the gambling industry and even the top representative of the trade union that represents various national sportsbooks said just last year they deny that sports betting is addictive, which is pretty remarkable considering it's been a consensus opinion of doctors for decades that gambling is addictive.

There's so much anecdotal evidence of people whose lives have been upended by gambling addictions of all forms, so that is concerning.

Beyond that, there was a theory going into this legalization explosion that sometimes if you're, surrounded by gambling opportunities, you might, you know, in the, in the, in the opening days of that, you'll overdo it, potentially, but then you'll adapt.

And there was a famous study, actually, of Nevada that showed that when you're surrounded by opportunities to bet, gambling, addiction rates don't surge in the way that you might fear.

The difference is that in Nevada, the opportunities to bet are kind of stable.

You've had your casinos and your sportsbooks and your other betting opportunities for a while.

They've sort of been what they've you know, not much has changed, at least in a dramatic way.

The ability to bet from your phone is such a new opportunity for millions of Americans that the idea that you would adapt to that just hasn't been allowed to happen.

It's also you can adapt when they're constantly offering new things to bet on.

So health experts I spoke to say they suspect addiction rates are surging in states that have recently legalized sports betting.

What about the responsible gaming departments that most of these casinos and gaming companies have?

How effective are they?

I'm skeptical that they're doing as much as we'd hope.

That's my skepticism.

It's the skepticism of people who've, gotten in way over their heads betting and wish that sportsbooks had done more to intervene when their betting was clearly problematic.

And we know, especially with online betting, they're profiling customers very precisely so they know if you're depositing again and again, if you're betting at the early, you know, early hours in the morning, things that might be indicators of a problem, you would hope that these sportsbooks would intervene, because that's the epitome of irresponsible behavior, potentially.

And often they don't.

And then within sportsbooks, I heard a number of officials tell me they too are worried.

One good example was PointsBet was a sportsbook that at its high point was operating in 14 states.

It had hundreds of thousands of customers across the US.

And I kept hearing references from different people at that company saying, oh, if someone shows a sign of a problem, we flag that with RG responsible gaming.

If a marketing ad seems like maybe it's misleading, we bring that to RG.

So I finally got to speak to the manager of the, PointsBet RG department.

At least she had been for a couple of years.

And I said, you know, I hear so much about how much work your department has to do and how much responsibility you had, how many people were on your team handling this, hundreds of thousands of customers.

And she said, I don't need to ballpark it.

It was literally just me, one person responsible for the RG care of hundreds of thousands of customers.

And she acknowledged that was grossly inadequate.

And it just goes to show that, you know, just because you have a RG stamp at the bottom of your ad doesn't mean you're doing enough to protect customers.

And if you do have a robust, responsible gaming department, that may not even be sufficient.

And why is that?

Exactly.

That too was alarming.

As I did my reporting, one person in particular who still works at one of the top sportsbooks, so they didn't want me to say their name or the name of their company.

But they told me that their impression, having worked in the industry and been responsible for responsible gaming initiatives, is that the industry will tolerate the lowest common denominator of RG initiatives.

Anything beyond that, in their words, is seen as a competitive disadvantage.

So we'll accept the lowest baseline that we're all agreeing to.

But if we go any anywhere further to look after players, make sure they're betting safely, cut them off.

If we're worried about them, that's a disadvantage to our company.

And that too.

I don't know how you how you would read that and not be worried that the industry can self-police as it assures us it can't.

Well, and there has been a proposal for federal legislation that could combat some of that, and, and fund research and treatment and harm and harm prevention.

What has been the response to that?

Yes.

So for many decades, basically, as long as there's been sports betting, even in the early days in Nevada in the 50s, there's been a federal excise tax on Handel.

So for every $0.25 nowadays, for every $0.25 wagered, out of every 100, for for every $100 wagered, the federal government takes $0.25.

As this excise tax.

And that might sound like not a lot of money, but if Americans now are betting $150 billion on sports every year, that excise tax adds up.

And in recent years, a couple of members of Congress proposed, rather than just diverting that revenue to the general fund of the federal government, why not devote half of it to researching gambling problems and then potentially offering care to people who can't afford to look after themselves?

And it's not so hard to understand why that might be if they're deep in debt from gambling and, maybe surprisingly to some of your viewers, the gambling industry and certain members of Congress fiercely opposed that.

Just the idea of devoting federal funds to researching the prevalence of gambling and gambling problems is, very upsetting to the betting industry.

You mentioned that you spoke with Nevada Representative Dina Titus on this.

She opposed that legislation.

And what was her reasoning?

As she put it to me simply, the states already have that under control.

And I respect the congresswoman and wouldn't say, you know, she she's certainly an expert on this subject.

But the fact of the matter is, according to health experts states, by and large, aren't meeting the bare minimum of funding, research and problem gambling services.

So the idea that if they've got it covered, they don't need a little help from the federal government to fund that much needed research just isn't true.

If you talk to researchers, psychologists, gambling counselors, all these people seem to agree about that.

Danny Funt, author of Everybody Loses the Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling.

Thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

Thank you.

My pleasure.