Guys, I love gambling.

The funny thing is that no one gets into it alone. As addiction specialist Stephanie Almanza states, the gambler “might have been somebody who is really seeking belonging […] and often felt that fame and power was something that was entirely necessary for them to find friendship, connection and belonging.” Yet for Tate Jabs, ‘26, it’s a reinforcement of something that’s already there: “my friends started playing it. I started doing it, and then my younger friends started playing it once they turned 18, and it’s kind of just a cycle. I don’t know if it’s a good cycle or a bad cycle, but it’s a cycle.”

In a system that’s famously rigged against the player, what’s the point of it all? Why participate if you know it won’t get you anywhere? “It doesn’t start out bad,” Almanza states. At first, it’s just fun. That’s the point. For fun, and sometimes a profit. You can win: “there’s a certain table at Mystic that I play on,” Jabs says, “[that’s] higher money, it’s two deck, and my [profit to loss] is very high on that.”

As fun as it can be, as soon as you realize it, it already has its hooks in you. “Me and my friends gamble way too much,” Jabs recognizes. “Four times a week, probably once at the casino.” What’s fun for some might be a problem for others. Almanza states that though there is often a win that contributes to addiction for some gamblers, “there’s other components to this […] in a losing streak, oftentimes the brain is releasing more dopamine than it would in a win.”

In person, it might be a fun social event or a way to blow some money, but online, it can be isolating, draining, and addicting all the same. “Online gambling in sports betting is really dangerous,” Almanza says, mostly because currently, there is almost no regulation. They use predatory tactics to extract as much money from you as possible. “One of the biggest battles that I’ve had with sports bettors is in them understanding what gambling is, and how even something with low dollar amounts for fun where you know your friends can be [a] slippery slope that leads to continued gambling and family harm.”

In essence, everything about gambling can be summed up by one quote from Jabs: “if you’re going to gamble, be smart about it. Like, don’t lose all your money. It’s not worth it.”