ONLINE BETTING: Treatment professionals see problem gambling cases rise as digital gaming surges in popularity

Roy Gilgallon will never forget 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 learned his mother thought they were out shopping for a bike.

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

Gilgallon, 69, describes himself as a recovered problem gambler who is the son and grandson of problem gamblers and the father of a problem gambler.

He has devoted two decades to helping others break that cycle in their own lives. The growth of online gambling and legalized sports betting in Pennsylvania has Gilgallon busier than ever, and worried about the future.

As the CEO of Turning Point Alternative Living Solutions, a Scranton-based addiction treatment center, Gilgallon works to help people dealing with issues including substance abuse and gambling.

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

Research estimates that over 20% of students in this state have gambled at some point in their lives, according to the 2023 PA Youth Survey of 6,8,10 and 12th grade students.

Other recent studies cited by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board found 75% of U.S. college students gambled in the past year, 58% of 18–22-year-olds engaged in sports betting, and 33.7% of youth under 18 gambled in a one-year period.

That’s an area Gilgallon understands all too well.

“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 said.

He sees a new generation of gamblers who don’t need to place illicit bets with bookies but through the efficient anonymity of computers and personal mobile devices that are almost never out of reach.

“Unlike substances, gambling is ubiquitous. It's everywhere all the time,” Gilgallon said. "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 gambling landscape has been significantly transformed in under a decade, and it all started with the stroke of a politician’s pen.

Then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 42 on Oct. 30, 2017, after the legislation was passed by both chambers of the General Assembly. It legalized online gambling, expanded casino gambling, and permitted video gambling terminals at truck stops and airports.

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Act 42 also said the General Assembly planned to authorize sports betting as soon as federal courts or Congress gave their blessing.

They didn’t have to wait long. On May 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law prohibiting state-approved sports gambling.

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

Pennsylvania’s sports wagering industry alone generated a billion dollars’ worth of bets in its first year.

That wasn’t the only statistic on the rise.

Pennsylvanians flocked to the new digital betting options, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic forced many people into isolation.

Even the state’s casinos were temporarily shut down, but online gambling wasn’t. It skyrocketed, and so did the number of people struggling with problem gambling.

“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 said 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 said.

“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 said.

“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, but the trend toward online gambling 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 said.

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

• Between 17% and 30% of adult Pennsylvanians engaged in some form of online gambling last year;
• Over 50% of calls to CCGP's 1-800-GAMBLER hotline specifically mentioned online gambling as the most problematic form of gambling; and
• Sports betting was the most popular online gambling format, while lotteries were the most popular offline gambling 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 said.

“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 started online gambling about two years ago.

WVIA News has agreed to identify the Northeast Pennsylvania resident only by her first name due to concerns about her career and her family's privacy.

"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 said.

Boredom and loneliness led her to an online gambling 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 said.

"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 said.

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

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Jen was a few months in before she thought her gambling "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 said.

But that wasn't the end of her addiction. Not only did Jen continue to play, she started exploring other gambling websites.

"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 said.

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

She started running up her credit 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 said.

Her fiancé didn't know she was gambling. When he found out, it was a moment 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 said.

"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 several treatment options, which were made more challenging by the need to fit sessions into her schedule as a working mom.

She made contact with Kyle Popish, a Lackawanna County-based counselor who specializes in problem gambling.

"It's been going pretty well," Jen said, adding that she has not gambled in several months and has paid off her debts.

"It wasn't an easy road," she said. Yoga and a sense of mindfulness also help keep her on track, as well as staying busy.

"But it's mostly my little guy and my fiance that keep me, you know, straightened out."

Self-medicating for other issues

Popish, who has several years of experience in the field, opened his own counseling business, Whole Path Wellness, last fall.

Through his training and talking with colleagues, Popish has developed insights into why people develop problems with gambling, and how their experience compares or interacts with other addictions.

It's also something he can speak to on a personal level: Popish fought his own battle against substance use disorder for over a decade, and saw the impact of gambling addiction on members of his own family.

"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 said.

"In many ways, it's very, very similar," he said. "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 problem gambling, like other addictions, often is a form of self-medicating for other issues, 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 said.

Popish, who is not a certified trauma therapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist, said he works with clients to connect them with people who can separately address those issues if needed.

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'Money's not even real anymore'

Still, there are factors that set problem gambling apart from other addictions, and that's what Popish focuses on with his clients.

Key among 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 said. "You see this significantly more now in the world of online gambling."

Consider the role of digital cash versus tangible currency.

"People don't even bring cards or cash to the store anymore. Often they just take their phone and swipe it," he said. "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 is with online gambling, he said.

"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 said. "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 something Jen experienced during her gambling addiction.

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

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

Americans' addiction to their mobile devices only compounds the issue, Popish said.

"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 said.

Popish sees another key thing that sets problem gambling apart from other forms of addiction.

"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 said.

In Popish's view, this is a "self-deceit" that sets people with gambling addiction apart from people with substance addictions.

Those battling substance addiction see a bottle or a pill or syringe and use it to temporarily dull their pain.

"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 said.

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 said. "So getting them to reframe that cognitive distortion is extremely critical."