HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Saul Malek said he used to sneak around and lie to his parents and friends while he chased the high of placing a winning sports bet.
“I don’t think that the average 13-year-old or myself at the age of 13 would think, ‘Oh, this (gambling) could lead to something as debilitating and crippling as an addiction to heroin,’” Malek said.
Growing up in Houston, Malek said he was involved in fantasy baseball leagues in middle and high school. But by the time he was a sophomore in college, Malek said it grew into an addiction.
“When I came back to my parents after they first bailed me out, they realized I had more of a problem than maybe anyone was aware of,” Malek said.
With men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments underway, the American Gaming Association predicts that Americans will legally bet more than $3.3 billion on the tournaments.
Columbia University’s gambling clinic says online sports betting led to an “explosion” of young men seeking treatment for addiction.
13 Investigates, in partnership with ABC News’ Investigative Unit, is looking into what one doctor described as a looming public health crisis.
Texas is one of 11 states that has not legalized sports betting, but online platforms are still accessible.
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Even though there are age minimums of 18 or 21, Dr. Nasir Naqvi, who is director of Columbia University’s gambling disorders clinic, said he is treating patients as young as 13 with online gambling problems.
Naqvi said there’s significant overlap between how gambling and substances affect the brain.
“Young people, their brains develop in a certain way in which the reward systems, the systems that respond to pleasurable things, for example, like winning money, develop more quickly than the parts of the brain that rein in rewarding behaviors,” Naqvi said.
A study by the Journal of Behavioral Addictions found up to seven percent of youth who gamble are diagnosed with a gambling disorder, compared to one percent of adults.
Naqvi calls the legalization of online sports betting a mistake from a public health standpoint.
He said before, people used to take a trip to Vegas, gamble, and leave, but now it is more accessible, even to teens.
“In online sports betting, it stays on your phone, which is tethered to your body at all times, so there’s really no escape from this,” Naqvi said.
Joe Maloney, president and CEO of the Sports Betting Alliance, said the industry has resources to govern play, such as limits on deposits, the amount of time people spend on the apps, and the number of wagers people can make in a 24-hour period, something he describes as remarkably different than previous illegal and unregulated environments.
“If we were solely in the business of creating a set of problem gamblers or an addicted generation, we would not be in business,” Maloney said.
Malek, now 28 years old, said he has been abstinent from gambling for six years.
He travels the country as a speaker on gambling and said he tells teens to be aware that the habits they form at a young age could stick with them and escalate as they get older.
He said he hopes parents will stay up to date on current trends affecting teens and determine whether they’re providing resources to their children that allow them to gamble.
“There is such a thin line between a problem and not a problem,” Malek said.
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