Sports gambling addiction becoming a major problem – Business News
Anthony Pompliano, the financial guru recognized for his early advocacy of Bitcoin, is throwing his weight behind a fledgling podcast that seeks to fight addiction – and sports activities gambling can be a key subject of dialogue, On The Money has discovered.
Betting on sports activities has develop into a $100 billion industry that’s estimated to grow to $250 billion in simply the subsequent 4 years. Mainstream media not often explores its draw back: Addiction to a vice that destroys lives and results in financial distress.
Now, “Pomp” is making a strategic investment in a podcast company devoted to serving to handle all kinds of addictions with a particular deal with gambling, the place legalization and ubiquitous promoting are creating a nation of degenerates hooked on the attract of straightforward money – unaware that the home virtually at all times wins.
Anthony Pompliano, the financial guru recognized for his early advocacy of Bitcoin, is throwing his weight behind a fledgling podcast that seeks to fight addictions, together with sports activities gambling. Donald Pearsall / NY Post Design
Pomp hopes the investment – which isn’t public – will result in a broader social media platform to handle addictions, better public awareness, and even a therapy heart.
Pompliano’s “The Pomp Podcast” airs from a studio in Midtown Manhattan and has drawn more than 50 million downloads. He says he felt motivated as he received bombarded by all these sportsbook advertisements whereas watching soccer on any given Sunday. Major networks had been pumping a vice that regularly results in financial despair and which may also be a gateway to different addictions.
The remaining straw was listening to at least one of the podcasts that work out of his studios referred to as “Nothing’s Off The Table,” a twice-weekly show by a 32-year-old recovering drug and gambling addict named Louis Ruggiero.
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“The goal of Nothing’s Off The Table is to help people understand there is a way out of very dark places,” Pomp informed On The Money. “The platform has a big focus on sports gambling because there is almost no support for these young people who are having sports ads shoved down their throat on every TV broadcast, at every game, or on every social media platform.”
Ruggiero, a minimum of on its face, is the final individual you’d count on to have been felled by addiction. He’s the son of a New York City legal professional; his mother is Fox-5’s long-time anchor, Rosanna Scotto. (Full disclosure: Rosanna is a colleague of mine within the Fox household, and a good friend.)
But he fell arduous for medication, together with opiates and gambling, whereas in school. He misplaced a business, thousands and thousands of {dollars}, and almost his household till he received sober 4 years in the past. He additionally almost landed in jail.
Louis Ruggiero, a recovering gambling addict, hosts a podcast referred to as “Nothing’s Off The Table.” Steven Hirsch
Ruggiero is the son of Fox-5’s long-time anchor, Rosanna Scotto. Brian Zak/Page Six
I spoke to Louis and he tells me he hit his so-called all-time low in 2018 when he was pressured to testify towards his best good friend on the time who was arrested and later convicted of homicide. Louis was not concerned within the killing, however his pal confessed the homicide to him whereas they had been each hooked on medication, he says.
“My podcast is designed to help people and tell them where to get help by hearing real stories, not just my own,” Ruggiero tells me. “With Anthony’s investment, we want to expand with live events about addictions, how it destroys lives and how you can recover. Over the next 18 months if we can make the business work, I plan to open an in-patient and outpatient facility.”
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From a pure business standpoint, Pomp likes what he sees (he credit his business accomplice, Matt Marlinski with making the initial introduction). Ruggiero began his podcast a little more than a yr in the past, splitting his time working the door on the Scotto household’s fashionable Manhattan eatery, Fresco By Scotto, and doing exhibits simply down the block at Pomp’s studios. Ruggiero’s friends have included everybody from sports activities stars to average people who’ve succumbed to addiction. His clips usually go viral, producing thousands and thousands of views.
What I feel makes the show work is the uncooked honesty that Ruggiero brings to the desk. He fesses up to the whole lot: Binging on Oxy whereas gorging on Haagen Dazs ice cream, stealing to feed his addiction. The episode along with his dad, Louis Ruggiero, Sr., was notably poignant in its description of how mother and father deal with youngsters trapped by their vices.
Ruggiero tells me his show is most useful as a result of it informs people not simply in regards to the draw back to addiction, however “the flipside that recovery is free.”
He provides: “Part of my message is that two programs that saved my life, Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous are free, and there’s a community out there of people like myself that can’t be replaced by AI and have a real world knowledge of addiction and how to overcome it.”
