Problem gambling causes many aftershocks beyond the damage to bank accounts.
Jeffrey Wasserman remembers the looks on the faces of his family when he admitted his gambling problem.
Brian Hatch recalls dropping his kid off at school, then contemplating killing himself, such was his despair about his gambling addiction.
And Craig Carton remembers when he was the toast of New York’s newspapers, for all the wrong reasons.
“My son was the number-one-ranked eighth-grade quarterback in the state of New York,” said Carton, noting his son was being recruited by a private school in Brooklyn. “Then one day, his father’s picture appears on the back page or the front page of every New York newspaper. [The headlines read] “Morning Crime Time.” That’s me, my picture, walking out of the federal courthouse. All of a sudden, that high school no longer wanted my son to play for them.”
Carton, Wasserman, and Hatch spoke Tuesday at the Player Protection Symposium at Jay-Z’s 40-40 Club in Manhattan. Hosted by Epic Risk Management, the inaugural event served as the kickoff to the SBC Summit North America, taking place today and tomorrow at the Meadowland Exhibition Center in Seacaucus, New Jersey. Featured sponsors were Entain Foundation U.S., Sightline Payments, and Sportradar.
The Lived Experience Panel, hosted by Epic Risk Management Director of Safer Gambling Dan Spencer, provided numerous cautionary tales about the dangers of problem gambling.
Carton, a radio personality who hosts the podcast “Hello, My Name is Craig: A Weekly Candid Conversation on Gambling Addiction,” also served as the symposium’s keynote speaker. His stories about gambling addiction date back to childhood, when he became “the neighborhood bookie at nine years old.” In 2017, he was arrested for securities and wire fraud and conspiracy and served a short prison sentence.
Between those two mileposts, Carton was known for being an accomplished, high-risk gambler — until he started losing large sums of money, going from “the highest of highs to the lowest of lows,” Carton said. “And the worst part about it is that it’s all self-inflicted. Nobody made me do it.”
Carton eventually found himself buried in debt. He thought the only way to dig out of the hole he created was to gamble at multiple casinos — and win — to pay off what he owed.
For three months, his planned work, winning a lot more than he lost.
“But then there’s a day when the plan doesn’t work and you find yourself in a bad spot,” Carton said. “And you have to figure out how to get out of that spot. For me, it was going to loan sharks, borrowing money at high rates of interest, not to pay other people back, but to go to another casino to gamble some more.”
Wasserman, co-host with Brian Hatch of “All-In: The Addicted Gambler’s Podcast,” started gambling while attending law school in Delaware. After realizing that Atlantic City was a short drive away, he started playing blackjack, attracted to the game because of the skills involved. But Wasserman eventually gravitated to slot machines, playing for hours at a time.
“I had no hope of winning anywhere near enough money to get me out of the debt that gambling had caused,” Wasserman said. “But I needed it just like a drug user needs to use drugs.”
Adding that he has not placed a bet since July 2016, Wasserman added, “I got caught. That’s what drove me into recovery.”
Hatch said therapy and Gamblers Anonymous failed to stop his gambling. It wasn’t until he started talking about his habit on “All-In” that he began to “maintain coverage” of his gambling addiction for the last seven years.
“I never fully addressed my mental-health needs and that came to a head when I dropped my daughter off at daycare, came home, and held a shotgun in front of my face,” Hatch said. “That’s when I decided I didn’t want to die, I wanted help. So I drove to a police station and turned in the shotgun and asked for help. They were kind enough to send me to a hospital where I spent two weeks in an in-patient facility.
“And I’m pleased to say today, I’m good. I’m really good.”
Hatch added that he still loves gambling, but loves it so much that “I can’t do it anymore.” One of the things he’d like to see changed is the content of sports betting advertising.
“It’s out of control,” Hatch said. “The term ‘risk-free bet’ is deceiving on so many levels. … To say ‘risk free’ implies that I can get my money back, whereas in tiny print it says ‘non-withdrawal.’ I know this because I have my FanDuel mailer right here.”
Hatch added that he would like the term responsible gambling to “go away” and instead have gambling problems be dealt with as a form of addiction.
Noting that he was speaking in front of a room filled with gambling professionals, Carton said he hoped the discussion didn’t come across as anti-gambling “and you guys are the devils.”
“But you guys are in an interesting spot, just like the liquor business was for years,” Carton said. “Later, they made the decision to make protecting one another from drinking and driving cool. You guys have the same opportunity. … We’re not here to warn the world of the impending peril of gambling. I don’t feel that way at all.
“I do feel you guys are in a great position to do much good and protect maybe my kids or my neighbors from it.”
