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Americans will legally wager $3 billion in the NCAA's March Madness this year. That's according to an industry group's estimate, and it's just one example of how much the gambling biz has grown. As NPR's Katia Riddle reports, some warn that help for problem gamblers isn't keeping pace.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: Looking back on his life, Ben Yew says gambling was in his blood. There's a famous story about his parents' honeymoon and what happened there with his dad.
BEN YEW: He gambled away every last penny.
RIDDLE: Yew picked up his own gambling habit when he was a young kid. It ruled his life for years. He says gambling robbed him of many things - his first marriage, his relationship with his daughters.
YEW: My moral center and any values that I have or had at that time, or any time I was active addiction, they are completely, completely eschewed and just completely ignored, and they sink to the deepest, darkest depths of your soul.
RIDDLE: Yew is 42. In 2018, he had already been gambling for years. That's the year a major Supreme Court case legalized sports gambling. Yew says he remembers the impact taking hold.
YEW: I no longer had a need for the offshore sites.
RIDDLE: Offshore sites - that's one of the ways he had been gambling before it was legal in the U.S. Illegal sites are still part of the gambling ecosystem, but now people can also gamble legally in 38 states. Last year, the industry reported total annual profits of more than $70 billion. Experts who study this problem say not enough of this profit is going to mitigate the devastation gambling causes to people's lives. Cait Huble is with the group the National Council on Problem Gambling.
CAIT HUBLE: There's no federal funding for gambling addiction.
RIDDLE: They have been advocating for legislation that would allocate millions for treatment and intervention in federal funds directly from the profits of the gambling industry. They estimate the cost to society of problem gambling - things like incarceration and legal fees - to be at least $14 billion annually.
HUBLE: Gambling is several decades behind in terms of public opinion and recognition of it as a mental health condition.
RIDDLE: The federal government puts billions of dollars into treatment for alcohol, tobacco and substance use disorders. Many states do already funnel some money into treatment and intervention for gambling, but funding varies a lot, and experts say it's not enough to offer resources for people when they have already devastated their lives and their bank accounts. Michelle Malkin is director of the Gambling Research & Policy Initiative at East Carolina University.
MICHELLE MALKIN: We don't just need resources for the people who have gambling disorder. We need to be doing the outreach and education early.
RIDDLE: Malkin warns that gambling is a growing problem on college campuses. Starting young can set people up for a lifetime of struggle. She says there also needs to be more specialized treatment available.
MALKIN: When it comes to, like, inpatient, which people need for gambling, just like drugs and alcohol, there is less than five places in the whole country that specialize truly in gambling.
RIDDLE: Representatives from the gambling industry argue that it's critical to keep gambling legal. Joe Maloney is with the American Gaming Association, the primary industry group for online and legal gambling.
JOE MALONEY: There is a vast, predatory and pervasive illegal market sitting there as a digital storefront, right next door to legal operators.
RIDDLE: Maloney points out that disincentivizing legal gambling could drive people to these illegal platforms.
MALONEY: And does not invest in problem gambling treatment and services, does not invest in responsible gaming measures.
RIDDLE: On the question of exactly how much responsibility the legal gambling industry should bear for lives ruined, he says that's for states to figure out on their own.
Katia Riddle, NPR News.
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