“It’s attacking everybody now.”īut things have changed since sports gambling was made legal, he said. You’re not going to be able to go to a bar and watch a game without somebody in your group talking about gambling,” Jimmy said. On TV, sportscasters talking about point spreads. “You can see it getting worse by the minute. But he now sees younger men showing up and “a disease spreading.” “The gambling caused destruction in every part of my life.” He hasn’t placed a bet since 2009, a recovery he credits to attending weekly Gamblers Anonymous meetings.įor many years, the meetings were mostly attended by older people, he said. “I wasn’t really living,” said the recovering compulsive gambler, who requested partial anonymity to adhere to Gambling Anonymous rules.
By the time early illegal internet sports gambling arrived over a decade later, he was ducking into bathrooms during dates to place bets and he was uninvited from family dinners. The habit formed when he found a bookie as a high school sophomore. Sports gambling has at points consumed his own life. An unofficial leader at a weekly Near West Side Gamblers Anonymous meeting, 42-year-old Jimmy knows dozens of people living with gambling problems.
