CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Is Online Gambling RI’s Next Pediatric Public Health Threat?

In the eight years since Murphy v NCAA delivered a resounding victory for the digital gambling industry, have sufficient safeguards been implemented so as to adequately hinder underage access to and gambling via online platforms? And should the advertising for these platforms on streaming video services be more stringently regulated so as to approximate the norm expected of the Bally’s corporation when they purchase airtime from traditional television broadcast stations in local New England markets?

According to a February 2025 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Internal Medicine publication (vol 185, no 4, doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.8193), sports-associated gambling addiction has increased significantly since the Supreme Court legalized internet sports betting. Sports betting wagers have increased dramatically from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023. In another article published by the UK’s Health Promotion International journal (2023 Mar 18;38(2):daac194. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daac194), the authors emphasize that the tactics utilized by the online gambling industry resemble earlier predatory advertising habits of the alcohol and tobacco companies.

Are we sitting on the precipice of a larger consumer safety and public health crisis that is being artificially induced by the various interests seeking profit from internet gambling and advertising that can illegally appeal to underage players?

My own interest in this matter came from personal experience. Recently I have been reviewing multiple seasons of an HBO program with family members. After watching more than ten episodes of the show, it becomes hard to ignore that an online gambling advertisement, in one form or another, was perhaps the most frequently broadcast item on the HBO Max streaming video platform. How is it legal for streaming video services to hold such low industrial standards of decency in terms of broadcast advertising? What particularly raised alarm was the cartoonish nature of the products being advertised; unlike typical sports book betting apps, these advertisements featured gambling apps with a user interface that would easily appeal to a child.

This could rapidly metastasize, like the opioid crisis in the past 25 years.

Or, with proper intervention, it could be proactively arrested, as occurred when the Rhode Island General Assembly adopted stricter vendor regulations governing the active ingredient in crystal methamphetamine known as pseudoephedrine, a chemical just coincidentally found in popular over-the-counter (OTC) antihistamine medications like Sudafed. While other states saw a massive uptick in crystal meth drug prosecutions and overdoses during the past two decades, Rhode Island emerged relatively unscathed from the meth epidemic. This was because, very early on, before it even registered as a local crime and health issue, the legislature, the pharmacies, and many traditional businesses like gas stations or groceries collaborated to proactively safeguard products on their shelves containing the pseudoephedrine chemical. In some cases, the vendors opted to cease sales of pseudoephedrine products altogether. In other instances, such as CVS/Caremark, these OTC products are now stored behind the counter and sold with safeguards resembling those used for alcohol or tobacco, including requisite presentation of legal identification. The identification card, furthermore, is scanned and recorded by the register attendant into an online electronic database accessible to all other local pharmacies as well as law enforcement. This in turn results in the creation of a ‘red flagging’ database function. If a single identification card is scanned so many times or more so as to purchase the substance, the database will release an automated alert to the proper authorities advising them of the occurrence, which in turn can be used by the police as reasonable cause to believe that someone seeks to construct an illegal meth lab.

This is a matter of mental health on a scale equivalent to any other addictive substance or service entering a mass consumer market, be it legal or otherwise. Internet gambling has grown into a new subgenre of video gaming and stands to see its market share of the overall online gaming industry expand exponentially as technology enables further development. For instance, as the major Silicon Valley firms continue pursuing immersive three-dimensional headset technology simulating real-time settings, what is to prevent them from eventually creating a fully-immersive 3-D casino setting that allows friends to play an intimate game of cards despite the physical expanse of thousands of miles? What used to sound like a scenario predicted by The Matrix is rapidly becoming a reality.

A brief word on technology and its impact on gamblers........

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