Senate Bill 131 won’t give us back the last 20 years, but maybe it can protect your children and grandchildren
As a parent, all you really want is to protect your kids. To see them grow up healthy, happy and self-sufficient. Over the past 20 years, we have seen the grip of gambling addiction take that away from our son.
Our son, whose name we’ve omitted because of the stigma around this addiction, discovered gambling at age 11, although we didn’t recognize it then. We thought he was playing a computer game, but his addiction to the game was only the start.
By 12, a relative had introduced him to online poker. By 14, he was secretly buying Visa gift cards with allowance money to fund his habit. By 16, he’d lost over $1,000—and we were just beginning to understand what we were up against. He dropped out of college to play poker professionally. From there, the addiction only spread: blackjack, horse racing, online casinos. And once Colorado legalized sports betting in 2019 and it landed on every smartphone, there was no escape.
A 2025 report in the International Gambling Studies journal shows gambling before age 18 was associated with a more than 80% higher risk of problem gambling later in life. And unfortunately for us, that was exactly what the professional gambling industry knew would happen. By the time we understood what was happening, there was no going back.
Now in his early 30s, our son has struggled with depression and anxiety, bad credit and crippling debt, and ruined relationships. He’s been homeless at different points. Consider yourself lucky if you haven’t seen your child, the person you love most on this earth, endure these kinds of struggles.
But sadly, too many people have lived our story. At least 8 million people nationwide struggle with a gambling addiction. Among individuals with a gambling disorder, 1 in 2 will consider suicide, and 1 in 5 will attempt it. In Colorado, calls for help to the gambling addiction hotline have jumped by nearly 50% in the first year after sports betting was legalized.
We’re proud that our son is attending therapy and Gamblers Anonymous. But the industry knows he has gambled in the past and is not making it easy for him to quit. Online sports betting ads stalk him constantly. He gets frequent texts, promo codes and special offers to lure him back on the platforms. He can’t watch a March Madness game or listen to sports radio without hearing an advertisement aimed at reeling him back in. He’s trying to recover from an addiction the industry won’t let him forget.
We agree adults should be free to gamble responsibly. But freedom isn’t the question here. The question is whether billion-dollar industries should be free to use every psychological trick available to encourage and exploit addiction. Colorado has already decided that “legal” activity doesn’t mean unregulated for other industries: we legalized marijuana but banned child-targeted promotion. We allow alcohol but prohibit sales to intoxicated patrons. We prohibit liquor stores from giving away free drinks to keep you buying. Adults can purchase tobacco, but Marlboro can’t advertise during the Super Bowl.
Sports betting is the only vice where we’ve let the industry write its own rules. That’s why we’re strongly supportive of Senate Bill 131, the Online Problem Sports Gambling Act. SB-131 creates reasonable guardrails against the industry’s push of impulsive online sports betting and expands protections against underage gambling, helping prevent the kind of harm our family has experienced.
It does this by applying a common-sense framework: limiting deposits to prevent compulsive betting spirals; prohibiting “free bet” bonuses designed to hook new users; banning push notifications and texts that interrupt your day; restricting ads during live sports when kids are watching; and restricting credit card use that lets people bet beyond their means.
These new rules will help curb the predatory practices that addict young people to problem gambling and make it almost impossible for people like our son to stop.
It’s only been five years since sports betting was legalized, and we’ve already seen statistics and stories that reflect the concerning toll it’s taken on the health of individuals in our state, particularly young men. If we can’t come together now to set reasonable guardrails on this industry, we’re looking at a crisis that’s only just beginning.
All we ever wanted was to protect our child from harm. SB 131 won’t give us back the last 20 years, but it could spare another family the next 20. We urge Colorado lawmakers to do the right thing and pass this bill.
Carla and Joe Gennaro are parents of someone with a gambling addiction and residents of Lone Tree.
Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!