Therapy professionals see downside playing circumstances rise as digital gaming surges in recognition

Roy Gilgallon will always remember his 13^th birthday.

“My father took me to a bar after having promised me a bike throughout the winter. He proceeded to play Six Card and drink,” Gilgallon recalled.

Gilgallon later discovered his mom thought they have been out looking for a motorcycle.

“So, when we got home, I was anticipating the bike,” he stated. “I felt by my mother’s reaction there was no bike.”

Gilgallon, 69, describes himself as a recovered downside gambler who’s the son and grandson of downside gamblers and the daddy of an issue gambler.

He has devoted 20 years to serving to others break that cycle in their very own lives. The progress of on-line playing and legalized sports activities betting in Pennsylvania has Gilgallon busier than ever, and fearful concerning the future.

As the CEO of Turning Point Alternative Living Solutions, a Scranton-based dependancy therapy heart, Gilgallon works to assist folks coping with points together with substance abuse and playing.

“The largest growth in population with gamblers is high school or college males,” Gilgallon stated.

Research estimates that over 20% of scholars on this state have gambled sooner or later of their lives, in line with the 2023 PA Youth Survey of 6,8,10 and 12th grade students.

Other current research cited by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board discovered 75% of U.S. faculty college students gambled previously 12 months, 58% of 18–22-year-olds engaged in sports activities betting, and 33.7% of youth underneath 18 gambled in a one-year interval.

That’s an space Gilgallon understands all too effectively.

“I started gambling probably my junior year in high school. I hung around with guys that are a little older, and part of the bonding process was putting in bets with bookies, and then eventually I started taking bets and betting as well,” Gilgallon stated.

He sees a brand new technology of gamblers who don’t want to position illicit bets with bookies however by the environment friendly anonymity of computer systems and private cell gadgets which are nearly by no means out of attain.

“Unlike substances, gambling is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere all the time,” Gilgallon stated. “It’s on the phone, the gas station, the grocery store. You cannot get away from it.”

Many, like him, started young — but not all.

The confluence of law, technology and international events helped propel the growth of online gambling across the spectrum of ages.

‘We’re in a completely different world’

Pennsylvania’s playing panorama has been considerably reworked in underneath a decade, and it began with the stroke of a politician’s pen.

Then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 42 on Oct. 30, 2017, after the laws was handed by each chambers of the General Assembly. It legalized on-line playing, expanded on line casino playing, and permitted video playing terminals at truck stops and airports.

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Act 42 additionally stated the General Assembly deliberate to authorize sports activities betting as quickly as federal courts or Congress gave their blessing.

They didn’t have to attend lengthy. On May 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal legislation prohibiting state-approved sports activities playing.

Brick-and-mortar sports activities playing debuted six months later at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in Dauphin County. Online sports activities betting adopted in May 2019, when state officers gave Philadelphia-based SugarHouse Casino, now referred to as Rivers Casino, permission to launch an app.

Pennsylvania’s sports activities wagering trade alone generated a billion {dollars}’ price of bets in its first 12 months.

That wasn’t the one statistic on the rise.

Pennsylvanians flocked to the brand new digital betting choices, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic pressured many individuals into isolation.

Even the state’s casinos have been quickly shut down, however on-line playing wasn’t. It skyrocketed, and so did the variety of folks combating downside playing.

“So, you know, perfect/imperfect storm — however you look at it, this increased availability and access,” Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania (CCGP) Executive Director Josh Ercole stated of the pandemic.

“It really created this kind of interesting scenario where we had folks who were previously patrons and guests of casinos who could now no longer access those casinos, and they switched over to the virtual world,” Ercole stated.

“We also had folks who were new to that type of game. When it became available, they never went to casinos, but they really enjoyed the online world. Well, now the world shut down. They’re scared, they’re isolated, they’re bored, their participation amplifies,” he stated.

“We also had the group of folks that weren’t doing any type of gambling, and now they’re not able to go to the office, they’re not able to gather with friends, and they say, ‘well, maybe I’ll try this out,’” he added.

The pandemic ended, however the pattern towards on-line playing didn’t.

“What we’ve seen over the course of the past five years is just this continued expansion and growth in terms of availability, in terms of advertising, in terms of participation,” Ercole stated.

Penn State University, along with the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, conducts an annual evaluation of the impacts of interactive gaming within the state. According to their 2025 report:

• Between 17% and 30% of grownup Pennsylvanians engaged in some type of on-line playing final 12 months;
• Over 50% of calls to CCGP’s 1-800-GAMBLER hotline particularly talked about on-line playing as probably the most problematic type of playing; and
• Sports betting was the preferred on-line playing format, whereas lotteries have been the preferred offline playing format.

“We now see the revenue that’s being generated by online games is right in line with what we traditionally saw happening with slot machines and table games at casinos,” Ercole stated.

“So now we’re in a completely different world from our perspective.”

‘People get divorced over stuff like this’

“Jen” was in her early 30s and pregnant when she first began on-line playing about two years in the past.

WVIA News has agreed to determine the Northeast Pennsylvania resident solely by her first identify attributable to issues about her profession and her household’s privateness.

“I was never really a big gambler to begin with. I would go once in a while to the casino with my parents, who like to partake, but I was never, you know, a huge customer,” she stated.

Boredom and loneliness led her to a web-based playing app for Mohegan Pennsylvania Casino.

“I was halfway through my pregnancy. Me and my fiance work different shifts, so I really wouldn’t see him,” Jen stated.

“I would come home from work, and basically, if I wasn’t sleeping — because I did sleep through a lot of my pregnancy — I found joy in being awake and alert in gambling,” she stated.

“It was just something to do and keep me occupied. And then it snowballed.”

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Jen was just a few months in earlier than she thought her playing “was starting to become something problematic.”

“At one point, I remember realizing that I had just spent, like, a paycheck in however long I was playing — say, a day’s worth of play,” she stated.

But that wasn’t the top of her dependancy. Not solely did Jen proceed to play, she began exploring different playing web sites.

“They run all of these free spin promotions, and you get these bonuses and stuff like that. So I started logging in to more websites just for, like, the freebies,” she stated.

“And then, I guess at that point, I was kind of hooked, and it became like an everyday thing.”

She began operating up her bank cards and opening new ones.

“I was just throwing everything on the cards. So within a few months, those bills got, you know, pretty large, and I was broke all the time,” Jen stated.

Her fiancé did not know she was playing. When he discovered, it was a second of reckoning that opened generational wounds.

“He was kind of like, ‘Look, if you keep doing this, I’m gonna have to leave you,'” Jen recalled.

“People get divorced over stuff like this, I totally get that. He helped me realize that I had a problem and needed to seek help,” she stated.

“I come from a family where growing up, my dad went to the casino a lot, and we actually lost our house that I grew up in because of that,” she added.

Jen explored a number of therapy choices, which have been made tougher by the necessity to match periods into her schedule as a working mother.

She made contact with Kyle Popish, a Lackawanna County-based counselor who makes a speciality of downside playing.

“It’s been going pretty well,” Jen stated, including that she has not gambled in a number of months and has paid off her money owed.

“It wasn’t an easy road,” she stated. Yoga and a way of mindfulness additionally assist preserve her on monitor, in addition to staying busy.

“But it’s mostly my little guy and my fiance that keep me, you know, straightened out.”

Self-medicating for different points

Popish, who has a number of years of expertise within the discipline, opened his personal counseling enterprise, Whole Path Wellness, final fall.

Through his coaching and speaking with colleagues, Popish has developed insights into why folks develop issues with playing, and the way their expertise compares or interacts with different addictions.

It’s additionally one thing he can communicate to on a private stage: Popish fought his personal battle towards substance use dysfunction for over a decade, and noticed the influence of playing dependancy on members of his circle of relatives.

“That played a major role in my passion to learn and treat gamblers. The hidden addiction has severe consequences to not just the gambler but the family, friends, and network of the gambler,” Popish stated.

“In many ways, it’s very, very similar,” he stated. “So you would treat it like any sort of addiction. You’d become mindful of triggers, you’d be become mindful of your habits, your routines, your cravings.”

But downside playing, like different addictions, usually is a type of self-medicating for different points, he added.

“If someone’s mental health is not well, whether it’s undiagnosed mental health disorders, if it’s untreated mental health disorders, or whatever the case may be, they will always find a way to self-soothe, right? This is something that will put that fire out for them,” Popish stated.

Popish, who shouldn’t be an authorized trauma therapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist, stated he works with purchasers to attach them with individuals who can individually handle these points if wanted.

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‘Money’s not even actual anymore’

Still, there are elements that set downside playing other than different addictions, and that is what Popish focuses on along with his purchasers.

Key amongst them: Money.

“First and foremost, one of the things that we really have to address with gamblers is assessing and reassessing their relationship with money that oftentimes is one of the biggest catalysts behind aggressive gambling addiction,” Popish stated. “You see this significantly more now in the world of online gambling.”

Consider the position of digital money versus tangible forex.

“People don’t even bring cards or cash to the store anymore. Often they just take their phone and swipe it,” he stated. “When you don’t see money and you don’t hold money in your hand, it’s totally different when you’re spending it.”

So it’s with on-line playing, he stated.

“Someone doesn’t have to get up from the table anymore and walk to the ATM, put a card in, wait for their money to be deposited and go back to the table. They could just hit ‘deposit now’ and they never see that money,” Popish stated. “That further distorts a relationship with money, where money’s not even real anymore. I just press a button and there it is.”

That’s one thing Jen skilled throughout her playing dependancy.

“When I started doing the online thing, it was a lot different [from casino gambling],” she stated.

“You’re not seeing how much money you’re spending. You’re just kind of like, you know, pressing buttons, going through it.”

Americans’ dependancy to their cell gadgets solely compounds the difficulty, Popish stated.

“The phone becomes the primary trigger all of a sudden. So every time they pick up their phone, that habitual brain locks in: ‘Oh, let me go open my app,’ or whatever the case is. So when it comes to online gambling, we really have to take a look at that as well,” he stated.

Popish sees one other key factor that units downside playing other than different types of dependancy.

“There’s a phrase used clinically. It’s called gambler’s fallacy — this narration within their head of odds and statistics and ways that they will manipulate and win the game,” he stated.

In Popish’s view, it is a “self-deceit” that units folks with playing dependancy other than folks with substance addictions.

Those battling substance dependancy see a bottle or a tablet or syringe and use it to quickly uninteresting their ache.

“A gambler looks at a line in a game or a button on a machine and tells themselves ‘everything about my life could change,'” Popish stated.

Problem gamblers “really, really believe that level of self-deceit that they possess. They really believe in their heart, they’re going to figure it out this time, and they’re going to win,” he stated. “So getting them to reframe that cognitive distortion is extremely critical.”