“Calls to gambling helplines in most states in America are up, by sheer numbers,” said Timothy Fong, co-director of the gambling studies program at UCLA. Hundreds of calls from concerned relatives each year have heightened fears in the state that problem gambling is sweeping through a new generation.
Requests for support through New Jersey’s helpline more than doubled over the ensuing years, as the legal market ballooned. Ironically, New Jersey was the state that led the charge for the legalization of sports betting and, in 2018, successfully convinced the supreme court to overturn a decades-old federal law that prohibited the state from legalizing sports betting.
“There’s a lot of kids that are gambling,” said Felicia Grondin, executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey.
