As sports betting explodes, experts push for a public health approach to addiction; NPR, September 30, 2025

Karen Brown , NPR; As sports betting explodes, experts push for a public health approach to addiction

"RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: The sophistication and complexity of betting has become staggering.

BROWN: That's U.S. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. He's co-sponsor of the SAFE Bet Act, which would impose federal standards on sports gambling, like no advertising during live sports and no tempting bonus bet promotions.

BLUMENTHAL: States are unable to protect their consumers from excessive and abusive offers and sometimes misleading pitches. They simply don't have the resources or the jurisdiction.

BROWN: The gambling industry is lobbying against the bill. Joe Maloney is with the American Gaming Association. He says federal rules would be a slap in the face to state regulators.

JOE MALONEY: You have the potential to just dramatically, one, usurp the state's authority and then, two, freeze the industry in place.

BROWN: He says the industry acknowledges that gambling is addictive for some people, which is why it developed a model called Responsible Gaming. That includes messages warning people to stop playing when it's no longer fun, and reminding them the odds are very low.

MALONEY: And there's very direct messages, such as, you will lose money here."

America goes gambling; Quartz, October 5, 2025

Jackie Snow, Quartz; America goes gambling

[Kip Currier: This Quartz article America Goes Gambling is a timely one about a significant AI-driven development: massive growth in online gambling, sports betting, and gambling addictions after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a de facto ban on these activities (outside of Nevada and tribal casinos) in 2018's Murphy v. NCAA decision.

I spoke on the issue of AI-enhanced online gambling and sports betting at the September 2025 Faithful Futures: Guiding AI with Wisdom and Witness conference in Minneapolis and am currently finishing a chapter for publication on this emerging topic.]

[Excerpt]

"On any given Sunday this football season, Americans are placing millions in legal sports bets, a level of widespread wagering that would have been almost impossible a decade ago when only Nevada offered legal sportsbooks.

Today's football slate represents the peak of a sports betting boom that has fundamentally altered how Americans watch games. Sunday's action is part of an industry that's grown from $4.9 billion in total annual wagers in 2017 to almost $150 billion in 2024. But beneath the Sunday spectacle lies a growing concern about addiction specialists reporting record demand for gambling help as the line between sports entertainment and financial risk becomes increasingly blurred.

The transformation has been swift and dramatic. When the Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in Murphy v. NCAA in 2018, legal sports betting was confined to Nevada and tribal casinos. Today, legal sports betting operates in 39 states and Washington, D.C., with more statehouses considering laws that would greenlight it."

AI is transforming gambling: Researcher explores the ethical risks; Phys.org, May 21, 2025

 Alisha Katz, University of Florida, Phys.org; AI is transforming gambling: Researcher explores the ethical risks

[Kip Currier: It's good to see the increasing use of AI in online gambling getting more attention and scrutiny. The AI chapter of my forthcoming Ethics, Information, and Technology book for Bloomsbury also examines this worrisome intersection of AI, ethics, the online gambling/gambling industry, and gamblers themselves, some of whom are particularly vulnerable to AI-assisted manipulation efforts.

Imagine an AI system that knows when a habitual online gambler tends to place bets, what games they like to play and put money on, how much and where they gamble, etc. Couple that data with easily attained demographic profile data (often freely given by users when they sign up for online access), like age, gender, occupation, income level, and place of residence. Those individual data points enable a multi-faceted marketing profile to be rendered about that gambler.

Now, consider the above scenario but the individual is a repeat online gambler who's been trying to stop gambling. They're attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings (which the AI systems likely do not know) but are being methodically targeted on their smartphones by AI systems that know exactly what to send that person to lure them back in to the gambling world if they haven't been engaging in online betting for a while. That scenario is real. 60 Minutes reported on it in 2024:

Technology has fueled a sports betting boom and a spike in problem gambling, addiction therapist warns. June 30, 2024. 60 Minutes]

[Excerpt]

"As gamers and spectators prepare for the 2025 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas on May 27, a cultural conversation around AI and ethics in gambling is brewing.

Though the gambling industry is expected to exceed $876 billion worldwide by 2026, there is a growing concern that unregulated AI systems can exploit vulnerable individuals and profit from them.

UF researcher Nasim Binesh, Ph.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor in the UF College of Health & Human Performance's Department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management, is exploring this concern, having published a study in the International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration about identifying the risks and ethics of using AI in gambling."

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt – a pocket full of poison; The Guardian, Book Review, March 21, 2024

 Sophie McBain, The Guardian, Book Review; The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt – a pocket full of poison

"The American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes this mental health crisis has been driven by the mass adoption of smartphones, along with the advent of social media and addictive online gaming. He calls it “the Great Rewiring of Childhood”.

Children are spending ever less time socialising in person and ever more time glued to their screens, with girls most likely to be sucked into the self-esteem crushing vortex of social media, and boys more likely to become hooked on gaming and porn. Childhood is no longer “play-based”, it’s “phone-based”. Haidt believes that parents have become overprotective in the offline world, delaying the age at which children are deemed safe to play unsupervised or run errands alone, but do too little to protect children from online dangers. We have allowed the young too much freedom to roam the internet, where they are at risk of being bullied and harassed or encountering harmful content, from graphic violence to sites that glorify suicide and self-harm...

The Anxious Generation is nonetheless an urgent and essential read, and it ought to become a foundational text for the growing movement to keep smartphones out of schools, and young children off social media. As well as calling for school phone bans, Haidt argues that governments should legally assert that tech companies have a duty of care to young people, the age of internet adulthood should be raised to 16, and companies forced to institute proper age verification – all eminently sensible and long overdue interventions."