Fantasy Sports and Gambling Problems

This week we are honored to have another guest blogger. Ryan J. Martin, PhD. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Education and Promotion at East Carolina University. In his blog, Dr. Martin will discuss the relationship between Fantasy sports participation and gambling-related problem.

Welcome to fall - the time of year that fantasy football participants eagerly await the draft or auction for the upcoming football season. What are fantasy sports, you ask? Fantasy sports leagues allow participants to select athletes, thereby creating a fantasy team that competes against other people’s fantasy teams in their league. Fantasy sports are scored via the statistics of the individual athletes on each fantasy team, and the fantasy team that compiles the most points wins.

In the US, professional football is by far the most popular fantasy sport. However, people participate in fantasy leagues for almost any sport you can think of – baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, NASCAR, golf, etc.

Widely available high-speed Internet connections and Internet sites (e.g., Yahoo) that provide low-maintenance fantasy leagues to the public, at no cost, have facilitated a rise in the popularity of fantasy sports in recent years. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, over 36 million Americans and Canadians participated in fantasy sports in 2012, and the number of is increasing annually – only 9 million participated in 2005, whereas 32 million participated in 2011.

Although many of these fantasy leagues have no monetary stakes involved for the individual participants, other leagues have low stakes ($20 per participant over a season) or high stakes ($1,000 per participant over a season, plus addition money for in-season trades) associated with participation.

Wagering on fantasy sports is a form of gambling and researchers have found that fantasy sports participants are more likely to gamble on sports than non-fantasy participants.  However, there is little research examining the relationship between fantasy sports participation and gambling-related problems.

I assessed past year fantasy sports participation and gambling-related problems among a large sample of college students (N = 1556) via an online health survey. The purpose of this exploratory study was to (1) estimate the prevalence of fantasy sports participation among college students, and (2) explore whether there is a relationship between fantasy sports participation and gambling-related problems.

In this sample of college students, 11.5% of respondents participated in fantasy sports in the past year and 5.0% played fantasy sports for money. Fantasy football was the most commonly cited sport (10.1% played, 4.7% played for money), followed by professional basketball (2.8% played, 0.6% played for money), and then baseball (2.1% played, 0.6% played for money).

I also found that fantasy sports participants (both those that played for money and those that did not) were significantly more likely to endorse gambling disorder criteria outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) than non-fantasy sports participants. In addition, there was a significant correlation between the number of leagues a respondent participated in and the likelihood that they were experiencing gambling-related problems.

The findings of this exploratory study indicate that fantasy sports participation might be a risk factor for gambling-related problems in this population. Although there is much more research that needs to be done concerning this relationship, it is important for researchers and clinicians to be aware of this relatively new and emerging form of gambling and potential risks associated with it.

Ryan J. Martin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Health Education and Promotion
East Carolina University

 

If you’re interested in writing a guest blog, please contact Sasha C. Russell: 617.426.4554/sasha@masscompulsivegambling.org.

 

The Mass. Council Presents: Marilyn Lancelot

Last week we brought a book review on Marilyn Lancelot’s Gripped by Gambling, written by Program Specialist, Jodie Nealley. This week we are delighted to bring you a blog written by, none other than Marilyn Lancelot, herself. Thank you, Marilyn, for sharing a piece of yourself with us.

Why couldn’t I leave the casino when my friends wanted to? Why did I have to lose all my money, my home, and my freedom? Researchers are still trying to understand addiction, but may never find all the answers. Reasons why certain people fall into unhealthy behaviors and others do not may depend on social environment, learned behavior from family members, genetics, or emotional issues.

Many compulsive gamblers seek treatment to try to uncover the reason they gamble. I walked into my first meeting looking for a way to stop the insanity, not to find out the reason I couldn’t stop. My sponsor told me to utilize not analyze. He also told me that if I looked for the reason I gambled, I might believe that if I took care of the problem, I could one day gamble normally. He warned me about replacing one addiction with another.

Anyone who has ever tried to break a small habit can appreciate the seriousness and agony of trying to fight the cravings of an addiction. Suggesting to just stop clearly will not work. Cliché as it may be, the desire to change still has to come from within. I have found the twelve-step programs most helpful because of the support and spirituality I experience at meetings. I am no longer alone.

 

Categories determining whether a person may be predisposed to becoming addicted can be physical, mental, emotional, and social. A licensed counselor can run testing and diagnosis. Perhaps if someone had told me that my addictions were a symptom of an illness or predisposed condition, I might have been more conscious of the fact that I could be in danger of switching addictions.

There are four levels of how the addiction pattern progresses:

1. We treat our new activity as recreational.

2. The need for escape becomes more frequent, and we become preoccupied.

3. The recreational activity has a negative impact on our lives.

4. It becomes an obsession, and the person is desperate to fulfill his obsessive thoughts.

Addicts cannot stop thinking about their newfound escape from reality, whether the issue they’re trying to avoid is imaginary or real. Because of the many stages of addictive behaviors, some addicts destroy everything and everyone around them before they seek recovery. Others, thankfully, find the desire to stop before they reach that low point. The desire and ability to recover may take root slowly or emerge full-blown in an instant.

Addictions include both the obsessive and compulsive behaviors. With an obsession, we have a fixed mental picture that reminds us of the feelings we experienced when we were into our addiction. We savor the escape it offered. Compulsion is physical, and occurs after we have that first fix, take that first drink, or drop that first coin in the slot machine. We discover we cannot stop through our own willpower. To break out of the compulsive behavior, we have to change our thoughts and convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing by stopping the behavior. We can no longer say that we deserve it, or no one will know. When we moved from experimenting to losing control, we often created additional problems such as failed relationships, financial problems, health problems, unhappiness, and crime. The list goes on.

Marilyn Lancelot

 

More about the author:

You can read more about Marilyn Lancelot, and her books at the following websites: grippedbygambling.com; switchingaddictions.com

After her experiences, Lancelot started a women’s GA group in her home state of Arizona. Her group also started a newsletter, which can be found online, Women Helping Women. This newsletter included the articles from the book, and the website offers interactive commenting on newsletter articles.

 

 

****If you're interested in writing a guest blog for the Mass. Council, please contact Communications Specialist, Sasha C. Russell: sasha@masscompulsivegambling.org

 

Book Review: Gripped by Gambling

By Jodie Nealley, Program Specialist, The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

 

 

 

 

 

 

In an effort for Council staff members to continue educating ourselves on problem gambling, each member chose a book on the topic to read and review. This week’s review comes from Council Program Specialist, Jodie Nealley.

Jodie chose the book: Gripped by Gambling.

 

 

Gripped by Gambling is the autobiography of Marilyn Lancelot, a woman who has everything, then loses it. She gets caught up in a “late in life” gambling addiction, and at 65 years old is sentenced to two years in prison for embezzlement. This is her story. This is my story. This is the story of many compulsive gamblers, and it is all the more moving and effective because of it.

 

Gripped by Gambling moves through the author’s imprisonment and her stories about incarceration, to the life that led up to the gambling that consumed her to the point from which she stole from her employer. At the end of the book there is an appendix with definitions, Gamblers Anonymous (GA) information, and short articles from both counselors and gamblers.

 

The story is relevant to our work at the Mass. Council. It tells in detail the horrors of prison – separation from your loved ones being the worst horror of them all. She tells about her lying, stealing and putting her loved ones to the side to engage in a compulsive behavior that destroys her world.

 

For those who are not compulsive gamblers it illustrates the irrationality of the disease. How can she have done that? Didn’t she see she would eventually get caught? We know intellectually that compulsive gambling is a disease in which cognitive distortion erases the concept of rationality but this book tells it to us in a narrative so honest –and even more effective because it is true – that hopefully that irrationality can be understood a little better.

 

Because our mission is to help problem gamblers and their loved ones, and because all problem gamblers lie, cheat and steal, this book is a must read. While not all problem gamblers are incarcerated, many recovering compulsive gamblers will say it’s only because they did not get caught.

 

This book is especially unique because it is told from an older women’s point of view. I highly recommend this book to all working in this field.

 

More about the author:

 

You can read more about Marilyn Lancelot at her website: grippedbygambling.com.

 

After her experiences, Lancelot started a women’s GA group in her home state of Arizona. Her group also started a newsletter, which can be found online, Women Helping Women. This newsletter included the articles from the book, and the website offers interactive commenting on newsletter articles.

 

Citation:

 

Lancelot, Marilyn. (2007) Gripped by Gambling. Wheatmark.

Responsible Gaming Education Week: August 5th - 9th

By Sasha C. Russell, Program Specialists, Communications, The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From August 5^th- 9^th, 2013 the casino industry and its partners celebrated Responsible Gaming Education Week (RGEW). RGEW was started in 1998 by The American Gaming Association (AGA), “to increase awareness of problem gambling among gaming industry employees and customers, and to promote responsible gaming nationwide.”

“How Do You Say Responsible Gaming?” is the theme for RGEW 2013. This theme was chosen to remind everyone that no matter what language you speak, every casino employee and visitor should “speak responsible gaming.” Essentially, this means that casino employees are expected understand how to talk to customers about gambling with limits, the reality of the odds of winning, and how casino machines work, as well as knowing when to refer someone to problem gambling services if needed. 

During RGEW and throughout the year, many people who work in the gambling industry share the knowledge of how to lower risk factors when gambling with their guests, colleagues, friends and family. Throughout the week, casinos around the country hosted activities to get their employees actively thinking about how they can be ambassadors to the community on this important issue.

In preparation for RGEW the AGA and the National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG), released new responsible gaming videos. The video by the NCRG, “What is a Gambling Disorder?” , “explains in simple language the science that informs our understanding of gambling disorders.” The AGA’s video, “What Are the Odds?”, is meant to “illustrate the house advantage inherent in all casino games and demonstrates how America’s favorite game – the slot machine – actually works” In addition to the In addition to the videos, other materials, such as quizzes to test your responsible gambling knowledge, are also available. 

Members of the Massachusetts Partnership on Responsible Gambling (MPRG), (The Mass. Council, Mohegan Sun Massachusetts, the Massachusetts State Lottery, Caesar’s Resort at Suffolk Downs, MGM Resorts & Casino, and Plainridge Racecourse) recognize RGEW. Council representatives worked with fellow MPRG members to host information tables to help raise awareness about problem gambling services at various events across the Commonwealth during the week.

The goal of the MPRG is to assist Massachusetts communities, and the individuals and families within them, by advocating for and implementing responsible gaming industry policies and practices as well as promoting public awareness and encouraging programs for prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery of problem gambling.

Though RGEW happens once a year, it is important to recognize limits and preventative measures to lower the risk of people becoming affected by problem gambling year-round. Problem gambling does not discriminate and can affect someone’s life anytime during the year.

Youth Problem Gambling Initiatives in Jamaica

By Sheryl-Ann Thomas, Communications Intern, Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

Coming from Jamaica, it was heart-warming to see an article posted by our friends at the New York Council on Problem Gambling about youth gambling in my home country. “Inner-City Student Carries Anti-Gambling Message,” discusses gambling prevention initiatives being coordinated by Rise Life Management Services. Reaching Individuals through Skills and Education Life Management Services (Rise) is a non-profit organization that offers prevention and treatment services for addictive disorders, community-based health and education interventions, remedial educational programs, life skills training, parenting programs and social and health related services. Each year, Rise hosts the annual Youth Gambling Prevention All Island Poster Competition to educate students about the risks of gambling. The participants range from primary school to high school and create illustrations based on the given theme: Adolescents in School; Gambling is Against the Rules.

Program Manager, Addiction Counselor and Support Service Representative of Rise, Richard Henry, said that the 2007 Jamaica Child and Adolescent Gambling Survey shows that, “one in five students are at risk of gambling, or are problem gamblers.” With a population of approximately 2.7 million, the proportion of youth experiencing problems with gambling suggests a dire situation on the small island. Gambling is a form of entertainment that is greatly interwoven in our culture. Although gambling was never practiced in my home, I knew all the jingles for the lottery, and times the winning numbers were announced throughout the day. I can vaguely recall a radio announcement about problem gambling services in Jamaica.

The most popular games illustrated on the posters were children playing cards and money football. These were games that I played as a child, but never for actual money. Times have changed. Naturally my feelings were mixed after reading this article. I was surprised at how problem gambling had developed, especially in inner city communities, where the majority of participants live. I felt a sense of pride when I realized that there are organizations and government agencies in place to prevent and treat this addiction. At the competition award ceremony, the Government Minister of Tourism, Honorable Damion Crawford, stated, “Gambling takes time and you don't have that time; you need to be studying and working hard in school; especially if you don't have all the tools as the other students, you need to put in the extra time.”

Crawford identified a crucial situation that problem gambling is prevalent within the poorer communities. However, it is a step in the right direction to address the younger demographic before they reach the adult stage. Prevention work with teens is also an area of focus of the Mass. Council.

Our teen website, TeensKnowYourLimit.org, focuses on educating and interacting with teens, educators and parents about problem gambling. Activities include a curriculum called Creative Activities for Probability & Statistics (CAPS). CAPS is a collection of fun games rolled into a 12-week math curriculum, and FACT/FICTION word quizzes. Another teen initiative includes the T.A.G Team (Teens About Gambling), which started as a group of students from the North Brookfield Youth Center who wanted to teach their peers about the risks and consequences of gambling to be able to make informed decisions in the future. Program Specialist, Amanda Poggenburg, said there are plans to expand the T.A.G team to other high schools across the state for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014. Currently, there is an essay competition in the planning stage for FY14, as well as other projects that will increase the awareness of Teen problem gambling across Massachusetts and expand trainings for educators and parents interested in learning more about problem gambling, its warning signs, and prevention.

The Council considers problem gambling amongst teens to be a critical issue. A recent national study estimated that nearly 70 percent of Americans aged 14 to 19 years gambled in the past year. They wagered money on poker, sports, the lottery and a variety of other games. Research shows that individuals who gamble before age 13 are at much greater risk of developing a gambling problem later in life. Employing prevention strategies early can substantially reduce that risk and risks to other populations as well. Poggenburg stated, “Preventative activities are alternatives to gambling, which aim to develop impulse control before adulthood, and provides other low risk activities. An example of a low risk activity would be going to the movies with friends instead of purchasing scratch tickets.”

Poggenburg added, “Teens are all about knowing, purposefully or not, so educating them is the best way of prevention instead of telling them not to gamble.”  Problem gambling is associated with numerous negative consequences and is highly correlated with other risky behaviors in the adolescent population; therefore preventative action is encouraged for teens (fact sheet).

If you would like more information about our teens initiatives, TeensKnowYourLimit.org, TeensKnowYourlimit Facebook page,  or T.A.G Team, email Amanda Poggenburg  or Sasha Russell or call: 617-426-4554.

Latino Problem Gambling

Consultant Cesar Angomas representing the Council at a festival.

By Thalia Yunen, Communications Intern, Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

For this week’s blog, I decided to write about an area that personally relates to me when discussing problem gambling. As a young Latina woman, I am interested in problem gambling within the Latino community. When I started this blog, I hoped to have a lengthy piece with plenty of statistics, filled with personal as well as non-personal observations on what it means to be a problem gambler within my community. However, as I started to conduct my research, I found that there wasn’t a wealth of information about problem gambling amongst Latinos.

Here’s a little about me. My mother is Dominican and her family is of Spanish descent, and my father is Puerto Rican and his family is of Lebanese descent. I often get asked where I’m from, and for the most part people think I’m either Middle Eastern or Hispanic. It always amuses me to hear all their guesses. Like me, Latinos, sometimes referred to as Hispanics, are diverse – from the Afro-Cuban to the White-Argentinian, not that these are two ends of the racial or ethnic spectrum, but they differ in terms of physical features and accent and even cultural beliefs. This is why looking at problem gambling from a Latino standpoint is interesting to me. With that said, I realize that with a culture so broad and rich, it’s especially difficult to educate people on, raise awareness about, and prevent problem gambling.

Like most Latinos who have a tío (uncle) or abuela (grandmother) who occasionally gamble, I was never fully informed or knew that places existed to help anyone that I knew if their activity progressed to having a gambling disorder. I knew gambling was an issue, but I usually saw it as a result of something else unraveling in a person’s life, like if they had a substance abuse or mental health disorder. I wasn’t entirely wrong. According to the Mass. Council’s fact sheet, Gambling and Disordered Gambling Facts, of the people diagnosed with a gambling disorder, about 75% had an alcohol disorder, 38% had a drug use disorder, and 60% were nicotine dependent. These statistics surprised me. Before interning at the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, I never knew that gambling was a problem to be dealt with in itself, I only saw it as a gateway to other addictions – which it can be, but this is not always the case.

Common forms of gambling in the Latino community include:

• Lottery
• Animal Fights
• Bingo
• Raffles
• Dominoes
• Cultural Games
• Informal Gaming
• Sports Betting
• Casinos

Council Consultant, Cesar Angomas, says that the majority of Latinos, like many others experiencing problems with gambling, call the Council when they are at risk of losing something, like their family, a job, their marriage, or something else of value. Angomas also notes that Hispanics and Latinos usually are in denial because culturally, gambling is thought of as a hobby, not a disease, or a disorder. He said, “Since it’s always been legal, they see it mostly as entertainment or a hobby. And it slowly starts becoming a strong addiction; they start to become dependent on ‘the game’. Then they start thinking according to the game, wasting their time or their thoughts on their next gamble.” Angomas also says that most Latinos that he meets will come to him and say, “I don’t understand addiction; I don’t know what it means. Do you have any materials or resources to show me?”

In 2009, the Northstar Problem Gambling Alliance (NPGA) partnered with Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), a provider of behavioral health and human services to Latinos in Minnesota, to hold a roundtable discussion with Latino individuals to discuss how gambling affected their lives, their families, and their community. (Read more about their findings here.)

Most of the recommendations provided suggest that more information and bilingual resources would be beneficial to the Latino community. Another prevalent attitude amongst the Latinos in the study was that gambling is a problem that’s on the rise in the community, and that it’s a growing problem amongst Hispanics who are not well-informed on the issue, as well as those who are older. Likewise, Angomas stated that he would like to see more resources, materials, and programs on the radio and on television, that effectively communicate the issue of problem gambling so that more prevention, care, and further analysis of the issue can take place.

Intervention and Treatment Support Director, Victor Ortiz, said, "As a social worker, I have seen many Latinos struggling with gambling problems. Language and cultural barriers often prohibit individuals from getting the help they need. I encourage all community organizations serving Latinos to learn about problem gambling and how it impacts both individuals and family members. As helping professionals, we can strengthen our communities by offering even more resources for help and supporting our neighbors in whatever challenges they may face.”

Here are some other common barriers to prevention and care, as outlined by NPGA and CLUES:

• Language
• Cultural taboos and characteristics
• Lack of research
• Lack of resources
• Beliefs about addiction and mental health
• Lack of bicultural and multilingual staff
• Lack of culturally competent evidence-based programs

That being said, we offer programs and services as well as a helpful list of resources in Spanish and English on our Latino Problem Gambling website. An example of these services, as per our Programs and Services page, include:

• Building Capacity of Treatment Providers – The Council offers a Mass. Problem Gambling Specialist (MAPGS) certificate program that serves Spanish-speaking clients, and offers tech-assistance to those groups. We also train prevention practitioners and clinicians to help prevent and treat gambling problems. The focus of our comprehensive trainings ranges from clinical methodologies, changing demographics of the Latino populations, Latino sub-populations, cultural characteristics, current trends, barriers, and strategies for effectively changing and retaining Latino clients in treatment. 

• Community Outreach – We make an effort to develop relationships and organizations by participating in cultural events, local festivals, educational activities, community mobilizations, and other social gatherings. We also distribute literature related to problem gambling so that we can begin informative dialogue about gambling behavior. Council Consultant, Cesar Angomas, has attended festivals such as the Puerto Rican Festival of MA and Lynn Latin Festival in order to provide outreach for the Council and inform people on gambling disorder and the services that we provide. 

• Congregation Assistance Program (CAP) – We collaborate with faith-based ministry teams to assist as resources for the community on addiction and addiction-related issues. Over the past few years, the CAP curriculum was adapted to focus on Latino communities. As the CAP Spanish-curriculum PowerPoint outlines: “Faith is at the heart of Latino communities. Congregations are places that people go to connect with their homelands and to build social networks. Faith-based groups have a long history of offering both guidance and support to neighborhoods by delivering human service programs. Because congregations already possess the human and spiritual resources to help, the CAP is a natural way for the Council to reach Latinos with problem gambling messages.”

•  Prevention-Specific Trainings and Tech-Assistance for Providers – We have onsite trainings for Latino organizations and organizations that seek to improve their capacity to deliver problem gambling preventions services. The trainings focus on the prevention of problem gambling, Latino cultural characteristics, strategies and techniques, and resources.

 

• Our Self-Help Guidebook  and brochures are also available in both Spanish and English and include thorough information on disordered gambling.

It is evident that Latinos need more information on problem gambling and addiction. The only way to help people experiencing problems with gambling is to establish channels of communication and educate society on what it means to have a gambling disorder. In this way, we can continue to provide education on the prevention and care of gambling disorder, and develop new materials to better help the Latino community. With that said, gambling disorders are not a culturally-exclusive issue, it can happen to anyone.

If you would like more information about our programs and services, or would like to find out how to get involved with the Council, please call our helpline in English (800.426.1234) or in Spanish (857.383.3558).

Book Review: The Compassionate Instinct

By Amanda Poggenburg, Program Specialist, The Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling

 

In an effort for Council staff members to continue educating ourselves on problem gambling, each member chose a book on the topic to read and review. This week’s review comes from the Council Program Specialist, Amanda Poggenburg.

 

Amanda chose the book: The Compassionate Instinct.

 

The Compassionate Instinct is a compilation of articles from Berkley University of California’s Greater Good: The Science of Meaningful Life magazine that discuss the human capacity for compassion and empathy. The book begins by presenting articles that show the correlation between human and primate instincts towards others of their own kind; detailing instances where a human is presented with another in pain and is given the option to take that pain from the other (p. 13) or where a primate chooses to protect an injured, defenseless animal (p. 18). Another intriguing article discussed that compassion and empathy are not just felt in reality, but also for fictional characters in literary works and film (pp. 150-56).

The book is separated into three sections: “The Science of Human Goodness,” “Cultivating Goodness in Relationships,” and “Cultivating Goodness in Society and Politics.” The first section, “The Science of Human Goodness” seemed to set the stage for the rest of the book to explore how to release compassion within others. To relate science to compassion, one article discussed the kind of symmetry between compassion or forgiveness and revenge. The article initially presented two truths. The first truth stated that the desire for revenge is a normal and natural part of human nature, and the second truth stated that the capacity for forgiveness was as well. This presents the question of how one would choose which was appropriate or even do-able. A third truth was then presented that suggests that to be a more forgiving and less vengeful society, we need to change the world, not human nature. (pp.54-59). The acts of forgiveness and revenge depend on the current societal conditions in any given location.

One of the most interesting facts presented was that the act of helping someone causes the same neurological reactions in the brain that receiving rewards or experiencing pleasure do. It releases the hormone oxytocin (also caused by eating chocolate) when behaviors such as smiles and friendly body language are performed. Another interesting discussion presented was on empathy and inequality. It discussed society’s reliance on empathy to guide it, and that “without empathy, the very meaning of society is up for grabs” (p. 191).

The Compassionate Instinct is a book for everyone. It seeks to understand how and why people are compassionate in certain instances versus others. This is important in the work we do at the Mass. Council because our work and outcomes are based on empathy and compassion. We may not offer counseling or direct services, but through our helpline, we do provide compassion, and that makes all the difference in our world.

Citation:

Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh, and Jeremy Adam Smith, The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness (New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010).