John Donvan
Hi everybody. I’m John Donvan, Moderator In Chief for Open To Debate. And today we have a fascinating debate that comes just in time for the Super Bowl. Not about football per se, but about another American pastime, sports betting, which is now legal in more than half of U.S. States. But to what effect? That’s the topic today. And I am delighted to pass the torch for moderating this one onto Nayeema Raza, an excellent journalist and one of our esteemed guest moderators. She’s also host of the forthcoming podcast called, Smart Girl Dumb Questions. Nayeema, onto you.

Nayeema Raza
We are days away from the Super Bowl and a lot is on the line. I’m talking about tens of billions of dollars, that are expected to be wagered on Super Bowl Sunday, by tens of millions of Americans. Today we’re gonna debate the question, has legalizing sports betting become a bad bet? Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision throughout federal legislation, that had heavily restricted sports betting, more than $300 billion have been wagered in America. And you know this because we are all inundated with sports betting ads, which themselves have become billion dollar businesses. Pulling on stars like Kevin Hart.

Audio
Everyone gets a free bet.

Nayeema Raza
Vince Vaughn.

Audio
Everyone but Tom Brady.

Nayeema Raza
Even Tom Brady.

Audio
Wait, what did I do?

Nayeema Raza
The message here, of course, is that if you bet, you too could win big. But as we know, nobody wins without someone else losing. So the broad legalization paved the way for an economic boom, a predatory industry or something else altogether. To discuss that, let me introduce our debaters. Arguing that, yes, legalizing sports gambling has become a bad bet, we have Harry Levant. Harry is the Director of Gambling Policy with the Public Health Advocacy Institute, at Northeastern University. He’s also a certified gambling therapist and develops public health policies to respond to the rise in online gambling and gambling addiction. Harry, welcome.

Harry Levant
Thank you. It’s my pleasure.

Nayeema Raza
And here to argue that, no, legalizing sports gambling was not a bad bet, we have Bill Pascrell III. Bill is a lawyer and gaming lobbyist with the Princeton Public Affairs Group. He has worked for years to try to expand gambling in the United States and was in fact integral to that 2018 Supreme Court case. Bill, welcome.

Bill Pascrell
Nice to be here, Nayeema. Thank you for having me and thanks to Open Debate.

Nayeema Raza
This is a, this is gonna be a great conversation because Bill, I, you work with many of the companies that, that profit from sports betting. Harry, I believe your organization is pursuing a class action suit against one of those companies at the moment, DraftKing. So, you know, this should be a good fight. You have a lot to disagree on. But before we start, I thought we should have some critical disclosures, which is, who is everyone’s team here? I’m kind of a Lion’s girl myself. A fair weather fan, I would say.

Bill Pascrell
Go birds.

Nayeema Raza
Go birds. Okay.

Bill Pascrell
Go Birds.

Nayeema Raza
Philadelphia. (laughs).

Bill Pascrell
Well, when it comes to football, I’m in the, I’m in the deep, dark era of my beloved New York Giants.

Harry Levant
Sorry, Bill.

Nayeema Raza
Okay, great. And are either of you planning to put any money on the Super Bowl this year, Bill?

Bill Pascrell
Listen, um, I’m not a huge gambler.

Nayeema Raza
Ah.

Bill Pascrell
I do the grids, you know, at the local bar.

Nayeema Raza
(laughs).

Bill Pascrell
I like to go to the casino itself, but I’m not a digital gambler at all.

Harry Levant
It’s interesting. I’ve yet to meet a gambling industry executive who actually partakes in online gambling.

Bill Pascrell
(laughing).

Harry Levant
Um, you didn’t mention, I am also, among the other hats I wear, I’m a gambling addict in recovery. I made my last bet on April 27th, 2014, survived a suicide attempt related to my gambling addiction that night. Uh, I will not be making a bet today. I will not be making a bet of the Super Bowl. I live my recovery proudly one day at a time.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you, Harry, for sharing that.

Bill Pascrell
Of course.

Nayeema Raza
Um, with those caveats and that context in mind, let’s get to our opening statements. We want each of you to take a few minutes to explain your position. And Harry, you’re up first, arguing that yes, legalizing sports gambling has become a bad bet. Please tell us why you think that.

Harry Levant
Uh, I’d be, I’d be proud to. Uh, before we, uh, respond to that question, however, there’ll be a lot of things today that Bill and I disagree on. But at the start I wanna acknowledge something that, that, that brings us together that we do agree on. Back in August of last year, the people of New Jersey lost a dedicated public servant, and more importantly, Bill lost a hero, the death of his father, Congressman Bill Pascrell. And I wanna just take a minute and acknowledge, uh, I know what it means to lose your father Bill. And I just wanna take a minute and offer my condolences and the condolences on behalf of my organization, PHAI, uh, to you and your family. Now-

Bill Pascrell
Thank you very much, Harry.

Harry Levant
You’re quite welcome, Bill. With that said, let’s get to the seminal question that brings us here. Has the legalization of sports gambling become a bad bet? The answer to that question is most certainly, yes. And the reason the answer to that question is most certainly yes, is that in just six years, since the United States Supreme Court struck down the professional and amateur Sports Protection Act, clearing the way for states to legalize sports gambling. In just those six years, the gambling industry, working together with its sports and media partners, has delivered to the American people, a fundamentally different, inherently dangerous, and defectively and deceptively designed gambling product. A gambling product that is generated almost exclusively by artificial intelligence. That delivers to every phone, tablet, computer, and even TV remote. Constant and nonstop gambling action, on every single micro event within every conceivable sporting event and contest. 24 hours a day nonstop gambling action.

However, we have known for more than 12 years, that gambling disorder is an addiction and gambling is an addictive product just like heroin and opioids and tobacco and alcohol and cocaine. With every other known addictive product, government regulates the advertising, the distribution, the promotion, and the consumption of the product. And they do that to protect public health. With gambling, the exact opposite is happening. Gambling is being delivered with artificial intelligence at light speed on every device. And the result has become, make no mistake, a public health crisis. The full magnitude and scope of which, we are just beginning to recognize.

Now, I’m not here today only to warn, I’m here to do much more than that. I’m here today to demonstrate how this has become a public health crisis, why it is happening and why it’s a public health crisis. And also offer solutions so that it need not be a public health crisis and it can be made safer. But presently, the gambling industry acts with full impunity. They go from state to state to state, preaching what they call, the responsible gaming model, which places the onus on the end user to, as the industry says, just behave responsibly. Or as they like to say, have a game plan. Overlooking the fact that this is a known addictive product. And that in partnership with the sports leagues, teams, players and owners, in partnership with state government itself, the product is being delivered in a business model that requires nonstop action, rapid consumption, and almost near total use. That model must inexorably cause more addiction and more gambling related harm. We have a public health crisis and it’s for Congress now to do something about it.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you Harry. Bill, I think there’ll be a lot you disagree with in that opening statement. You believe legalizing sports gambling has not become a bad bet. Um, you have four minutes now to make your argu- opening argument.

Bill Pascrell
Again, thank you, Nayeema. Harry, thank you very much. You certainly know how to debate, ’cause you soften me up. I’m wearing my dad’s, uh, pin, which he gave to me on his deathbed, his congressional pin. Uh, I just wear it in honor of him. So thank you very much for your kind words. Uh, my dad was my best friend, in addition to being my hero. So, I think it’s important at the outset to set some context. Um, yes, I was the quarterback of the repeal of PASPA, the 10-year campaign, uh, state’s rights commerce clause, uh, that the Supreme Court ruled on May 14th, 2018. I was at the Supreme Court with Ted Olson, Governor Murphy, Sena- President Sweeney, and the rest of us that were involved in the public affairs, the lobbying and the legal, uh, litigation, uh, that was involved in this 10-year campaign of repeal PASPA.

Sports betting’s been going on legally in Nevada for decades. It’s only been going on for the rest of the country that has it, 39 states, plus the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Uh, and Missouri will be launching probably in Q2 because they passed a ballot referendum last year. So a majority of the country now has legalized sports betting. I just did a debate at Faulkner University, uh, uh, late last year, uh, invited by, uh, the Governor of Alabama, and the President of Faulkner, uh, to debate the morality of gambling. I love these kinds of debates and the reason I love it is, not only is Ha- Harry a worthy, call it adversary, I don’t really like to use that term, but, but he’s deeply committed to his belief. And I don’t suspect that Harry is gonna change his mind because of what I’m gonna say, but I am also equally committed to my position.

And that position is, I believe, now I’m on the National Council Problem Gambling’s Federal Affairs Board. I represent organizations, uh, from IC360 to Epic, uh, to PineBridge, uh, and, and working with, um, all kinds of organizations, to try to put forward the proposition that it’s on the industry and the regulatory regime to do better. There’s no bulletproof solution that’s gonna solve problem gambling. But where Harry and I separate is between 96 and 99% of all gamblers in all markets, not just in the U.S., don’t have a problem with gambling. They use it as entertainment, as fun. Put a bet on a game, you’re gonna be more inclined to watch the game, anchor bits and joke, and that’s all safe and fine. The problem is, that one, perhaps 2%, that have the problem using gambling as a coping mechanism.

I wanna salute Harry for being eight and a half years bumping up on nine years, as a recovered gambler, uh, gambling addict. That’s a huge accomplishment. But what I also wanna say is, this is not a public health crisis. There’s no empirical data that shows that and more calls to 1-800-NUMBERS, the 1-800-PROBLEM gambler numbers, does not mean there’s more problems. A good chunk of those calls data will show, are people who are having technical problems with the app. I believe legalized, regulated gambling, is the best way to address gambling addiction. It’s not addressed through the black market, which is double, maybe triple the size of the regulated market.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you Bill. And thanks also for mentioning your dad’s. I too have lost my father who was very close to, so it seems like we have that in common. With those opening arguments, I think we’ve set the table. We’re gonna take time for a quick break and when we’re back, we’re gonna dig deeper into the question, has legalizing sports gambling become a bad bet? I’m Nayeema Raza, and this is Open to Debate.

Welcome back to Open to Debate. I’m your Moderator, Nayeema Raza. And today we’re debating the question, has legalizing sports gambling become a bad bet? Arguing that it has become a bad bet is the Harry Levant, the Director of Gambling Policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute. And arguing that legalization hasn’t been a bad bet, is Bill Pascrell III, a lobbyist with Princeton Public Affairs Group. For those just joining us, we just wrapped up opening statements and Harry, you outlined, uh, what you called a different, a, a, an industry that is different, more dangerous, deceptive, and highly more digitized than had been anticipated when the Supreme Court pushed out PASPA in 2018. You likened it to addictive product, to, you know, a 24/7 fire hose of gambling options that is, in your view, generating a public health crisis.

And Bill, you’re saying, it’s not a public health crisis. That for the vast majority of people who gamble, this is a form of entertainment and that we should not be designing for, you know, the small percentage of people, in your estimation, that have this problem with gambling. Um, that there’s ways to design the system in a way that allows for there to be fun, you know, and, and doesn’t prove that legalization has been a crisis in and of itself.

I guess, maybe to start, I just wanna, I wanna, uh, ask you Bill to respond to this idea because I think when Harry talks about public health crisis, he talks about addictive industry. And I’ve heard him make previously analogy to, to big tobacco here. That there is a big industry, a huge profitable industry that knows about the dangers. Is, is doing very little about them. How do you respond to that kind of metaphor?

Bill Pascrell
Every smoker is jeopardizing their health. There’s no responsible way to smoke. Smoking in and of itself, is innately harmful. Gambling is not. We’ve been gambling since almost the beginning of mankind, um, uh, back in, uh, the Greek and Roman Empires, on everything. And who hasn’t said, “Hey, I’ll bet you, this guy doesn’t do this or this gal doesn’t do that.” I agree that we have to make sure that the industry is protecting consumers, and putting mechanisms in place to help gambling addicts. You do not help gambling addicts by banning gambling or, I know that’s not Harry’s position, I don’t believe, or by banning advertising.

My dad was the chairman of the Brain Injury, uh, uh, Caucus in Congress. So I’m sensitive to protecting individuals that have mental health issues. But what I am not supportive of, uh, is, is trying to ban things. And the reason I’m not supportive of that, not just because I put my blood, sweat and tears into this 10-year case to repeal PASPA, but because I truly believe the problem is the black market. We don’t know how many people in the black market are going down the rat hole, that the one to 2% of all gamblers go down who become addictive.

Nayeema Raza
All right.

Harry Levant
There’s, there’s so many things that need to be addressed here, beginning with, I thank you for the kind words, but I’m actually coming up on 11 years since my last bet, not eight years. Secondly, the statistics that Bill has been quoting are 1980s statistics, about only 1% of people are addicted to gambling. And just to be clear, we are not gonna use the word problem gamblers. The problem is not with the individual. The problem is with the addictive nature of the product. So let’s put some science, facts and hard numbers in front of our audience.

Scientific fact, in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association recognized that gambling is an addictive product, and gambling disorder is an addiction categorized on the same level as heroin, opioids, tobacco, alcohol, and cocaine. In 2017, the World Health Organization made the exact same recognition in the International Classification of Diseases and the World Health Organization has called for gambling to be treated as an international issue of public health.

Next, the numbers Bill quotes, we know are wrong. We know they are wrong in a few ways. First, the extraordinary increase in calls for help, as each state comes online with legalized sports gambling. Next, unlike every other addictive product, there is absolutely no screening for gambling disorder in this country. When you go to your doctor, they will ask you, “Do you smoke? How much? Do you drink? How often? What drugs do you take?” The only people who get counted with struggling with gambling disorder are people who crawl in for help. It’s only the industry that says 1%.

Lastly, the industry never accounts, ever, the impact that others. That is, if a person is struggling with gambling, what about their spouse, their children, their coworkers, their community? We have a widespread and burgeoning public health crisis that has been recognized in countries that have had legalized online gambling longer. Australia, Finland, Spain, the U.K, all look at this as an issue of public health. The industry in America wants to put the onus on the individual. Well, let’s make it very clear. I have a casino in my hand right now. This is not what anyone expected. When Bill and his colleagues artfully argued in the Supreme Court for PASPA to be struck, that was great wiring Bill. But what it has resulted in, is something fundamentally different that the industry makes every effort to not talk about.

Nayeema Raza
So, Bill, I mean, uh, what, you know, Harry’s talking about the internalization of the costs to the individuals that are suffering and, and the, you know, rapid change of technology in this process since 2018. And certainly the numbers have come up, three times the number of people are betting on the Super Bowl now than in 2019. Four times as much money is being placed on those bets or many families affected. How do you respond to that? Are there unforeseen consequences that you didn’t anticipate in 2018?

Bill Pascrell
No. A- a- absolutely not. The industry has done significant work, massive work. I’ll give you some examples. The Rutgers Research, the UNLV Research, is paid for by the industry.

Harry Levant
That’s the problem.

Bill Pascrell
Not-

Harry Levant
That’s the problem.

Bill Pascrell
… not anyone else.

Harry Levant
This is exactly what Big Tobacco did.

Bill Pascrell
Harry.

Harry Levant
Big Tobacco did this Bill for decades. They pay and control everything.

Nayeema Raza
I mean, actually-

Bill Pascrell
But, but just, le- lemme-

Nayeema Raza
… ca- can we jump into that point? Because I think there is an argument and I, I want Bill you to respond to, to the, to the remainder, but I do think there’s an argument that I heard Harry make about this kind of, everyone’s in on it. And, and I will just say in actually setting up this debate, our producers had a hard time finding someone to take the complete opposite position of a ban. In part because, you know, athletes, um, industry, regulators-

Bill Pascrell
I understand. Uh, the-

Nayeema Raza
… benefit from the change in the law.

Bill Pascrell
It’s why I did the debate in Faulkner, it’s why I’m doing this, the debate, it’s why I’m doing a debate in Barcelona in five days. Because I believe in what I’m saying and I’m not hiding under the covers. This industry has a great story to tell. The problem, Harry’s right, it’s the industry. They don’t tell their story.

Harry Levant
They don’t tell the truth.

Bill Pascrell
Hundreds… Harry, come on.

Harry Levant
They don’t.

Bill Pascrell
Hundreds of thousands of jobs-

Harry Levant
1% Bill, how many-

Bill Pascrell
Harry. Harry.

Nayeema Raza
Please let, Harry let’s let Bill finish his sta- statement.

Bill Pascrell
First of all, the Rutgers University Study, the UNLV Study, which is continuing, and there’s a five-year study paid for by a client of mine, well, Harvard, you are going to question the credibility of those academic institutions? I don’t think so. I think those are good studies, paid for by who should pay for them, the industry.

I’ve met with multiple problem gambling organizations, an organization that Harry knows like Oasis. With my client Entain, the largest publicly traded online gaming company in the globe, based in London, who’s a 50/50 partner with MGM, to make the organization BetMGM. They’re spending $10 million, maybe somebody would call it peanuts, to advocate for responsible gaming. One of the best ways we can put some solutions on gambling addiction and problem gambling, is to have a national self-exclusion list. The self-exclusion lists in each states are a waste of time. I have a family member who on their own, who happens to be in the gambling industry and is an attorney, put himself on the self-exclusion list and then realized when he wanted to get back into the game, all he had to do was cross the pond and go over to New York or cross the bridge and go over to Pennsylvania. There should be a national self-exclusion list, and I would challenge Harry to join me in trying to develop that.

And it’s utter garbage that the data protection laws preclude that. That’s baloney. I think the industry has a responsibility to use the self-exclusion list and to share that data across state lines, in a legal way. And final point, there is zero empirical data. Harry talked about an anecdote. The fact that there’s more calls to the, uh, 1-800 number, does not mean there’s more gambling addiction. And Oasis told us that. That a lot of those calls, up to 40% of those calls, are people who have problems with the technology, not with gambling addiction. Now we have to focus on the 60% who call in, who have a problem. Challenged individuals, veterans, minorities, uh, and, and, and others who are, uh, more vulnerable to, uh, the addictive nature, uh, of problem gambling.

Harry Levant
The addictive nature is the addictive nature of the product. Let’s, let’s, let’s find one here that we agree on. As Bill knows, I was privileged to help write the Safe Bet Act. One of the things I wrote into that act is a national self-exclusion list. So hopefully Bill and his industry partners, will join in supporting federal legislation designed to prevent harm. I don’t think Bill meant to paint me in any way as a prohibitionist. I’m not seeking a ban on anything. I’m seeking public health protection at the federal level. You know, this-

Bill Pascrell
Well, you called for a ban on, on, uh, advertising.

Harry Levant
I have not called for a ban, I’ve called for restrictions on advertising, just like we have restrictions on other things on T.V. because when I was watching the pre-game show for the World Series, you and I share some things in common. We’re both big sports fans. The pre-game show in the World Series is sponsored by a gambling company. It is filled with gambling ads. It is filled with talks of overs and unders. You can’t sit down and watch a sporting event with your 9-year-old child, without being inundated with gambling ads.

And perhaps worse still, when you think about sports being part of the American fabric. What has happened here since 2018 is a partnership between the gambling industry, sports and media in each state that legalizes sports gambling, the rates of bankruptcy filings, the rates of mortgage foreclosures, the rates of divorce, are increasing exponentially. Sports have been turned into the equivalent of a nonstop slot machine. What we’ve seen in just six years is this industry is incapable of regulating itself. I have-

Nayeema Raza
Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna cut you off there, Harry, and ask Bill to respond to that. Bill, basically, why do you think the industry is a better regulator or is an effective or efficient regulator to the extent that you do? And two, what would be the harm in your view of more regulation around things like advertising, around things like the timings?

Bill Pascrell
Couple of things. I am not in support of banning things, and I like the fact that Harry is in agreement with that. Number two, I have no problem with better regulations, more regulations. And I will tell you. The toughest jurisdiction in the country on responsible gaming initiatives and controls is the State of New Jersey. I challenge Harry to call the New Jersey Division of Gaming and ask them where the bulk of those responsible gaming standards came from. It came from them reaching out to the industry. Number two, they review every ad. So maybe they want to discuss further advertising restrictions, right? You don’t have children in gambling ads. You have to be careful what you say in gambling ads. But there is monitoring of that.

Harry Levant
State regulation has been an abysmal failure. And what the Safe Bet Act is designed to do, is to set minimum federal standards. Responsible gaming is industry language for let us self-regulate, put the onus on the individual to ask for help, and then we’ll pay for their treatment. It’s the moral equivalent of Big Tobacco saying, “Let us do whatever we want with our product, as long as we pay for chemotherapy and hospice on the back end.” We wouldn’t tolerate it. We wouldn’t tolerate it with tobacco, we overcame it with alcohol, we now need to deal with it with gambling.

Nayeema Raza
Oh, I, I, I wanna, ’cause we only have a few minutes here, so, uh, this, I, I do wanna get to this question of technology because there is a rapid shift happening in technology as well, with crypto, with AI.

Harry Levant
If we’re going to dig into this debate and understand why this is a public health crisis, we need to talk about what online sports gambling in America has become. For example, I can reach into my pocket right now. I don’t have an account Bill, but I can take my phone outta my pocket and with two clicks of my thumb, I am inside a sportsbook. A 9-year-old can do that. There is absolutely no justification-

Nayeema Raza
But part-

Bill Pascrell
No, they can’t. Anyone who signs up for an account, is age verified. KYC, Know Your Customer.

Harry Levant
Yeah.

Bill Pascrell
You have to-

Harry Levant
To, to make a bet, but you can get inside the sportsbook.

Bill Pascrell
They don’t permit children to look at the sportsbook. If somebody picks up their mother’s or father’s phone, they could do a lot of bad things with that. That’s on the parent’s side.

Nayeema Raza
Right.

Bill Pascrell
That’s the parent’s responsibility.

Nayeema Raza
And I think, I, I just wanna jump in and say, you know, the, the, that argument, of course there are legal restrictions on, in age gating and verification on, and, uh, throughout the-

Harry Levant
The problem with what the industry is doing, they are normalizing and addictive product. And-

Nayeema Raza
So, let’s get, let’s talk about that for a moment. This idea, you know, you both are sports fans and I’m so curious, you know, in this great American playing field of sports and fairness and like the love of the play, each of you, what do you think that gambling has done to the purity of the sports?

Harry Levant
It, it has destroyed. Sports no longer belong to the American public, the American family, sports belong and have sold themselves to the gambling industry. We’re no longer talking about just betting on whether the Eagles or the Rams are gonna win on Sunday. What has happened is the industry in six years has developed a product called Micro Betting. Micro Betting is the most addictive form and the most dangerous form of gambling. Because it allows users to bet on every single micro event within a game. For example, will the next running play be more or less than four and a half yards? And what the sports leagues are doing with their gambling partners is for billions and billions of dollars, they are selling their statistics to the gambling industry.

Bill, I wanna ask you-

Nayeema Raza
So, I want Bill to respond. Bill, do you have an argument here that this is somehow deepening making sports more enjoyable or exciting? Do you, do you see it differently as a sports fan, as someone who loves the game?

Bill Pascrell
Well, I, yeah. I, Nayeema, I totally disagree with Harry’s position that it’s, uh, ha- had an, uh, impact, negative impact on sports. Now, you know, in the 10-year campaign to repeal PASPA, I have the scars on my back to prove it. The NFL, the NBA, the NHL, PGA, NCAA, were all against the repeal of PASPA. They’re the hypocrites because, yes, Harry’s right, they have gained financially because of this. They were arguing, they were concerned about the integrity of the game. When you walked in to a sportsbook in Nevada, prior to PASPA’s repeal, on a football Sunday, the top of the ticket had the NFL logo. They were already getting action.

So my point is, where Harry’s wrong, we now know more than we ever did to ensure the integrity of the game. We have massive data. We’re putting that data out there and, and companies like IC360, which is an integrity company with massive data, also have a tool called ProhiBet. How do you prevent a college player from gambling ’cause it’s forbidden? The NCAA rules and the conference rules forbid players from gambling. Who monitors that? ProhiBet has the whole database that can be utilized by the leagues to ensure that that doesn’t happen.

Nayeema Raza
Have American taxpayers, has the public captured enough of this value that’s been generated from this huge industry? Tax revenue here is a small dent by the data, I think.

Harry Levant
There’s no, I won’t, I will not respond to the word revenue for this reason.

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Harry Levant
You talk about revenue, what we’re talking about our public losses, every dollar in this space comes from only one place. One place. The amount of money the citizens of each state are losing.

Nayeema Raza
Right. I’m gonna let Bill respond and have the last word here. Bill, do you think that, you know, uh, do you think there’s been a benefit to the public to legalization in terms of taxation and other benefits?

Bill Pascrell
Absolutely. There’s over 300,000 jobs created just since the inception of the repeal of PASPA, uh, directly in the industry. That’s not multipliers. Number two, tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue that states desperately need, plus, the federal excise tax.

Nayeema Raza
All right, you guys disagree on a ton, there’s tons left to discuss. We’re gonna wrap our debate discussion there, but when we come back, we’re gonna continue the conversation around this question. Has legalizing sports gambling become a bad bet? And we’re gonna be joined by some other voices here to help probe at that question right after the break.

Welcome back to open to Debate where we’re delving into the question, has legalizing sports gambling become a bad bet? I’m your Moderator, Nayeema Raza, and I’m joined by two debaters, Harry Levant, the Director of Gambling Policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute, and Bill Pascrell III, a lobbyist with the Princeton Public Affairs Group. We’re gonna be bringing in some other voices now. Members of the audience, um, who have been listening to this conversation who’d like to probe at it further. First, I’d like to welcome Rachel Volberg. Uh, Rachel is a Research Professor of Epidemiology at UMass Amherst, and she’s been studying and looking at gambling since the year 1985. Her recent work has really examined whether problem gambling has been on the rise in Massachusetts in the past few years. Rachel, welcome. What question do you have for our debaters today?

Rachel Volberg
Thank you, Nayeema. It’s been a very interesting, uh, exchange of views. A question that I have for both of the debaters is, what is the single most important measure that you believe is needed to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of legalized sports betting?

Nayeema Raza
Thank you so much, Rachel. Um, who’d like to take that first? Bi- Bill, it’s probably-

Bill Pascrell
I’m happy to.

Nayeema Raza
Go ahead.

Bill Pascrell
Rachel, Thank you for your question. I think this is where Harry and I can find alignment. I think a national self-exclusion list is one of the most important things we can do. We all know what the problem is. We could debate the magnitude of the problem. Again, I don’t think it’s a public health crisis, it hasn’t reached that level, but I do think we need to focus on that black market industry, and we also need to focus on better innovation tools to crack down on people who fall off the grid. To have them time out, to have them pause, and potentially to have them restricted.

Nayeema Raza
Um, Harry, please respond.

Harry Levant
First of all, Rachel, I wanna, uh, a- a- acknowledge, um, you have been looking at these issues for many, many years and, uh, your work, frankly, is some of the first that I discovered when I went back to school to become a therapist in my gambling addiction recovery. Rachel, your, your work was part of the original inception of the responsible gaming model. And with all due respect to the responsible gaming model, it is 1980s technology to a, a 1980s response to a 2025 problem. The single biggest thing to answer your question directly, we have to move from the responsible gaming model, which puts the onus on the individual, to a regulatory model based on a public health approach.

Here’s the difference. The responsible gaming model pulls people out of the river after their drowning. The clients who come in to see me are hemorrhaging. By the time you go on a self-exclusion list, the harm has already happened to you, your family members, your friends, your children. The idea on a public health approach is not to ban gambling, but to make it as safe as possible Rachel, by going back to the top and changing the paradigm.

And Bill, here’s my proposal to you. If research and scientific evidence continues to develop, to show that this is a much bigger problem beyond 1%, and that it’s impacting families and children and communities, would you then join me in a call for public health reform at the federal level?

Bill Pascrell
First of all, she asked for us for one-

Nayeema Raza
A single-

Bill Pascrell
… issue.

Nayeema Raza
Yeah.

Bill Pascrell
Right? One procedural issue. There are many. I didn’t say that that was the solution, there are no solutions. Nothing is bulletproof. There is no empirical data from academia that proves that this is a mental health crisis beyond the one I could even argue 2%.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you so much, Rachel, for asking that question about a single lever-

Bill Pascrell
Thank you, Rachel.

Nayeema Raza
… to make a difference here. I wanna bring in Charles Fain Lehman next. Charles is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of the City Journal. He also wrote an excellent piece that I, I very much enjoyed reading about sports betting for the Atlantic Title. Legalizing sports gambling was a huge mistake, effectively taking the ban, uh, side of this argument. Charles, please come in with your question.

Charles Fain Lehman
Sure. Thanks for having me on the show. I wanna ask just a little bit about the research, which is where this conversation ought to be grounded. Um, there’s a recent study from the folks at Southern Methodist. They use a panel of 700,000 gamblers and by their estimates, you know, Bill’s, Bill’s figures are approximately right. Something like three to 5% of the folks in their panel are problem gamblers is measured by the fraction of what they spend on gambling. On the other hand, by the same estimates, those 3% account for half of the revenue generated by the panel.

Um, and that’s a common feature in addictive indu- industries in addictive goods, which is that, uh, most of the money for these industries comes from the small fraction who are addicted. So, with those facts in mind, I guess my question is for Bill, which is, why should we trust the industry to self-regulate, when, as is true in many other addictive industries, their incentives are to enable and reward addictive behavior?

Bill Pascrell
Couple of things, Charles. Thank you for the question. One of my objectives is to try to get more RG leads to become key license holders, which every book has to have, number one. Number two, I believe in academic based research. When the academic based research shows that there really is in fact a growing problem, due to legalized regulated gambling, I am more than happy to embrace.

Second point. You asked about the trust, trust, but verify. What we need to do is better educate consumers, athletes, right? And that money needs to come from the industry in a responsible way. And second point, we also need better collaboration between regulators and operators, to come up with real solutions. Not prohibitions, not bans, but solutions.

Final point, I do not agree, Charlie, with anybody who argues, that gambling is inherently dangerous. Just like any other vice, obviously can become dangerous, when it’s not handled responsibly.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you very much, Charlie.

Harry Levant
May I respond to what Bill said? Because it’s leaving the impression then somehow I agree with that, the entire answer put the onus again on the individual. And the question was, how can the industry be permitted to take all of these [inaudible

:33]-

Nayeema Raza
Yeah. I, I think, sorry, I hear you. I’m gonna cut you off just for time. I think Bill did answer that he believes that you wanna trust and verify and that he’s not asking the industry to regulate themselves, but to work with the states in doing so. I wanna move on now to our third questioner. This is Daniel Wallach. Daniel is a lawyer with expertise in gaming and gambling. He was a Co-founder of the Sports Wagering Integrity program at the University of New Hampshire and also teaches law at the University of Miami. Daniel, please come on with your question.

Daniel Wallach
Uh, Bill, you hit the nail on the head earlier a little bit when you talked about the black market and the eradication of the black market. Even though we’re six years, seven years into the Supreme Court decision that allow states to regulate sports betting, the vast majority of wagering is still happening through unregulated and illegal channels, I think. So, it’s costing states roughly, 13, according to the American Gaming Association, over $13 billion of lost tax revenues, that could be funding the kinds of programs that, you know, you, you advocate for. The illegal market still casts a giant shadow over the industry and is actually predatory towards, you know, consumers. What can be done, what more can be done to, to, to put more of the focus towards that?

Harry Levant
I am not accepting the boogeyman argument that the American Gaming Association has been making for a very long time, which is, sort of a predicate to your question. None of us are in favor of black market, but, your question leaves the incorrect impression. Because, what’s causing the harm is micro betting in this country. Micro betting exists because of the partnerships between the leagues, the gambling industry, the media, the tech companies. Delivering gambling at light speed on every single event within a sporting game.

The patients I treat every day are getting crushed by micro betting. Micro betting does not take place in the black market, because we do not permit our sports leagues to sell their data in real time to the black market boogeyman. We can all work together, including the Sports League partners to shut out black market. Are we ever gonna shut it all out? Probably not. Welcome to the internet world. But DraftKings just purchased an AI company called Simple Bet, for the stated purpose of delivering micro betting faster and faster and faster to their gamblers. This is inherently dangerous. The American Gambling Association is silent about it, and it is something we could all do something with right now. And it’s what the Safe Bet Act does.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you. Thank you very much Harry. So, thank you very much Daniel for that question. Appreciate it. I wanna now take the time to bring us home. And just before we get there, you know, this has been a heated conversation. I, I know we started on a kind of a shared personal experience of lost fathers. Um, we, there’s been, you know, some, some conversations I’m sure are very sensitive here and, and Harry, um, particularly, you know, as you’ve kind of gone through 11 years of being outside of gambling and helping other people deal with their gambling addiction, you know, your, your, um, attention to the language around that.

I am curious, you guys obviously have deba- debated this topic, you know, today for an hour, you, you come across each other in the industry. What do you find more s- persuasive or compelling about each other? What keeps you coming back and talking to each other?

Harry Levant
He’s a nice guy.

Bill Pascrell
(laughing).

Harry Levant
He’s a good person. Um, he’s an informed per- … Uh, uh, let me, uh, I may have mentioned this earlier. Um, I, uh, look, my story, I’m very open with my story. I’m a former lawyer. I’m a disbarred lawyer. I, I, uh, I gambled client money-

Nayeema Raza
Yeah.

Harry Levant
… and take full accountability for it. I hurt a lot of people in my gambling addiction, but I also recognize good lawyering. The, the work that Bill did in, uh, having PASPA overturned is, is very, very fine lawyering, that should be taught to students in law schools. It’s an excellent example of 10th Amendment principles. Bill knows what he’s talking about. He’s also fundamentally wrong about this not being a public health crisis.

And one thing I’m certain of, I’m unaware of any issue that can’t be improved if we talk about it. So, why do I… And I, and you used the word heated. I think there were intense-

Nayeema Raza
Mm-hmm.

Harry Levant
… but I don’t think there was anything heated or disagreeable. We disagree, one thing we both know, this needs to be made safer. Our solutions are a little bit different. So, I welcome opportunities to get together with Bill. I predict-

Nayeema Raza
(laughs).

Harry Levant
… I don’t bet, but I predict, we’ll be doing so more often on a more regular basis and it will remain, it will remain informed and intense, but never disagreeable.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you very much for that Harry. Bill.

Bill Pascrell
I was extremely thrilled when Open to Debate reached out to me and told me who I would be debating. I truly believe that there needs to be more people in the world like Harry. Because okay, he has a lived experience and he’s really committed to this. I hope Harry and I can continue the discussion. I love his commitment. I know he’s true and I know he is a man of integrity. I relish the debate. It’s a civil debate. It’s a respectful debate. And Harry, thanks for the opportunity to be with you today.

Nayeema Raza
All right. See, thanks guys. It’s, I, I, I was wrong, it wasn’t heated. There was actually a veritable lovefest of disagreement.

Bill Pascrell
(laughs).

Nayeema Raza
Uh, thank you both. Um, so, now it is the time to bring it home with closing remarks. Harry, you’re gonna have the first opportunity to make your remarks. Give us one last reason why you believe legalizing sports gambling has become a bad bet.

Harry Levant
Because what has been launched on the American public over the last six years, is an outta control Wild, Wild West environment, where all of the money in this space, and we’ve talked about a lot of different parties and players from gambling companies to the sports leagues, the teams, the players, the media, the advertisers, all of the things you see in social media, people giving out gambling tips. All of the money that is driving this engine is coming from one place and one place only, and that is, losses by the public.

And when Bill was fighting to overturn PASPA and PASPA was overturned in 2018, no one, not even Bill, could have foreseen that just six years later, people would be able to gamble on their phones without getting out of bed. I frankly have patients I treat who gamble in the shower. This product has invaded every aspect of American life because it is inexorably tied to sports.

Sports historically belong to families, sports belong to communities. Sports brought out the best of us in competition and comradery. Sports are now a nonstop spinning slot machine. Every single event is gambling, and that is something that the human brain can’t handle at that pace. And to be very clear for everyone, it’s not a debate between Bill and myself whether gambling is an addictive product. Every accrediting medical agency in the world, recognizes that gambling disorder is an addiction, and gambling is a known addictive product just like heroin and opioids. Every other addictive product government regulates it’s distribution. Gambling it’s the Wild West, and it’s now time to do something about it.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you very much, Harry. Now Bill, you’re gonna have the last word here. Convince us again why legalizing sports gambling has not become a bad bet.

Bill Pascrell
Yeah. Uh, first of all, I think the majority of the people who participate in the legal regulated market use it, uh, for entertainment value. I am concerned about those who creep into and, and fully get into an addictive problem gambling behavior. I believe that sports wagering being accused as the root cause of a pseudo national health crisis is, uh, simply not the case. I also believe that the best way to address this issue is through education, further technology, which everybody’s looking into, and to also let the facts speak for themselves.

There is no empirical data that shows that there’s been an explosion, as many have said, not Harry, uh, in gambling addiction. We know that there’s going to be one to 2% of the population, no matter whether you have legalized gambling or not, that are gonna have a problem. Okay? Uh, we’ve talked about some solutions. Education is key, awareness is key. Collaborative working together between the industry and regulators. It doesn’t always come out the right way that the industry would want, but the industry needs to be even further engaged. I truly believe that there’s been a wonderful experience. I am concerned about consumer protection and for those who’ve fallen off the cliff and have had a problem with it. But that should it be an impetus to cast aspersions on an industry that’s created jobs, is compliant, is legal, lawful, and in regulatory shape. There’s no bulletproof solution, we need to keep trying to achieve better outcomes.

Nayeema Raza
Thank you, Bill. And that concludes our debate today. I’d like to thank our debaters, Harry Levant and Bill Pascrell. We so appreciate you showing up. You’re approaching this debate with an open mind, and you’re bringing your thoughtful disagreement to the table, particularly, you know, and, and coming together and talking about why you continue to come together through disagreement. That’s very much in the spirit of what we do here at Open to Debate, and we very much thank you for exemplifying that today.

And also like to thank the fellow contributors and interrogators who brought their questions to the table and their research to the table. Thank you to Rachel, to Charles and to Daniel. And finally, a big thank you to you, the audience, for tuning in to this episode of Open To Debate.

As a nonprofit working to combat extreme polarization through civil debate, our work is made possible by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation, and supporters of Open to Debate. Robert Rosenkranz is our Chairman. Our CEO is Clea Connor. Lia Matthow is our Chief Content Officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our Chief Advancement Officer. Michele Debreceni is our Director of Marketing. This episode was produced by Jessica Glazer, Alexis Pancrazi and Marlette Sandoval. With editorial and research by Gabriella Mayer, Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. And the Open to Debate team also includes Gabrielle Iannucelli, Rachel Kemp, Erik Gross, Linda Lee, Mary Ragus, Tom Bunting, and Vlad Virtonen. Damon Whitmore mixed this episode. Our theme music is by Alex Kliment. And I’m Nayeema Raza. We’ll see you next time on Open To Debate.