Unit 2 Draft Introduction

This year saw the start of online betting being legal here in New York and already many close friends and family to me have started betting on games through their phones or tablets. Recently one of my friends nearly fell deep into this gambling addiction and it’s barely been three months since it’s been accesible on your phone to bet on any major sport. Luckliy he was smart enough to stop and is recovering at the moment. So this has led to my curoisty sparking and I wonder, how do people fall into gambling addiction? I ride the train often since gas prices are up and I don’t want to drive. Nowadays there are big screens that show ads on the subway platforms. I occasionally look at one and there is always an ad promoting a betting app. This has been more frequent in the last three months since it was introduced and allowed in New York in the beginning of the year. I scroll on social media watching sport highlights on a sports page, and they would also post a bet where a person bet a few bucks to win a few thousand. They always highlight the fact you could gamble anywhere from ten to twenty-five dollars to win a few hundred or even thousand. But that’s how it starts, you bet small and hit the jackpot once. That one win seems to fuel many people to increase the bet thinking they could keep it going till they eventually are in deep pockets. I don’t want to necessarily blame any ads on apps, but now that betting is accessible through an app on your phone makes betting easy for anyone. You can bet on anything as well nowdays. This past years Super Bowl, I remember seeing on Twitter that 25% of America bet on the Super Bowl. That’s around 82 million Americans putting money on the line betting on things like who’s going to win the coin toss to what color is the winning gatorade splash going to be. My father bets, but he bets smartly and every once in a while. There’s no need to bet on each basketball game or every football game on Sundays. But there is a psychology behind to those who fall in deep. It becomes an addiciton like any other drug and it’s dangerous since it could affect your life. The gambling addiciton has been said to affect you badly that you turn to other drug addicitons to help you cope with the stress and emotions that comes with the negative consequences to gambling your money away.