It’s interesting that North Carolina legalized sports gambling right smack in the middle of Problem Gambling Awareness Month (March), but it’s not surprising that, the same day sports betting became legal, state officials put out a warning to residents encouraging them not to overdo it and to seek help if they do.
It is, after all, the same state that prints the gambling problem hotline number on the back of lottery tickets.
As of noon, Monday, March 11, sports betting became legal across North Carolina and it was at about that same time that the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced that it’s increasing its efforts to prevent, treat and help anyone who experiences harm due to a gambling problem.
According to state stats, just over 5 percent of adults and 10 percent of youths in North Carolina have some sort of gambling related problem. It frequently spills over and has a negative effect on family members as well.
Gambling addiction is considered gambling behavior that “disrupts someone’s life, or the lives of people close to them, such as parents, siblings or friends.”
In addition to an information campaign, state health officials are working with community partners and schools to spread the knowledge that free help for your gambling problem is available if you need it, and also the related message that recovery is possible.
The state is also adding an additional $2 million to the state budget to help provide services related to problem gambling as well as to prevent it in the first place.
NCDHHS is also retooling some of its prevention programs so they concentrate more on sports betting – which is, of course, already the rage in the state based on the number of ads on TV and elsewhere for betting apps and sites.
Some of the signs you have a gambling problem are using betting to counter depression, spending more and more money and time gambling, placing bets using money you have to borrow, chasing losses or lying to others about how much you gamble.
Here are some of the state’s initiatives meant to help those with a gambling problem:
• Providing prevention education on college campuses regarding the risks of sports betting.
• Funding the Gambling Research and Policy Initiative as well as working with East Carolina University to “better research and understand gambling behavior, attitudes and risks.”
• Partnering with Tar Heel Athletics to promote problem gambling and responsible gaming campaign during March Madness, which has just begun.
• Supporting NC Problem Gambling Programs to provide prevention education for college students at Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, High Point University and Chowan University.
• Offering Youth Prevention Grants to middle schools, high schools and community organizations to implement a gambling prevention curriculum.
If you do find yourself needing help, North Carolina’s Problem Gambling Helpline is 877-718-5543. The line is adding helpers to meet an expected increase in calls.
Funny thing is…the US Federal Government has been gambling for decades and decades with taxpayers’ monies – and borrows and prints money like a drunken sailor on shore leave after 20 years at sea on a “dry boat.” Just a matter of time that sports in this country will explode from corruption and greed.
Idiocy. But the state wants more tax revenue, so we have the lottery and now sports betting.
The article says 5% of adults are problem gamblers. In a state with 9.3 million adults, we have FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND problem gamblers.
To assuage its guilt of bringing this to the state, NC throws 2 million bucks at it, four dollars and twenty-five cents per problem gambler. Whoopie doo! Problem solved!
Adding to the charm, local media outlets often tell us how someone won hundreds of thousands with a few dollar lottery investment, but few or no articles on families ruined because mom or dad were unconvinced by the gambling hotline number on the back of the ticket. Many years ago a friend killed himself, embarrassed over the gambling debts he had run up.
Stay away from it people, it’s bad for North Carolinians. Starve the lottery, starve the sports betting, and maybe the idiocy will die with it.
And in what universe does government have the right to caution us about wasting money?
So what is NC state government’s cut of the newly legal sports betting. We get our vig, don’t we?
Once upon a time state government had a moral prohibition against encouraging people from gambling away their life savings, homes and financial futures. This evil is the work done in bipartisanship by vipers on both sides of the aisle. Evidently Lottery tickets were to slow to drain the populace of their wealth, now they can do it with one click of their mouse.
Let’s not forget how the lottery was the panacea to solve ALL the education problems our state was facing when it began in 2005.
By now, our institutions of public education must be awash in gleaming, well funded schools.
Well, we all know the fact of that, Jack.
From casinos to sports betting, it is simply logical to think that many citizens will spend their money on that instead of their basic needs. We will ALL suffer repercussions because of it.
Gambling is legal, as long as the Govt gets a cut. They set a good example, don’t they? Leadership #101.