Friction is a key force in two points of two very different sports betting experiences.
For sportsbooks, it is the impediment to quick registrations, deposits, and access to bets on mobile phones or computers.
For problem gamblers, it is the real and exaggerated little obstacles to admitting a problem and getting help.
It can be a full parking lot, bad traffic, or the headache that overtakes an afternoon.
But now, the type of digital accessibility that for some facilitated gambling problems can be used to remove those excuses. A new study by Kindbridge Behavioral Health — Gambling Disorder Treatment Outcomes Report — details what Kindbridge Research Institute executive director Dr. Nathan Smith calls proof that telehealth can be effective for gambling addiction counseling.
“The stigma is a big piece,” said Smith (pictured) of the counseling experience for patients. “You have to go in and sit in the waiting room and see the other folks. You look at everybody and try and figure out who’s got what condition. Everyone’s looking at you. There’s so much stigma around addiction in general, but particularly around gambling disorder, that we find any way that you can lower barriers to treatment, you should.”
The Kindbridge study followed 279 gamblers presenting symptoms of gambling disorder with 75% white males and 62% aged 25-44. That generally mirrors, Smith said, the sector of the population most affected by problem gambling.
Smith searched for answers to a key question: “Are we doing enough to reach out for racial and ethnic minorities — for sexual minorities?”
“These are very important groups that have traditionally had a lack of access to care,” he said. “And it’s another place where telehealth can be beneficial. This whole report is part of the process in learning how we can be better every day.”
Smith’s research suggests both traditional counseling and telehealth sessions are effective in addressing gambling addiction.
“We also measure quality of life too, more in general,” he said. “Because as your mental health improves, we’d expect, you know, your physical health should improve, your financial health may improve, your sleep may improve, your social connections may improve, right?
“And so we wanna see not just a benefit in the mental health space, of course, we wanna see that, but we also wanna see the benefit in the overall quality of life in the individual, because that’s really the goal.”
Kindbridge Report Key Findings
- More than 58% of respondents reported a gambling preference “setting” of “online or app-based gambling.”
- 29% chose online sports betting as a preferred gambling “mode.”
- 22% chose gambling apps.
- 70% of those assessed met the criteria for “an additional mental health diagnosis” in addition to gambling disorder.
Smith posed the question: “Did they have a gambling problem at the same time, and they weren’t screened for it? Was it something they were hiding? Was it something they weren’t aware of?”
“Their gambling was not being taken care of at that time for whatever reason,” he said.
- 47% met the criteria for major depression and suicidal tendencies, with males reporting higher rates (33%) than females (12%)
- 41% met the criteria for obsessive-compulsive behaviors, with males reporting higher rates (31%) than females (14%)
A report by the Optimove marketing firm claimed that 66% of NFL bettors admitted to “wagering more than they could afford or wanted to lose, up from 45% in 2023.”
From the Kindbridge report:
Telehealth As a Gambling Counseling Tool
Telehealth has become a staple of medical care in the US since the COVID-19 epidemic. It is increasingly used as a medium for counseling.
“Getting people to show up is one of the hardest things in mental health treatment,” Smith said.
“About 90% of folks with a gambling disorder don’t ever seek treatment for that disorder. You want to lower those barriers to treatment as much as possible. I’ve seen psychologists for many years. My father was a psychologist. I grew up around it, but I’ve done the thing where you get to the parking lot and there’s no parking spaces and you just go home.
“There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to go in and do the work. And if you give that part an excuse to not go in and do the work, sometimes you’re just going to go home.”
By bringing treatment into the home, Smith said, pressure and anxiety are reduced. Sessions can be undertaken at the patients’ convenience. Flexibility mitigates excuses.
Group sessions are available as with traditional in-person counseling, but most are conducted one-on-one, Smith said. Patients can utilize the same clinician each time if they choose.
“The rapport is extremely important,” Smith said. “Mental health is difficult to understand. The brain is complicated. We don’t really understand what’s happening most of the time. The deeper into it we get, the more we understand what we don’t know.
“But one thing that is true across the board is when the patient feels connected to the clinician, that’s when good things happen. That’s the single thing that is most predictive of a patient reporting quality improvement.”
Tech Tasked as a Tool for Healing
That patients can utilize technology to find help as they used to it engage in damaging habits isn’t merely ironic. The irony isn’t lost on Smith.
“That’s an enormously important idea,” he said. “On some level, you always want the treatment to mirror the problem. The classic example of this is Alcoholics Anonymous. In the Thirties and Forties, if you went to an AA meeting, it was a dark room. It was smoky. Back in those days, it was crowded. You would go there with the same people every night. You would drink enormous amounts of coffee. You would laugh. It was replacing the bar.
“And on some level, that was by design. The meeting was replacing the bar, and that was a part of its power. And this is the same thing.”
In a society increasingly alone together via the tether of technology, a smartphone app can replace the bar for problem gamblers.
“You want to have the way the person is getting help mirror how the problem formed,” Smith said. “The more you can do that makes that comfortable for the person, then that’s a really powerful way to not just have success in treatment, but to have it easy for them to keep coming back.
“Maybe they open their phone and they look at their gambling apps. Hopefully you have them blocked, you have them deleted. But maybe they’re still there. But then also they have their treatment app. That’s a very powerful construct.”
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