When We Say “Our Kids,” We Don’t Mean Just Children

When we talk about our kids at Parents Standing Together, we don’t necessarily mean young children.

Some of our kids are 16. Some are 22. Some are in their 30s. They’re in high school, college, starting careers, raising families, or trying to rebuild lives that have been turned upside down by gambling addiction.

They’re all our kids.

And when your child is struggling with a gambling addiction, their age doesn’t make you any less of a parent. It doesn’t make the fear, the heartbreak, or the desperation to help them any less real.

That’s something I wish more people understood.

It Doesn’t Matter What We Call It

At Parents Standing Together, about half of the young people in our families began gambling before they were legally old enough to do so. The other half started after reaching legal gambling age.

We’ve heard just about every version of how it begins.

Some started with video game skins and moved into skins betting. Some lost staggering amounts of money on perfectly legal sportsbooks after turning 21. Others found illegal offshore crypto casinos, walked into brick-and-mortar casinos, or became consumed by day trading and other gambling-like activities.

And now we have prediction markets, blurring the lines even further between gambling, investing, and trading.

From where we sit, the labels aren’t nearly as important as the harm.

Legal or illegal. Regulated or unregulated. Gambling or supposedly not gambling.

Families aren’t sitting around debating definitions when their child has lost everything, can’t stop, and is falling apart in front of them.

We’re trying to figure out how to help them survive.

How Are Parents Supposed to Keep Up?

We tell parents they need to talk to their kids about gambling. And they absolutely do.

They need to understand the risks, recognize warning signs, and have conversations early and often.

But can we acknowledge how incredibly difficult we’re making that?

It seems like every single day there’s something new.

A new app. A new betting product. A new way to wager on sports, politics, financial markets, or practically anything else. Something that looks like a video game. Something that looks like investing. Something that doesn’t even call itself gambling.

Meanwhile, illegal gambling operators are reaching young people through social media influencers, often making gambling look like an easy way to make money.

And the legal industry? It’s everywhere.

We see the constant television commercials. The celebrity endorsements. The promotional offers.

But it’s gone well beyond that.

There are sports betting promotions in fortune cookies.

One parent told us about a gambling promotion that appeared after their child in early recovery completed an application to bring a pet into his apartment. A free bet offer from a major legal sportsbook. While trying to arrange housing for a pet.

Seriously?

How are parents supposed to compete with that?

We’re asking families to have thoughtful conversations about gambling risk while young people are being surrounded by messages encouraging them to gamble.

And somehow, the responsibility for protecting them keeps finding its way back to parents.

Legal Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Safe

Something about the public conversation around gambling last week really bothered me.

The messages in multiple places seemed to be that if parents talk to their kids about gambling and trading, and young people wait until they’re legally old enough and use regulated platforms, things will be okay.

I wish that were true.

Of course, illegal gambling sites present enormous risks. They may offer no meaningful consumer protections, age verification, or safeguards. We should absolutely be concerned about them.

But we also need to stop pretending that legal gambling is inherently safe.

Some of the families we support have adult children who developed devastating gambling addictions using completely legal, regulated sportsbooks.

They were old enough. They followed the rules. They used the platforms they were allowed to use.

And their lives still unraveled.

Legal sportsbooks and prediction markets may have responsible gambling tools, limits, and other consumer protections. But from what we’re seeing, those protections are not consistently preventing serious harm.

The existence of a safeguard doesn’t mean it’s working.

And the fact that a young person is legally allowed to gamble doesn’t mean their brain is suddenly immune to addiction.

We cannot keep treating legal access as though it guarantees safety.

By the Time We See It, the Damage May Already Be Done

One of the most painful things I’ve learned through my own family’s experience, and through the hundreds of conversations we’ve had with parents, is how invisible gambling addiction can be.

There may be no physical signs. No smell. No obvious indication that anything is wrong.

A young person can be sitting in their bedroom, attending classes, going to work, and appearing to live a normal life while gambling for hours every day.

And gambling addiction can change the way a person thinks, responds to rewards, and makes decisions. What began as something fun or exciting can become something they feel unable to stop, even as the consequences become devastating.

By the time parents discover what’s happening, their child may already be deeply in trouble.

We’re talking about young people who have accumulated overwhelming debt, stolen from people they love, failed out of college, lost jobs, become homeless, or experienced serious mental health crises.

And yes, we’re talking about suicide too.

These aren’t hypothetical worst-case scenarios.

These are the realities families are navigating every single day at Parents Standing Together.

Parents are desperately trying to figure out what to do. How to find treatment. How to set boundaries. How to protect their finances. How to keep their child safe. How to support recovery without trying to control it.

And sometimes, how to make it through another night not knowing whether their child is okay.

That’s the part of gambling addiction that rarely makes it into the public conversation.

I Wish the People Making Decisions Could See What We See

I would never, ever wish gambling addiction on another family.

Not for a second.

But I know, with absolute certainty, that if more of the people making decisions about gambling had experienced what our families have experienced, the conversation would be very different.

If they knew the pain of watching their child become someone they barely recognize.

If they understood the mind-numbing insanity of trying to help someone who desperately needs help but may not be ready or able to accept it.

If they had spent nights wondering whether their child was safe, months trying to untangle financial devastation, or years navigating treatment, relapse, and recovery.

If they had watched a promising young person’s future begin to disappear.

I believe they would ask different questions.

Not just whether a product is legal.

Not just whether an operator is regulated.

Not just whether a responsible gambling message appears somewhere on a screen.

But whether we’re doing enough to prevent harm in the first place.

Whether the safeguards are actually working.

Whether we are identifying gambling problems early enough, before families reach a crisis.

And whether the people living with the consequences have a meaningful voice in the decisions being made.

Just Ask Us

I am not suggesting that parents have no responsibility. We have an important role to play in educating our kids, recognizing risks, and supporting them when things go wrong.

That’s why Parents Standing Together exists.

But parents cannot do this alone.

We cannot out-educate an environment that is constantly finding new ways to encourage gambling. We cannot be expected to recognize every new product, platform, or marketing tactic. And we certainly cannot be the only line of defense against an addiction that can have life-altering, or sadly even life-ending, consequences.

We need better prevention. We need earlier identification. We need meaningful protections that actually prevent harm, no matter the product. We need treatment and recovery resources that families can find and access before everything falls apart.

And we need the voices of families at the table.

So to the policymakers, regulators, researchers, industry leaders, and everyone else shaping the future of gambling in this country:

Please talk to us.

Talk to the parents whose children started gambling at 12. Talk to the parents whose children started at 22.

Talk to the families harmed by illegal gambling sites. And talk to the families whose children lost everything on legal, regulated platforms.

Ask us what we missed. Ask us what we wish we’d known. Ask us what might have made a difference. 

We’ll tell you.

And then ask how you had a part in missing the harm being done, and how you too, can do better.

Because whether our kids are 15 or 35, whether they gambled legally or illegally, whether the product was called gambling or something else entirely, the devastation is real.

And our kids deserve better.