MT. LEBANON, Pa.— Kavita Fischer couldn’t believe her luck.

She started with $750 and hit a hot streak last summer that stretched over six days. She played round after round of online casino games until her winnings hit $500,000. The windfall would make up for every bad bet and pay off all she owed.

Fischer, a 41-year-old mental-health professional and suburban homeowner with two boys, was by then in debt by six figures from online gambling losses. For nearly a year, she lost again and again, complaining to at least one gambling company that she had a problem but couldn’t stop. As a psychiatrist familiar with human impulses and addiction, Fischer knew better than most what she needed to do.

Yet she was up against an industry skilled in the art of leveraging data analytics and human behavior to keep customers betting. Gambling companies tracked the ups and downs of Fischer’s betting behavior and gave bonus credits to keep her playing. VIP customer representatives offered encouragement and gifts.

After her six-day hot streak, Fischer made several requests to start withdrawing the half-million dollars from the PointsBet gambling app. But she kept changing her mind and plowed the money back into play.

Within a day, she lost nearly all of it. “There’s nothing in your brain that says, ‘OK, stop now, you’re done. You’ve won your money back, you can put this behind you,’” Fischer said. “There was just something in my brain that made me keep going.”

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The more than $15-billion-a-year online gambling industry grew out of a 2018 Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for states to allow and regulate sports betting. Now, 30 states and the District of Columbia have approved online sports wagering 24 hours a day.

Online casino gambling, which became Fischer’s habit, is legal in six states and has been an industry gold mine.

In November 2022, Fischer downloaded the app from DraftKings, one of the top two online-betting companies in the U.S. along with FanDuel. She was looking for relief from the stress of a recent divorce and the isolation of working from home in the pandemic. She found Slingo, a bingo-style matching game as simple to play as a slot machine.

Soon after Fischer started playing, a customer representative sent an email introducing himself. At DraftKings and other online betting companies, they are identified as VIP hosts.

“I look forward to working with you and building a great relationship!” Jamyl Cogdell wrote on Dec. 9, 2022. Over four months, Fischer said they exchanged dozens of emails and text messages. Cogdell didn’t respond to requests for comment, and DraftKings declined to comment on his behalf.

DraftKings and other gambling companies doled out tens of thousands of dollars in credits that kept Fischer playing long after she wanted to quit.

Casinos have always wooed their high-rollers with special treatment, but online-betting has intensified industry tactics. Companies closely track betting habits 24 hours a day, collecting such data as how much time each customer spends on an app, how much money they gamble, what kind of bets they place and how much they lose.


An electronic billboard for DraftKings outside Pittsburgh.
With a real-time view of a customer’s gambling activity, VIP hosts keep in close touch. They can track when customers last used the app and offer credits and other incentives to persuade their most-valued gamblers—by definition, the biggest losers—to return. Payment options give gamblers immediate access to funds that some can’t cover.

Gamblers are assigned VIP hosts based on how much they are wagering. The personal attention pays off. At PointsBet—acquired in 2023 by Fanatics, a sports-merchandise company—VIP sports bettors representing 0.5% of the customer base generated more than 70% of the company’s revenue in 2019 and 2020, according to internal company documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Fischer at times bet tens of thousands of dollars a spin. As her losses grew, Fischer texted her sister in Florida, saying she had a gambling problem. Fischer’s sister said she told her to seek help.

Meantime, the VIP offers kept coming.

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“How was your weekend? I just added the following offer to get your Tuesday started off right: Earn $30 casino credits for every $1,000 wagered on Slots,” Cogdell wrote to Fischer on Jan. 17, 2023, “up to $1,000 over 72 Hours.”

Looking back, Fischer said she became a psychiatrist to understand the mysteries of the human brain. Over the course of about 11 months, she became a mystery to herself. “You know you’re wasting your life or time or money,” she said. “You just can’t get out.”

Online gambling companies say that most people play for entertainment, and that they can minimize harm to customers.

“DraftKings is committed to the highest standards of consumer protections and responsible gaming,” said Jennifer Aguiar, the company’s chief compliance officer. The company declined to comment about Fischer.

This account is based on interviews, emails and financial records.

Try, try again
Fischer, a co-valedictorian of her high school in Florida, finished her residency in psychiatry in 2012 at the University of Pittsburgh. She appreciated the art and science of her profession, getting to know patients as a way to understand their illnesses.

She lives in a two-story house with walls of windows overlooking the rolling hills of her Pittsburgh suburb. Her two young sons play soccer. Over the years, she sometimes visited a nearby casino to see a 1980s cover band, budgeting $100 to pay for food, drinks and craps games on her night out.

During the pandemic, playing casino games on her phone started out as a way to unwind after the boys went to sleep. Soon, she was gambling late into the night. As she lost, she spent more time and money trying to reverse her fortunes. “I’ll do it this time,” she recalled thinking. Instead, her losses grew.

She hoped to dig her way out and the free credits gave her a reason to keep trying. DraftKings sent her a 14-person tent that she sold for $500. The company invited her to a Steelers football game to watch from a suite with food and drinks.


Acrisure Stadium, home field of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On Jan. 9, 2023, Fischer emailed her DraftKings host to say she was “doing terribly” at Slingo and should try a different game “or quit gambling completely.”

“In the meantime, is there any way you can send me some VIP love?” she asked.

The host added a $500 bonus to her account. “Hope you can get hot!” he said. Later that month, he asked Fischer to check in once a week to see if she was eligible for promotions and credits.

To fund her gambling, Fischer spent savings and retirement funds and took out personal loans. She used credit cards that treat gambling transactions as cash advances, charging interest rates as high as 33%.

Fischer discovered Pavilion Payments, which works with betting companies to provide a service called VIP Preferred. The program gives bettors access to money without waiting for bank transfers to clear. When Pavilion, a Las Vegas-based company, tried to collect what Fischer owed, she often came up short, triggering collection notices. Pavilion said it promotes responsible gambling.

Several times, Fischer imposed limits on her betting through tools provided on the apps, including DraftKings. She would cap her spending or temporarily block herself from placing bets. When those restrictions expired, she started spending again.

As her debts grew, Fischer tried in January to sign up for a state-run program that allows gamblers to ban themselves from all betting apps legal in Pennsylvania—for a year, five years or a lifetime. Fischer said she got an error message and gave up.

“I’m hurting this week—would you please be able to do one more bonus so I can try to turn my luck around tomorrow?” Fischer said in a March 8, 2023, email to her VIP host.

The host credited her account with $500. “Hoping this will get you on the right track!” he wrote.

Later in March, Fischer’s boyfriend took her for a getaway in Cancún, Mexico, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her swelling financial problems. She was $1,200 short on her mortgage and wrote her DraftKings host asking if they offered loans to VIP customers.

The host said no. He asked if Fischer was gambling within her means. “We take responsible gaming very seriously here,” he wrote, and included a link to DraftKings tools that would allow her to limit bets or impose a temporary ban.

After returning home, Fischer told her DraftKings host she was gambling within her budget. “Okay perfect,” he said and gave her a $250 credit “to get you back in action.”

In April, DraftKings said she was no longer eligible for a VIP host but didn’t give a reason. Frustrated, Fischer demanded her account be closed. In the first four months of 2023, she lost about $141,000 to the company. During that time, DraftKings gave her more than $36,000 in gambling credits. Overall, she lost more than $190,000 to DraftKings in 2022 and 2023.

Fischer wrote to DraftKings in May, saying she was addicted to gambling and needed help. “I do believe I could have been protected better,” she said. “My VIP host could see the time I spent gambling as well as the amounts.” She asked to be reimbursed for a portion of her losses.

A member of DraftKings’ Player Protection Team said in an email that she couldn’t get a refund for her losses.

“We are sorry to hear about your experience with our platform and the financial issues you now are facing,” a representative of DraftKings’ Player Protection wrote. The email included phone numbers for gambling hotlines and links to gambling addiction websites.

“I would have stopped a long time ago,” Fischer said. “Those VIP bonuses would get me back in.”


Fischer at home in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.
Stoking desire
Psychologists say that for gamblers, placing a bet triggers the brain to release dopamine, a chemical that creates a sense of pleasure and anticipation. The feelings surge while awaiting the next spin of the slot machine or the next football play. Gamblers seek the feeling repeatedly, regardless of winning or losing. Some can’t stop.

The online betting industry in the U.K. has been under scrutiny over concerns about gambling addiction and the marketing practices of betting companies. Regulators cited bonuses and VIP programs as tools companies employ to keep customers gambling and losing.

In 2020, U.K. regulators imposed restrictions on VIP programs, which target big spenders. The rules required the companies to check on whether gamblers could afford the amounts they were betting and rein in credit giveaways. Regulators have since reported a 90% reduction in the number of customers in VIP programs.

PointsBet as recently as 2022 categorized its sports-betting customers based on their wagering patterns, according to internal company documents viewed by the Journal. One type of valued customer was known as a “Dave,” which the company has described as a man, aged 30 to 45, making at least $150,000 a year. Daves bet about 100 days out of the year with an average wager of $500.

The company also labeled customers making an average bet of less than $20 as a “Chad,” marking them as less desirable gamblers. PointsBet had stopped using the terminology by the time it was acquired by Fanatics, a Fanatics spokesman said.

Psychologists who study gambling addiction say companies collect enough data to identify sports-bettors and online-casino customers with a problem.

The biggest sign is known as chasing losses—attempting to recoup losses by gambling more. One trackable indicator is when bettors make frequent deposits into their gambling accounts, according to a U.K. study.

On some days, for instance, Fischer made a dozen or more deposits into a single app, according to her bank statements: $100. $300. $500.


Fischer’s home in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.
As states debated legalizing online gambling, companies promised to intervene with problem gamblers, but there are few regulations to ensure compliance.

New Jersey regulators last year started requiring betting companies to use player data to identify at-risk customers. Among the trackable signs are gamblers who increase the amount of time they spend betting each week, and those who wager until they have less than a dollar in their accounts, according to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Other indications include bettors who repeatedly bar themselves from betting apps.

About 94,000 customers had received varying degrees of intervention from online companies, including video tutorials and conversations about responsible gambling, as of October last year, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s office.

Disaster relief
Last July, after Fischer won and lost $500,000 with PointsBet, a customer representative offered in an email to help Fischer set spending limits on the app. The representative asked to arrange a time for a phone call to check on her.

“At PointsBet, we want to ensure that our players are having the best experience possible, and we strongly believe that the best way to do that is to gamble responsibly,” the email said.

In August, Fischer again applied to be banned from gambling apps through the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. In an automated email on Aug. 3, the agency said her request wasn’t accepted because of discrepancies in her information.

A week later, she tried again and added a personal plea. “I have attempted to self-exclude now for the 4th time/ please let me know if you need anything else from me. Pennsylvania online gambling has wrecked my life,” she said in an email.

The state board confirmed her lifetime ban from online betting platforms three days later. Doug Harbach, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, said the agency responds when people have trouble signing up for the ban.

In one year, Fischer gambled away more than $400,000 of her own money. “Can you blame someone who has alcohol addiction?” Fischer said. “I don’t.”


The view from a window at Fischer’s house in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.
She took out a $243,000 home-equity loan to pay off credit cards and personal loans at a lower interest rate. It will cost her $2,400 a month for 15 years, she said. That is on top of her monthly mortgage payment of $3,600 a month.

To settle another $120,000 in credit-card debt, Fischer has payment plans that cost $2,500 a month. She has picked up shifts with a local healthcare provider for extra income.

In August, Fischer attended her first 12-step meeting for gamblers at a local church. She felt afraid and alone, thinking there might be only a few people there. Instead, there was a group of 25. One group member told her not to feel lonely anymore. She cried.

“I was, like, ‘I can’t believe there are so many people here,’” she said.

Fischer is planning a presentation in March to psychiatrists across Pennsylvania about screening for gambling problems. She said she wanted to tell her story, despite the professional and personal risk, to help lift the stigma of gambling addiction.

“It can happen to anyone,” she said.

link: https://www.wsj.com/business/h...de0?mod=hp_lead_pos7

More and more, I see stories like this (and other bad outcome tales) mention or begin with:
"During the pandemic".
"It began during the pandemic"
I wonder if we will ever learn the true amount of damage the whole pandemic thing has caused our society.

During the pandemic I noticed the rise in advertising for online gambling. I thought to myself that for obvious reasons “This isn’t going to go well”.

I hear the commercials all the time on the radio with offers of free bets up to such and such an amount (like any dealer, give you a taste and get you hooked). It’s laughable when it is followed in the same commercial with warnings about gambling addiction and seeking help about it if it’s getting out of hand. It’s the same with the vape commercials with “tobacco harm reduction” messages at the end. It should be illegal to advertise for gambling like this but there is far too much money being made for people running, or in a position to do anything about it to give a shit.

I listened to a very interesting podcast on gambling addiction. Turns out a drug for Parkinson's Disease can create a situation where gambling addiction occurs. The mechanism for addiction was elucidated as the natural response to pleasure, coupled with the continuing belief that there remains a chance for pleasure. There is a dopamine reception process involved, which I can't really explain while I am on a conference call, but it made a lot of sense. Addiction to anything is heartbreaking, but it seems that the gambling industry is dedicated to creating that opportunity for addiction. This willful attempt to provide for addiction by others in the industry seems more heinous than drug addictions that are truly chemical in nature.

Fan Duel is coming online in North Carolina soon, and I dread what it's going to do to people with little or no self-control. I have problems with that myself, and I absolutely will not get involved with it.

I listen occasionally to a Philly sports talk station called 94 WIP and they push this FanDuel and DraftKings crap incessantly.

I hate to sound mean, but as a psychiatrist, if she didn't get help or know what to do for herself I don't think she'd be a good therapist. It's like going to a car mechanic who cannot keep his own car running.

quote:

Originally posted by preten2b:
I hate to sound mean, but as a psychiatrist, if she didn't get help or know what to do for herself I don't think she'd be a good therapist. It's like going to a car mechanic who cannot keep his own car running.

A lot of people go into psychology or psychiatry because of personal issues.

Most pro sports would no longer be around were it not for gambling and fantasy leagues. My wife likes to dabble and I think it was getting out of hand for awhile but she got it under control. Small stuff like pull tabs, scratch offs and football boards. But even that can drain a lot of your money. She won $2600 on the Super Bowl on three separate boards this year. The investment was $250.

We have a casino just three miles down the road and neither of us have stepped foot in it for over ten years and that was for a wedding reception. Gambling never held the slightest allure for me. I don't go to deer camp anymore because everyone sits around and plays poker all night. Holds no interest for me. I just show up in the morning hunt and go home at night. I don't know how to even read a pull tab or scratch off and that's all well and good as far as I'm concerned.

We had some close friends who lost their house due to the wife's secret gambling problem. She would make excuses for leaving the house and would head right for the casino. My friend was retired and thought she was probably having an affair. He said later he wishes that's what it was. He had no clue until they got a foreclosure notice.

These online gambling companies are scum. I hate them, and I hate having to listen to their stupid ads. That said, this article totally missed the point.

This supposed mental health professional blew half a million dollars on online gambling, and we're supposed to view her as a victim because she was emotionally fragile due to a divorce and the pandemic? Nobody forced her to do it. I hear those same stupid ads, lived through the same pandemic, and have my own share of life difficulties and stress...yet somehow I've managed to not drive myself into financial ruin as a result.

Stop whining. Be an adult. Take some responsibility. Make good choices. It's not that hard.

That’s a narrow perspective. You make it sound easy. For some people, it just isn’t. And those people are all around us.

Never said it was easy. But sometimes you've gotta do things that are hard. You need to know yourself and make the decision to abstain from stuff you know you will allow you to lose control.

Alcohol scares the hell out of me. My grandpa was a drunk. I saw what it did to him, and I know it could easily do the same to me. As a result, I don't touch it. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with having a drink, but I don't need the temptation in my life to go overboard. If that makes me a bummer at parties and social events, so be it...I don't need it in my life.

I do the same with gambling. I know myself and I know the odds. You don't have to stop if you never start.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Never said it was easy. But sometimes you've gotta do things that are hard. You need to know yourself and make the decision to abstain from stuff you know you will allow you to lose control.

Alcohol scares the hell out of me. My grandpa was a drunk. I saw what it did to him, and I know it could easily do the same to me. As a result, I don't touch it. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with having a drink, but I don't need the temptation in my life to go overboard. If that makes me a bummer at parties and social events, so be it...I don't need it in my life.

This I get. I’ve never really bothered with gambling, just no interest here. But like another poster, I also had a neighbor who had a serious gambling problem- stole from my folks. Very nice lady. Have a relative who makes bets constantly, he’s also a PhD (not in mental health), and after reading this article, I realize why it might be hard to stop if you’re constantly inundated with free offers to continue playing. It may not be chemically induced by something you physically take into your system, but it’s still triggering a complex chemical reaction in your brain. It’s awfully hard, esp if you think you’re bright enough to believe that you understand all of the options and that you won’t be the one that’s caught in its web.

When I quit smoking, I finally had to acknowledge the fact that my brain would do amazing things to trick me into having another smoke. Like dreaming about smoking realistically enough that when I woke up thought.. “well, shit might as well”..and then caught myself… and waking up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night because somebody in a different room two doors down was smoking and my senses detected and wanted it. To me, that’s scary shit, and tells me how basic functions will override anyone’s big bright mind to get what it wants.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

A lot of people go into psychology or psychiatry because of personal issues.

Medice, cura te ipsum.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:


A lot of people go into psychology or psychiatry because of personal issues.

Yep we had one move into the neighborhood when I was a teenager That guy's spring was wound tight. He died at 45 years old of a heart attack.

Reading Kavita's story really hits close to home for me. I've also found myself in a similar spot, having lost a significant amount of money to online gambling. It's a tough cycle to break, especially when you're chasing losses or that next big win. What worked for me might not work for everyone, but I decided to take a step back and reassess my approach to gambling.

I realized that I couldn't quit gambling cold turkey, but I could change how I did it. Instead of pouring more money into the void, I started looking for opportunities to play with less risk. I found that gambling on different casinos for small amounts of money, and sometimes only using the initial bonuses they offer, made a huge difference. This way, I wasn't constantly digging into my own pockets. Specifically, I stumbled upon a casino bonus site that lists a bunch of casinos along with their bonuses. It became a strategy to only gamble with these bonuses, reducing my overall risk.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mac_220,

Find a Gamblers Anonymous group in your area and start going to meetings. Those folks understand Gambling Addiction. Insurance companies often cover Gambling Addiction as well. Good luck and post back please.

quote:

Originally posted by mac_220:
It is so hard to quit gambling. I am dealing now with this and I don't know what should I do to quit. Can you share some tips?

Have you tried Gamblers Anonymous?

Our current governor believes that casino gambling and legalized weed will lead the Commonwealth to prosperity.