference in approach

Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, was among those listening in on Wednesday. When asked afterward about Porchaska’s “shame and stigma” quote and whether the industry and its regulators could do a better job of making it clear that gambling addiction is a psychological disorder, Whyte told Sports Handle, “We can always do a better job of increasing public awareness of problem gambling as a preventable, treatable disorder. That said, there is certainly individual responsibility as well, and I don’t think RG messaging done right shames people with gambling problems.”

Pointing to the prevalence of national and state helplines as part of RG/PG outreach, Whyte added, “We work hard to make sure and let people know that help and hope is available. The vast majority of people with gambling problems that we talk to are supportive of responsible gambling messaging and are working on these campaigns — and we’re incorporating their feedback. To say that responsible gambling messaging is designed to stigmatize people is wrong on its face, but also fails to realize that much of it comes from groups like ours that include people in recovery.”

As for working with betting companies and other pro-wagering forces to get the word out, Whyte said, “I believe we are pursuing a public health approach. I just think it looks a lot different than what people on this webinar believe it to be. I believe that everyone is a stakeholder and you need to pursue all levers, which includes working with the gambling industry as well as state governments. We try to help organize all the different groups who have a role to play. 

“I firmly believe our RG and PG efforts are very clearly aligned with a mainstream public health approach. We don’t work with the industry because they’re forcing us to or we have to, we do it because we want to.”

ShareTweetShare
Mike Seely

Mike Seely

Mike Seely has written about horse racing for The Daily Racing Form and America’s Best Racing, and has contributed pieces on a multitude of topics to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He can be reached on Twitter (@mdseely) or via email at [email protected].

This site contains commercial content. We may be compensated for the links provided on this page. The content on this page is for informational purposes only.

Related Posts

west-virginia-football
Features

College Fraternity Partners With Mental Health Provider To Curb Problem Gambling

September 25, 2023
Industry

New Sumsub Platform Allows Sportsbooks To Tackle Responsible Gambling

September 20, 2023
Load More

Top Stories

guitar-hotel-hard-rock-florida

Court Decision Clears Way For Hard Rock Bet To Launch In Florida … But Will It?

September 28, 2023
system error

Schuetz: Palpable Errors In Sports Betting, And The Palpably Bad Decisions That Follow

September 25, 2023
taylor swift donna kelce

Will Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Relationship Make Sports Bettors Out Of More Women?

September 28, 2023
have-a-game-plan-bet-responsibly-screenshot

Bettors Know All About Responsible Gambling, But Most Don’t Use Tools

September 12, 2023

State Sports Betting Guides

Sports Betting in Kentucky

Kentucky Sports Betting – Welcome Offers & Best Legal Sportsbook Apps for 2023

by Dukes Wooters
September 28, 2023

Ohio (U.S. state) flag waving against clear blue sky, close up, isolated with clipping path mask alpha channel transparency, perfect for film, news, composition

Ohio Sports Betting – All Online Sportsbooks, Bonus Offers, and News 2023

by Brian Pempus
September 29, 2023

Downtown Detroit at twilight (Shutterstock)

Michigan Sports Betting – Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks, And FAQ

by Brett Smiley
September 6, 2023

VA captial

Virginia Sports Betting – Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks And Bonus Offers

by Brett Smiley
September 1, 2023

nj flag

New Jersey Sports Betting — Where To Play, Online Sportsbooks, And FAQ

by Brett Smiley
September 6, 2023

Canada Sports Betting Guides

Canada Sports Betting – Best Sportsbook Apps 2023

British Columbia Sports Betting – Legal Update, Available Sportsbooks, and FAQ

Ontario Sports Betting – Legal Status And Where To Play

SportsHandle

  • Analysis
  • Casino
  • Features
  • Horse Racing
  • Industry
  • Legal
  • Legislation
  • Lottery
  • Opinion
  • Podcasts
  • Poker
  • Politics
  • Promotions
  • Regulation
  • Sports
  • Uncategorized

Better Collective

This website is owned and operated by Better Collective USA. Trademarks and copyrights referenced on this website are and shall remain the exclusive property of their respective owners and/or licensors. Please be sure to visit the operator’s website(s) to review their terms & conditions. We advise you to read these carefully as they contain important information. Copyright © 2023 USBets.com | Better Collective USA
21 Play Responsibly
Gamble Aware West Virginia
Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-Gambler.
GameSense

Search Sports Handle

No Result
View All Result
  • About Us / Contact
  • Responsible Gambling

No Result
View All Result
  • US Sports Betting
    • Arizona
    • Colorado
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Kentucky
    • Louisiana
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • New Jersey
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • Ohio
    • Pennsylvania
    • Tennessee
    • Virginia
  • Pending States
    • California
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Missouri
  • Canada
    • Ontario
    • British Columbia
    • Alberta
  • Sportsbook Apps
    • FanDuel Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetMGM Bonus Code
    • Bet365 Bonus Code
    • Caesars Sportsbook Promo Code
    • ESPN BET Promo Code
    • Fanatics Sportsbook Promo Code
    • BetRivers Promo Code
  • Tools
    • Sportsbook Bonuses Explained
    • Sports Betting Revenue Tracker
    • Sports Betting Podcasts
    • Partnership Tracker
    • Expected Value
    • Sports Scores And Odds Apps
    • Sports Betting Twitter
  • News