Casey Toner
@ctoner
News reporter, SAG-AFTRA steward, weary Chicagoan. Bird dogging and door stopping, @illinoisanswers. Tell the truth
Boredom came up a lot in our talks about compulsive gamblers. Our story ends on one man's meditation on boredom.
People addicted to gambling often seek treatment, and their lives can improve, too. One man celebrating his year of sobriety talked about finding the beauty of stressors in his life.
"The next day, we got a call that he took his own life, and he just couldn't, I guess, handle it anymore."
Compulsive gambling can lead people to the depths of despair, or worse. "I definitely thought throughout the year, not just towards the end, about ending my life and also possibly ending my wife’s life at the same time."
"If you told me that if I got cancer tomorrow and it was stage 4, I'd be like 'That's not the worst thing.'"
One woman stayed playing a slot machine while her husband was wheeled out of the casino in a stretcher. "And he's on the floor passed out cold, I'm still playing."
One man talked about reading the first and last pages of a Dr. Seuss book to his son... So that he could go downstairs and continue to gamble. He celebrated 25 years of gambling sobriety in May; his family was with him ❤️
One person addicted to gambling spoke about his cool and calm exterior demeanor and the crushing anxiety surging through his brain.
"I went as far as I could go, in terms of how much money I could potentially get to, which for me, is a really big number. It's not healthy to say. But for me, over that two and a half years, probably close to a million dollars."
If you're my age, you can remember the cigarette ads that used to be in every stadium in America. Then they weren't. Gambling companies have now taken up the same advertising space
You might have seen the Circa | Sports gambling ad where the guy never looks away from his phone. She did.
A number of celebrities including Kevin Hart are now endorsing gambling companies in the ads that scroll across our screens everyday.
Sports betting put the casino in people's pockets. It gives people 24/7 betting access and allows gambling companies to literally touch people with phone notifications and text messages. This man thought about coming clean about his addiction, but then Draft Kings sent him $5k to keep him playing
Gambling addiction isn't just slot machines and poker. It can be Bitcoin. Or Shitcoins.
I spoke someone in the addiction treatment industry in Boston and they told me that gambling addiction can seize on existing trauma and make everything worse. One man told us he started gambling after he and his wife tried and failed to have children. "It's OK — it sucks, actually."
There's a stigma that gambling addiction is only for scoundrels, which is false. You can be addicted to gambling and also be what others would consider "successful." One person told us they started gambling because they got moved to a new hospital where they weren't doing as many heart surgeries.
One person recalled amassing a $1,000 gambling debt to a friend over video games when he was 11-years-old
Gambling addiction can be hereditary. We spoke to a man whose grandfather played the Lotto and would always buy his grandchildren tickets for Christmas
Fox Sports analyst Sam Panayotovich hit with a beer shower while discussing the big Mexico victory outside a World Cup watch party
