- July 05, 2024
- Gambling
Rob ODAAT (one day at a time) Minnick is a social media influencer who is reaching a wide audience with his unique gambling content. His personal experience of recovery from gambling addiction allows him to uniquely impact those who view his content. Rob’s content reaches millions of viewers and he routinely receives messages from individuals seeking help with a gambling addiction. His work is being recognized and it’s connecting a network of behavioral health resources that can help those individuals who are recognizing the signs of gambling addiction.
Instagram: @rob_odaat
TikTok: @rob_odaat
Facebook: Rob ODAAT
X: @Rob_Odaat
Call Gateway Foundation: 855-723-0963
Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER
Facebook: @RecoverGateway
Instagram: @recovergateway
Twitter/X: @RecoverGateway
LinkedIn: @Gateway-Foundation
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (Rob ODAAT)
They want their audience to believe they will win gambling. And basically we’re just being sold lies everywhere we look. And now I have the end goal of develop the skills that I have so that I can give them to other people who are looking to do something good.
00;00;19;29 – 00;00;53;23
Speaker 2 (Shane Cook)
Welcome to Wager Danger. I’m your host, Shane Cook, Gambling Disorder program director at Gateway Foundation. Today we share another personal account of an individual who’s in recovery from problem gambling. Rob Minnick is on a personal mission to help people recognize the dangers that exist around gambling. Rob creates engaging content for social media that reaches a wide audience and helps them recognize the signs of problem gambling and how to seek help for a gambling disorder. By order of magnitude,
00;00;53;25 – 00;01;20;26
Speaker 2
His content is reaching people and generating meaningful interactions. At the time of our conversation, some of Rob’s most watched content includes a YouTube video with 240,000 views, a Tik Tok with 2.3 million views, and an Instagram post that’s reached over 12 million viewers. Rob is truly making a difference in reaching a broad audience through his unique and compelling content.
00;01;20;28 – 00;01;31;12
Speaker 2
Join me in welcoming Rob Minnick. But you know him as Rob ODAAT One Day at a Time on Social media. Welcome to the show, Rob.
00;01;31;15 – 00;01;33;04
Speaker 1
Hey Shane, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
00;01;33;06 – 00;02;03;14
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Been looking forward to us getting together since we met a couple of weeks ago at a regional conference here outside of Chicago and wanted you to come on and share your story about how you were a gambler in recovery. Also, we’ll talk a little bit about what you’ve been doing and how you’re repaying or contributing back to the community of gamblers and gamblers in recovery.
00;02;03;17 – 00;02;06;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to the conversation today.
00;02;06;22 – 00;02;19;16
Speaker 2
All right. So how about if you tell us a little bit about your gambling story and what led you to recognize that you were dealing with a gambling addiction?
00;02;19;19 – 00;02;42;25
Speaker 1
Sure. So, yeah. Hey, everyone. My name’s Rob. I’m in recovery for a gambling addiction. I made my last bet November the 12th of 2022. Right now, I’m 25 years old, but I started gambling when I was 18 years old. It was really just a natural progression for me. I grew up near the Philadelphia area, and every single family event that we had was centered around some kind of sports game.
00;02;42;26 – 00;03;03;02
Speaker 1
You know, if it was someone’s birthday, the party would start at one because that’s when the Eagles game would kick off. If it was a hang out with friends, we would started at seven because that’s when the Sixers game with tip off. And so sports were just completely intertwined with how I grew up and what was considered to be normal for social engagements for just living.
00;03;03;05 – 00;03;21;04
Speaker 1
And so when I was 18 and I found out about daily fantasy sports and this idea that I can make money watching the sports that I love, that I’m already doing and I can get rich doing it, it was like a no brainer that I was going to start doing it because that’s what the commercials were telling me.
00;03;21;07 – 00;03;46;07
Speaker 1
Now, it really took maybe a month or two before the Daily Fantasy contest got too slow for me and for those that are listening, that are unfamiliar with what those are. Basically, you draft a set of players from the professional leagues. So for example, if it’s an NBA contest, you’ll get to field a team of five or six players and they realize statistics earn them points for your team.
00;03;46;15 – 00;04;02;19
Speaker 1
Whoever has the most points wins a share of a prize pool, depending on which prize pool you may be competing for. Now, that was too slow for me after about two months, and I couldn’t wait for an entire slate of games to be played out before I found out the result. And very.
00;04;02;19 – 00;04;09;23
Speaker 2
Quickly. And that’s what you mean by too slow. The results weren’t coming in as quickly as you had hoped.
00;04;09;25 – 00;04;35;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. In the beginning it was like I mean, I loved I love basketball specifically to watch basketball and tennis. And so when I was watching these games, I was happy to watch the 7:00 the 10:00 game so that I could see both games play out because I liked watching it. But by the time that money was involved, if I had to wait for 4 to 5, sometimes 6 hours to find out the result, it was too much anxiety, was too much waiting.
00;04;36;00 – 00;04;58;15
Speaker 1
It was just like I was at my favorite restaurant, but I was waiting in. The line was too long. It was kind of like that. And so then I found out that I could bet on sports. And I was 18, pushing 19 at the time, and I was able to use a website called VADA, which operates as kind of a legal gray area type of site.
00;04;58;16 – 00;05;24;07
Speaker 1
It’s, I believe, located in Antigua, is their headquarters, but they operate in the U.S. in a couple of jurisdictions. Where I went to school was Washington, D.C. and they operated there. And I mean, I was hooked. I was betting on every game, every day for, you know, not huge amounts of money. At the time I was a college student, but of course, it was too much for me.
00;05;24;10 – 00;06;03;14
Speaker 1
And I was also betting with a bookie at the time. So I was just consistently thinking about gambling, consistently doing it. And that would continue for many, many more years after that. You know, many too. To me, I guess it was six years. So being 25, it was a quarter of my life. But six years where I was gambling 6 to 8 hours every single day, putting in wow, all the money that I had and going into debt six times over that six year period where I had to work second jobs just basically for free in my mind to cover debts that I had already made from gambling and I think what strikes me about
00;06;03;14 – 00;06;29;28
Speaker 1
it, looking back as really frustrating and probably what I would consider to be the most morally degrading part was that the amounts that I was losing gambling, I would do them in short bursts of time, like I was always gambling, but when things would go wrong, it would usually happen all within the same little burst of time. And then I’d have to work to pay it off and I’d be making debts in 12 hour sittings.
00;06;29;28 – 00;06;39;14
Speaker 1
That would take me weeks or months to pay off. And it was just disproportionate. It’s supposed to be enjoyment, but I was consistently digging myself out of holes.
00;06;39;17 – 00;06;56;25
Speaker 2
Okay, so during that time, it sounds like what you’re describing is you would you would bet for a short period of time and then spend the rest of the time paying off the debt that you owed. You were you weren’t gambling at all during that time that you were paying the debt back.
00;06;56;27 – 00;07;23;20
Speaker 1
So this is where it becomes very obvious that there was a gambling addiction and not just a financial problem. So during the times that I was paying down debt, I would stop playing casino games because in my head the sports betting was investing. And the money that I was putting into sports betting could help me to cover losses that I had made from either casino or sports bets.
00;07;23;20 – 00;07;39;08
Speaker 1
But I knew even back then that I wasn’t going to win in the casinos. The problem was that I had the cognitive distortion to think that sports betting was different, and that led to me gambling while I was repaying debts and making the process even longer.
00;07;39;11 – 00;08;10;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s that’s interesting because I tend to hear that from sports bettors quite a bit, that I have skills, unique skills that allow me to be a better predictor of what’s going to happen in a sporting contest than a game of chance, so to speak, in a casino. So I think it’s interesting to hear that it’s consistent with other people that we’ve talked to that have been sports gamblers.
00;08;10;06 – 00;08;31;08
Speaker 2
They tend to think that, you know, hey, I’ve got the upper hand here and your choice of words as an investment. I’ve heard that before. I hear from my own kids occasionally. So, you know, hey, it’s a way to make money. And so I think, well, yeah, let’s talk about that a little bit. It’s really not you can’t predict the weather, you can’t predict injury.
00;08;31;08 – 00;08;35;26
Speaker 2
You can’t I mean, there’s all kinds of things that come into play there.
00;08;35;28 – 00;08;57;19
Speaker 1
When you think about like oddsmakers, right? Like the job of the oddsmaker is to present a situation where it becomes a 5050 coin flip to the player, to the gambler, so the odds makers might price the game such that they say this team’s supposed to win by six points. They’re trying to bring it as close to a 5050 as possible.
00;08;57;22 – 00;09;23;00
Speaker 1
Now, the problem is that each of those bets also contains a vig or a horse edge. And so when you look, you could theoretically win 50% of your bets if you are knowledgeable about sports, but you need to win. I think it’s 52.4% of your bets to be profitable sports better in the long run, which is statistically not going to happen.
00;09;23;03 – 00;09;30;07
Speaker 1
You can win 50%. No one’s arguing that. But even at that point, you’re still going to lose money in the end.
00;09;30;09 – 00;09;32;24
Speaker 2
Yeah. Always favors the house, right?
00;09;32;25 – 00;09;33;12
Speaker 1
Always.
00;09;33;19 – 00;09;58;17
Speaker 2
All right. Interesting. So I want to go back. You talked about the offshore betting venue that you were using. This is an online venue based in Aruba or somewhere in the somewhere in the Caribbean that just has the ability to operate in the U.S. And that was fairly is that still fairly common that those facilities are out there?
00;09;58;19 – 00;10;22;26
Speaker 1
Yes, It’s a shame that I didn’t read the article that pops through my email just before this because a study was just done measuring up like these gray area or they’re being deemed like illegal websites versus the U.S. sports betting market for like commercialized gambling operators. And it’s actually that the illegal market is making up a larger profit share right now than the than the legal market.
00;10;23;01 – 00;10;24;10
Speaker 2
And really.
00;10;24;12 – 00;10;28;20
Speaker 1
Yeah, I wish I read the article to give a more convincing statistic to you, but.
00;10;28;21 – 00;10;29;19
Speaker 2
Okay, I.
00;10;29;19 – 00;10;43;19
Speaker 1
Will get back to you on it. But yeah, it operates in this weird legal gray area. They don’t call themselves sportsbooks or casinos. Legally, when they’re class, they’re classed, I believe, as sweepstakes contests.
00;10;43;21 – 00;11;05;23
Speaker 2
Interesting. Okay, I’m going to have to do some more research on that, too. But I get the sense that you are for somebody and you were 18 at the time. For somebody in that age demographic, that’s probably going to be an appealing place to gravitate towards because, you know, you’re not going to be able to sign up at 18.
00;11;05;25 – 00;11;21;25
Speaker 2
I don’t know FanDuel or DraftKings or any of those. Most states, you have to be 21 to sign up for that. I don’t know. Now, maybe different in in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, they may have 18.
00;11;21;27 – 00;11;41;24
Speaker 1
It’s not but it’s not different for sportsbooks like you’re talking about. It’s still 21. But there’s some there’s a new trend of social sportsbooks. I don’t know if you’ve seen that, like things like the app called Flip, where essentially they are betting flip coins which can be purchased and redeemed for real money. But it’s 18 to use that.
00;11;41;27 – 00;12;04;11
Speaker 1
So there’s this real problem, I think, because this is what I experienced myself of people that are gambling between the ages of 18 and 21 as an onramp. And it feels like the earlier there’s data to support this, but it feels like the earlier someone starts gambling, the more likely it is that becomes a problem for them. Because, you know, admittedly my brain is still developing.
00;12;04;13 – 00;12;18;11
Speaker 1
I’m only 25 and so I’m getting into this kind of gambling when I’m 18 and I’m being asked to make all these major life decisions. And I’m finding myself only wanting to get my pleasure from gambling, it was just a recipe for disaster.
00;12;18;14 – 00;12;46;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I’m going to argue that even at my age, my brain is still developing. Soldier I’ll just say you’re not out there. I think my wife would agree with that statement as well. So going going back to your period of gambling there, at what point was it that you were like, okay, I’m done, and what was it that that drove you to that decision?
00;12;46;29 – 00;13;15;04
Speaker 1
Sure. So there was one that I thought would be that point, and then there was another. So the one that I thought would be that rock bottom point where I was going to find recovery and finally live a better life was February 8th of 2022. I went to my first support group meeting. I went because in my head something that always kept me motivated and wanted to keep gambling was that I could win my way out of any situation I put myself in.
00;13;15;07 – 00;13;34;15
Speaker 1
And then I also wanted to have the ability to travel the world and do whatever I wanted and of course not have any real responsibilities. So that was what I wanted. And right before that February 8th mark, I had a big win and I was able to travel to Europe to see someone that I was talking to at the time.
00;13;34;18 – 00;13;53;24
Speaker 1
And then I got there and the first thing that I did was run off to a bathroom and play blackjack on my phone. And I sat there and I’m thinking, All right, you had the win you wanted. You went on the trip you wanted, and neither of those things were enough. Why? Why are you continuing to do this?
00;13;53;24 – 00;14;18;00
Speaker 1
I asked myself, and I had no good answer. So when I came back, I had been seeing a therapist, but we really weren’t making any headway on the issue at this point because he wasn’t very well versed in problem gambling, which is something that I’m really happy to see starting to change on the the provider side. But I said, All right, I need to go and find a group of people that might understand what I’m going through.
00;14;18;00 – 00;14;45;16
Speaker 1
And I went to my first meeting, gay meeting, and for the next eight months I was I was feeling decent. So I thought that would be my rock bottom when I had everything I wanted and then gave it all back. But that wasn’t the rock bottom ended up being eight months later. So I was taking these eight months and the only tangible measure of success that I had in my life was not gambling.
00;14;45;19 – 00;15;12;28
Speaker 1
I was working a job I didn’t love. I was living somewhere that, you know, I wasn’t living the healthiest lifestyle there was too much drinking, there was too much unhealthy eating. I wasn’t working out very much. I was just just kind of floating along in my life without a real goal or purpose. And eventually one day I got bored enough and I realized that I could still gamble because I was in Pennsylvania at the time, moving from New Jersey previously, and I never did.
00;15;12;28 – 00;15;41;25
Speaker 1
The Pennsylvania self-exclusion took maybe about an hour before I placed a sports bet, and then it wasn’t that I had eight months clean, it was that I had 8 minutes clean. And I said, I guess I’ll have to start tomorrow. And I spent the next 12 hours on a binge in a casino where in that 12 hour span, I created enough debt for myself that I would spend the next six months working 70 hour weeks to pay it off.
00;15;41;27 – 00;16;02;09
Speaker 1
And that was my real rock bottom. Oof! I got into a meeting again the next day and what really changed is what we’ll probably dive into a little bit later on in the podcast when I started to develop some meaning in my life and that is where my life really turned around.
00;16;02;12 – 00;16;23;17
Speaker 2
Okay, so you so you credit that meeting was was that it then that go into that meeting the next day, was that November 12th for you or. Yeah it was okay and you’ve been you’ve been gambling free since November 12th of 2022.
00;16;23;19 – 00;16;47;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. And I think that that meeting in unison with I might as well just tell you now. So when I went back into that meeting I was at a really low point. I had obviously just ruined my life at the time for the foreseeable future. I was in a lot of debt, was miserable. I had just, you know, failed at the one thing that was supposed to be providing meaning in my life.
00;16;47;29 – 00;17;07;07
Speaker 1
And right around the same time, someone else in my meeting that was like the next closest in age to me, he stopped showing up. So I gave him a call. I was already miserable and I said, Hey, you know where you at? Like what’s what’s going on? And he said, you know, went back to gambling to cope with a breakup.
00;17;07;07 – 00;17;26;12
Speaker 1
It was a bad situation for him. And I said, Amen. Like, I don’t know what the answer is because last week I just, you know, screwed up my life. But I know that going and doing that is not the answer because I’m like currently dealing with the consequences. And he said, you know what? You might have a point.
00;17;26;14 – 00;17;58;17
Speaker 1
He came back in the meetings and actually just, you know, through some more ups and downs. Just a couple of months ago, he reached his one year clean for the very first time in all the years he was going to meetings. And that made me feel good, like for the first time probably since I started gambling because I was doing something that wasn’t for myself and it was using my own negative experiences to help someone else not go through the same situation.
00;17;58;20 – 00;18;19;12
Speaker 1
Right. And I, I said that felt really good. I should do it again. And so I recorded it and put it online. And that’s why I was introduced as Rob Audette at the beginning of this rather than Rob Minnick, because I have now developed the following online telling people ways to avoid making the same mistakes with their life that I made with mine.
00;18;19;15 – 00;18;20;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s.
00;18;20;22 – 00;18;49;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, huge. So yeah it it’s, it’s interesting. Most of the people that I talk to, they have that moment and they’ve shared their story and it really is there’s a sense, or at least some of the people that I’ve talked there’s talk to, there’s a sense of I want to contribute and I want to give something back. And I think you’ve got a really interesting story in this space because you’re doing it very publicly.
00;18;49;15 – 00;19;10;21
Speaker 2
Some people are, you know, tend to gravitate to a more private way of giving back, but yours is very public. And tell us a little bit about your your social influence that you have and what channels you’re active on and some of the projects that you’ve been working on.
00;19;10;23 – 00;19;32;08
Speaker 1
Now. I think that the reasoning for me, creating the content, the way that I do could have to do with ego and it could have to do with the gambling problem in itself. So what my thought process always was, was the reason I gravitated towards a public sphere of sharing this is so that it can reach the largest number of people as possible.
00;19;32;11 – 00;19;58;07
Speaker 1
Because a lot of times we’re told to give back and help someone that’s going through the same situation. If you’re in a support group at step 12 and you’re able to do that for 1 to 3 people in your meeting and you’re able to really dive deep and help them and it can be life changing. I never wanted it to be limited to the group that I met with because there were nights when it was only three or four of us.
00;19;58;09 – 00;20;18;26
Speaker 1
I always wanted to be able to share this story and help as many people as possible. Make that first step, which is why I posted a video on YouTube first. Then it grew into Tik Tok and Instagram as well. All of which are Rob Underscore Odette. And the reason that it’s not just on YouTube, I’ll chatter out here.
00;20;18;26 – 00;20;52;26
Speaker 1
My girlfriend saw my YouTube video and she said that video sucks. And I said, I said, thank you, Thank you. Yeah. But the reason that she said it, it sucked is because the group of people that I try to appeal to are people like myself. So young men, particularly between the ages of 18 to 30, this demographic of people, myself included, we don’t sit in front of a boring piece of content for very long, and I didn’t think about it like that when I made it.
00;20;52;26 – 00;21;09;09
Speaker 1
I just wanted to, you know, get a rep in and share my story. But she said, Make it exciting. I fell asleep watching. It was like, okay. So I made it more exciting. I thought. On Tik Tok. And I remember making a video when I was getting a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. There was a line at the drive thru.
00;21;09;11 – 00;21;26;14
Speaker 1
I started recording the video. When I got in line and ordered my stuff and then I posted it right when I got out of line. That video did 1.4 million views on Tik Tok. Wow. And I thought, there is something to this. Like it was still a bad video, admittedly, but it was a step above where I started.
00;21;26;16 – 00;21;41;22
Speaker 1
And I think that there’s a lot of people going through this problem that don’t have any materials that remind them of themselves. And I think that’s how I’ve been able to make my place in this market.
00;21;41;25 – 00;21;54;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So can you share with us what most of your content is about or the different types of content that you’re creating and putting out to share with people?
00;21;54;08 – 00;22;17;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely evolved over the course of the time that I’ve been doing it, But right now I work with a consultant on YouTube and we’ve developed a strategy of three different types of content. So the first type of content is how to or informational content. So that’s sharing. How did I get myself away from my gambling addiction?
00;22;17;12 – 00;22;52;12
Speaker 1
How can you do it? How can you help a loved one? How can you find resources? You know, the things that are really important, the information that people need, but not necessarily the information people are entertained by, which is where Category two comes in, which is a wider reach of content. And that is everything from myths about the casino industry to social media trends regarding gambling and gambling addiction to the secret world of casino streamers that are out there using fake money to lure kids into gambling online.
00;22;52;14 – 00;23;19;03
Speaker 1
And all of this, of course, gets packaged into Tik Tok content as well. But the last category is also what I think is the most important, and it’s storytelling and personal sharing. So it’s the kind of things that you would see at a support group where someone’s sharing what’s going on in their life. My best performing video ever was my gambling addiction story, Six Years of Hell on YouTube, and that’s where I sat down in my car.
00;23;19;04 – 00;23;40;15
Speaker 1
No edits, no clips at all. And I just put the phone in front of me and told my story front to back about how I got started, how I got myself out of gambling and what I’m doing now. People really feel alone, especially in this addiction, because it’s so isolating. Isolation is what we’re usually drawn to so we can keep gambling and no one notices around us.
00;23;40;18 – 00;23;49;09
Speaker 1
So when you kind of knock that barrier down, I think it gives people a reason to seek help right?
00;23;49;12 – 00;23;58;06
Speaker 2
That video that you did that was the most viewed, how many how many views, how many people did it reach.
00;23;58;09 – 00;24;02;16
Speaker 1
Shows our preface that was my most viewed YouTube video. So that.
00;24;02;18 – 00;24;04;16
Speaker 2
Okay. All right.
00;24;04;18 – 00;24;16;10
Speaker 1
I think 240,000. But on Instagram, my most viewed was 12 million. And on Tik Tok, it was 1.8. Now I’m sorry, 2.3.
00;24;16;12 – 00;24;17;29
Speaker 2
Wow.
00;24;18;02 – 00;24;19;19
Speaker 1
There’s a lot of reach.
00;24;19;21 – 00;24;23;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do you do you hear from some of these people.
00;24;23;07 – 00;24;24;11
Speaker 1
All the time?
00;24;24;13 – 00;24;25;15
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00;24;25;17 – 00;24;49;26
Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s it’s gotten it got to the point that I had decided to go out and I’m one passing one test away from getting my ikeji the gambling coaching certification because I get so many messages to the extent of my life is ruined. I don’t know what to do. What what can I do to get help? And I wanted to equip myself to be better suited to answer that question.
00;24;49;28 – 00;25;12;11
Speaker 1
I’d say on a on a good week, good meaning, like good content performing week. I would probably get 500 messages with the large majority being where do I get help and Holy cow Summit, some of them being, Can you give me money? Which of course is a terrible idea. But you know, people are lost genuinely, Right?
00;25;12;14 – 00;25;48;07
Speaker 2
Wow. So my next question then is about the people you’re reaching. I mean, you’re reaching a global audience. Do you do you have a sense for, you know, when when that many people are reaching out to you, do they share where they were reaching out to you from or, you know, because if it’s a global audience, that’s that’s the kind of puts you in a difficult spot to, you know, you may not know what to do and hungry, for example, or Italy, but in the U.S. it might be a little simple or referral.
00;25;48;10 – 00;26;16;00
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s definitely an easier process to send resources when I know where they are, but I’d say there’s a few hotbeds of problem gambling around the world. And if I was to use my data to kind of point to those spots, it would be the Philippines, India, Nigeria, Australia, Eastern Europe, and then of course the United States and the United Kingdom.
00;26;16;03 – 00;26;28;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, So some of those I think would, wouldn’t be a surprise. But some of the first ones that you mentioned, I think probably are kind of raising some eyebrows. Yeah.
00;26;28;09 – 00;26;29;09
Speaker 1
It did for me too.
00;26;29;14 – 00;26;57;04
Speaker 2
We just don’t yeah, we just don’t talk about it globally. I think the big areas that we tend to hear about and talk about are the UK, Australia and the US. But, you know, good, good pointing out that there are some other areas where gambling is quite common and, you know, considered a a pastime for people in some of those countries.
00;26;57;06 – 00;26;58;29
Speaker 2
That is encouraged.
00;26;59;01 – 00;27;30;14
Speaker 1
What’s fascinating is actually the both the Philippines and India gambling is technically illegal. So the types of gambling that people are doing are they’re downloading a VPN onto their computers and they’re gambling on online websites that would fall back into the category of things like Movado. So steak gqom la vida roo bets, roll bits, dual bits. These are really popular online casino websites that are they really have no KYC verification either.
00;27;30;18 – 00;27;37;28
Speaker 1
So all you really need is a VPN saying you’re in Malta and you can gamble away all your money.
00;27;38;00 – 00;28;04;10
Speaker 2
Wow, that’s crazy. I want I want to go back to the to the content for your ideas, for content and how you come across. Those are you you have a team that you work with there. Is this all just coming from you and the ideas that that you dream up? How do you get there? What’s your creative process, I guess is what I’m asking.
00;28;04;12 – 00;28;34;09
Speaker 1
Sure. The team is very, very new. I’ve only been working with a team for the last two months and that’s strictly on YouTube. So the majority of my creative process happens on Tik Tok, where I still post 3 to 4 times a day, basically, the process is, I think about who my target market is. And in fact I hate to use the word blessing, but it is in a sense that my target market is myself.
00;28;34;12 – 00;28;58;26
Speaker 1
And so I know what problems I had at any given stage of the process. And I can basically write out a narrative where I use, you know, a name other than my own name, and I write the entire life story of the problem gambler that I’m trying to reach in that life story. You can pick out pain points and problems to then become content ideas.
00;28;58;26 – 00;29;27;13
Speaker 1
So I have this note sheet of probably 303 50 possible tiktoks that I have backlogged that I need to make and they all really just stem from what problems could I have used help solving when I was going through them? But a lot of times people think that, you know, you have to sit down and create the perfect piece of content, the perfect idea before you go out and do it.
00;29;27;15 – 00;29;44;24
Speaker 1
And I’m hoping that I’m showing that the best way to grow an audience is trial and error, because 95% of the videos I put out don’t perform well. But the 5% that do have changed my life and I hope they’ve changed the lives of the people that have been able to watch them.
00;29;44;26 – 00;30;23;04
Speaker 2
Right. So so ultimately, ultimately, then with your content, are you ensure is your goal to drive people to a point where they seek recovery? And in doing so, are you are you partnering with various providers throughout the at least throughout the United States that can provide that type of support, you know, whether that be like one 800 gambler or, you know, something that’s a little more broad down to particular areas that might be meaningful.
00;30;23;06 – 00;30;44;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s definitely evolved over the course of time that I’ve done it. So I, I learned very early on that if I tell someone what to do, they will not only not do it, but they will argue with me about why I’m telling them what to do. So when I make content, people have the implicit belief that I am telling them to quit gambling.
00;30;44;27 – 00;31;18;15
Speaker 1
And I am absolutely not saying that. What I’m saying is if you’re experiencing X, Y, z things, it could be time to consider the possibility you have a gambling problem. And so someone really kindly called what I do therapeutic intervention. I don’t think I think about it contextually like that. Like it doesn’t go as far as that for me, but my content serves as kind of a billboard to say this can be a problem because everywhere you look you’re being told it’s not.
00;31;18;17 – 00;31;47;22
Speaker 1
And so when I do make that content, a lot of people do reach out and that’s where I have partnered with groups such as Birch’s Health and now Alchemist, which is an inpatient facility in Arizona, and basically say if you’re looking for Tela therapy, if you’re looking for this type of in-person treatment, these are options that exist because unless people were actively seeking these things out, they might not be aware that they exist.
00;31;47;25 – 00;32;08;13
Speaker 1
When I first started making content, I talked to a lot of different groups and I just don’t think that the proof of concept was there. When it comes to a like a business perspective and groups are thinking about where to spend advertising dollars. Tick Tock really hasn’t been on top of mind for a lot of these groups, and neither has Instagram.
00;32;08;13 – 00;32;31;06
Speaker 1
In fairness, it’s been Facebook mainly. And so when I first started making content and I was coming to these groups and saying, hey, like I think there’s there’s something to this, you know, a lot of them couldn’t conceptualize taking the budget out to to work on this. So groups like one 800 Gambler were on the top of my list to work with because they provide a fantastic service.
00;32;31;09 – 00;32;50;24
Speaker 1
At the time that I was seeing the work with them, they just weren’t able to commit to it. But I hope that, you know, through consistent proof of concept, we’ll be able to get more partners and just amplify their voice, because what you’ll find is a lot of these groups have a fantastic service, fantastic teams, but they have no idea how to reach this young audience.
00;32;50;27 – 00;33;17;23
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. I think it’s I but yeah, I think somewhere in between here we’ve got, we’ve got an opportunity to start meeting in the middle, so to speak, because I think for a lot of providers it is a challenge to figure out, you know, what’s my, what’s my online strategy here? How do I, how do I utilize this channel, these channels to get our message out?
00;33;17;28 – 00;33;44;05
Speaker 2
Because especially when it comes to the to a younger demographic, it’s it’s the place where a lot of your peers are getting their information. So why, why, why not put ourselves out there? Right. So I think to the extent that you can help us, you can help somebody like Gateway figure out the best way to get that message out.
00;33;44;05 – 00;33;47;01
Speaker 2
I think it’s a win for for everybody.
00;33;47;04 – 00;34;09;04
Speaker 1
Well, Shane, I didn’t expect it to become a sales pitch on the call, but of course, feel free to reach out to me any time. The truth is, a lot of people are hesitant about going to socials because they see these massive creators and influencers with millions of followers and huge audiences. But the truth is, someone who’s a clinician like they don’t need a huge audience.
00;34;09;04 – 00;34;24;02
Speaker 1
They might just be looking to add five clients to their their load so that they can help five more people. And that’s really easy to do if you get yourself online at that. Those numbers, specifically the lower numbers. Yeah.
00;34;24;04 – 00;35;00;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. You also bring up an interesting point and you touched on it earlier, the number of influencers who are out promoting gambling and the way that that’s done. You put out some content on this and you know specifically, but I thought it was so interesting how you positioned it and how that them as influencers are promoting gambling and what’s really occurring on the back end of that.
00;35;00;29 – 00;35;03;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. Would you mind sharing that?
00;35;03;03 – 00;35;33;29
Speaker 1
Absolutely. So there’s a couple of different buckets by which influencers are being involved with gambling and eventually gambling addiction. So when you think about what an influencer is and who an influencer appeals to the just the nature of that business, they appeal to a very young demographic. Someone who’s over the age of 30 even may not be looking to influencers as their main source of authority in any given field.
00;35;34;04 – 00;36;09;13
Speaker 1
They may be more prone to go to the news or to, you know, television, something like that. Whereas someone in my age group and anyone younger, they’re constantly being sold products and services from familiar faces. So the buckets that it kind of goes into are those that are passively involved and those that are actively involved. So the passive involvement are like the the social media ads in the commercials that you’ll see where it’s massive celebrity being sponsored by a big sports both or casino, just as a spokesperson for the advertisement.
00;36;09;20 – 00;36;38;04
Speaker 1
But outside of that, they’re not really you know, they’re not livestreaming themselves or anything like that gambling. Now, that falls under the other side of things, which is where I made the content about, I believe that you’re referencing, and it’s that there’s all of these streamers specifically on YouTube via replays, but also now on an app called Kik that are streaming directly to an audience of young men and women between the ages of 16 and 20.
00;36;38;06 – 00;37;04;17
Speaker 1
And they’re basically using casino funds to show these massive bets, like $100,000 spins, $10,000 bonus triggering buys like these kinds of things. And the kids that are watching it are seeing them and they’re winning. And when they lose, it’s comedy. When they win, it’s the greatest day of their life, right? So losing for them is just comic relief.
00;37;04;19 – 00;37;35;10
Speaker 1
Now these kids are seeing this beautiful, ideal lifestyle of being massively rich, living in great places, driving great cars, and getting to bet hundreds of thousands of dollars and feel that excitement that rush all the time. But they don’t see the truth. And what the truth is, is that these streamers are not betting their own money. They are basically just actors in this, and they make their money based on signing up their audience to the casino.
00;37;35;12 – 00;37;57;26
Speaker 1
So essentially a deal could be that you become an affiliate for the casino, you start streaming and anyone that signs up with your access code, you’ll get 20% of their losses forever when they gamble on that casino. So it creates it creates a direct incentive for them to lie to their audience because they want their audience to believe they will win gambling.
00;37;57;28 – 00;38;19;07
Speaker 1
And it’s unregulated. Once again, these sites have no KYC checks, usually until you want to withdraw your money so you can gamble all you want. Get yourself hooked to it. And then when you want to withdraw, that’s when they’ll ask you if you’re 18 or you’re 21, depending on the jurisdiction. And basically we’re just being sold lies everywhere we look.
00;38;19;09 – 00;38;31;12
Speaker 2
Man, that is crazy. I didn’t I didn’t realize that there were running and silly programs for getting people to sign up. That’s just nuts to me.
00;38;31;14 – 00;39;02;03
Speaker 1
I’m putting out a video hopefully this afternoon. Actually, that is about the the shadier side of video game based casinos. It’s called sex gambling. I’m not entirely too familiar, but my my team, that’s where they did their gambling and got hooked. And there was a couple of big scandals with that where the same thing was happening of like being an but they weren’t disclosing that they were also co-owners in the casino that they were gambling on.
00;39;02;05 – 00;39;15;18
Speaker 1
So they were actually changing the RTP on the slots. They were making the slots pay out more to give the look of like being profitable. It was just crazy. Scandal.
00;39;15;21 – 00;39;35;23
Speaker 2
Wow. So and this is this is this is tied to the online gaming that’s that’s we’re starting to see a surge and rise in the online gaming facilities that people can join. Right. The virtual online gaming facilities.
00;39;35;26 – 00;39;50;02
Speaker 1
Yeah I don’t want to like completely put them out on an island and say that, like, this is the bad guy and the the commercialized legal industry is the good guy because. That’s not the case. But what we’re seeing is kind of an on ramp for younger gamblers.
00;39;50;05 – 00;39;50;21
Speaker 2
Through.
00;39;50;22 – 00;40;09;21
Speaker 1
Through the gaming side. So we’re seeing them getting used to gaming or getting used to gambling aspect through video games. Some video games have a direct on bridge to gambling sites and then by the time they’re of legal age, they’re like, look at these promotions over here. I’ll bounce over there and get these free bets that are being given out.
00;40;09;24 – 00;40;12;25
Speaker 1
And so it’s kind of a ping pong back and forth.
00;40;12;27 – 00;40;25;21
Speaker 2
Or or a stair step, right? Yeah. I mean, it’s just it’s a continual progression from there. You know, just age related progression is essentially it comes down to.
00;40;25;23 – 00;40;26;13
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00;40;26;15 – 00;40;32;14
Speaker 2
Or it sounds like to me man an anthropologist can have a field day with that I’m sure.
00;40;32;14 – 00;40;41;13
Speaker 1
Ironic you say that that’s that’s what I majored in in college, and I never thought I’d use it. really? Yeah. Yeah.
00;40;41;16 – 00;41;29;17
Speaker 2
Well, there you go. yeah. Well, out of out of everything, you know, over the past couple of years for you, Rob. What. What is the. What’s the one thing that has just really been something that’s impacted you on a personal level, on your journey by sharing the content that you do, whether it be that or whether it be, you know, having the opportunity to meet some people that you wouldn’t have otherwise met by doing what you do is is there anything you could point to and say, You know, I, I didn’t expect this when I started down this path, but it’s really cool that this has happened.
00;41;29;19 – 00;42;02;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think that I didn’t expect that posting videos about my gambling would lead me to almost becoming like a a business consultant. I never thought that I would go down that route. But what I’ve found is there’s a ton of power in sharing your story. Sharing the story helped me to make connections with all the groups that I do work with, but also go to these conferences where there’s all these people wanting to do great things that just need the right tools.
00;42;02;26 – 00;42;35;10
Speaker 1
And for some unknown reason, my my experience has led me to develop the tools of reaching this audience. And so it’s been really impactful in shaping what I thought my future would look like. I always lacked a goal. I was ambitious, I was driven, but I was never driven towards anything in particular. And so I gravitated to gambling to kind of supplement that urge, to be competitive and to succeed.
00;42;35;13 – 00;42;59;05
Speaker 1
And now I have the end goal of develop the skills that I have so that I can give them to other people who are looking to do something good and that as a goal, you know, as vague as that may be, it has led me to having purpose in my life that has not only kept me away from gambling, but just made me overall a happier person.
00;42;59;07 – 00;43;19;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s great. And what would you want anybody listening to this to take away From what? From your comments today or the the work that you do? What would you hope somebody would walk away with?
00;43;19;17 – 00;43;44;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, I guess I can go two ways with that. The first is if you’re someone that’s struggling with a gambling problem and even if you’re a younger person, you haven’t been doing it very long. It can be excuse me, it can be a problem regardless of, you know, how many times you’ve gambled. And it’s always worth just keeping your guard up and know staying not just present in the moment, but asking yourself, is this normal?
00;43;44;29 – 00;44;12;13
Speaker 1
Is this what it should feel like? Because for some of us, we think that what we’re doing is normal, but we look up and around us and we’re the only ones doing it. So just be mindful. And then from the other side of like if you are a clinician, if you’re a service provider, if you are in a state council, or you’re just looking to even spread the word about problem gambling, gambling addiction awareness, you are capable of doing it.
00;44;12;15 – 00;44;32;17
Speaker 1
Whatever reasons in your head, you think hold you back from being able to reach a wider audience, Step out of your comfort zone, give a speech, have a conversation with a congressman, like something you’re nervous about doing. Just know that the first time you do it, it’s going to suck. You’re not going to be good at it. It’s just natural.
00;44;32;20 – 00;44;52;18
Speaker 1
But you know, the time is going to pass regardless of what you do. And if you truly want to make an impact in any given field, whether it’s being a problem gambling or baking, like it doesn’t really even matter. You got to get the reps in. And that’s what I’m doing every single day. And I hope that that you do it too, because you’re fully capable of succeeding at it.
00;44;52;20 – 00;45;18;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, Solid advice. That’s that. That’s true for just about anything you can imagine. And it’s just take the first step. Yeah. So Rob, I really appreciate your comments and, and coming on the show today, I really enjoyed getting to know you here. Over the last few times we’ve had the opportunity to meet. I hope we have many more ahead of us.
00;45;18;18 – 00;45;31;27
Speaker 1
Me as well. Thank you so much for having me on. And let’s get this pushed out to as many people as possible. So make sure if you’re watching that, you give a review on Spotify or Apple, you’re on Apple as well, right?
00;45;31;29 – 00;45;34;12
Speaker 2
So wherever you get your podcasts.
00;45;34;15 – 00;45;39;05
Speaker 1
You get those reviews coming in. We got to get this pushed out because this is information that people need to hear.
00;45;39;08 – 00;45;41;25
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely appreciate it.
00;45;41;28 – 00;45;43;11
Speaker 1
Of course.
00;45;43;13 – 00;46;21;01
Speaker 2
We love hearing from you, so please take a moment to like, share and comment on our podcast. You can reach out to us directly via email at Wager Danger at Gateway Foundation dot org. Look for us on Facebook and Twitter at Recovery Gateway on LinkedIn, at Gateway Dash Foundation, or through our website at Gateway Foundation. Dot org Wager Danger is supported through funding in whole or in part through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Division of Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery and remember, recovery is a lifelong process.
00;46;21;04 – 00;46;33;22
Speaker 2
If you are a family member struggling with a gambling problem, call Gateway at 8449753663 and speak with one of our counselors for a confidential assessment.
