Greed. It’s the reason why big gambling corporations are targeting kids.

Over the last fifty years, gambling has been transformed from a private and local activity into the public voice of American government, such that ever increasing appeals to gamble, and ever-expanding opportunities to gamble, now constitute the main ways that our government communicates with us on a daily basis.

Extreme forms of gambling are being pushed in several different forms, They include online sports gambling, state lotteries, regional casinos, and video gambling machine venues, all of it offered at virtually every hour of the day in almost an unlimited amount of locations.

Gambling operators, their partners in government, and industry lobbyists like to call it “regulated gaming.” But elsewhere, it’s more widely-known as “predatory gambling.”

To be clear, we are not talking about social gambling like the Super Bowl office pool, NCAA March Madness brackets, Friday night poker games, or casual wagers on the golf course with friends. Predatory gambling is when governments partner with powerful corporate gambling interests to use commercialized gambling – gambling being run as a business – to exploit and defraud citizens and their communities. Unlike any other business, in commercialized gambling there is an adversarial relationship between the gambling operator and its customer, the gambler. They are trying to take you down.

The legalization of commercialized gambling has failed. We believe it’s America’s most-neglected major problem. This is why:

  • Over the next six years, the American people are on a downward spiral to lose more than $1 trillion of their personal wealth to predatory gambling, an average of at least $150 billion of lost wealth every year. That means the American people are losing more than $285,000 of personal wealth every minute.
  • Through its massive advertising and marketing, predatory gambling has become the public voice of American government to citizens today. It’s what we advertise to the American people more than anything else. We have turned a nation of small earners who could be small savers into a nation of habitual bettors.
  • This torrent of gambling advertising has affected the nation’s kids more than any other demographic. It’s normalized a known dangerous and addictive product that has unleashed an epidemic of gambling addiction among young adults and teens across America.
  • More than half of all commercialized gambling profits come from citizens who have been turned into addicted gamblers. The business model is based on inducing and exploiting addiction and because state governments are a partner, no one is protecting the American people.
  • More than 40 million Americans are experiencing harm because of predatory gambling.
  • And predatory gambling has metastasized like a cancer across the country not because of a grassroots citizens movement demanding electronic slot machines, online gambling, and $100 lottery scratch tickets in their homes and communities. Instead, predatory gambling has spread unchecked because of the greed of big gambling operators combined with a lust for power of some politicians from both political parties.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE VILLAIN WE FIGHT

If YOU don’t protect kids from gambling advertising and marketing, they suffer abuse, neglect, and poverty.

75% of Kids Now Think Commercialized Gambling Is a Normal Part of Sport

More Than Half of 16-Year-Olds Have Gambling Apps On Their Smartphones

Kids Lured to Commercialized Gambling Experience Severe Debt

U.S. Families Will Lose More Than $1 Trillion of Wealth to Commercialized Gambling Over the Next 6 Years

Kids Exposed to Commercialized Gambling Are More Vulnerable to Get Addicted as Adults

Kids Involved With Commercialized Gambling Are More Likely to Commit Suicide

By choosing to join the Campaign for Gambling-Free Kids today, you’re taking an active role in efforts to protect kids from the abuse, neglect, and poverty caused by the greed of big gambling operators.

Gambling-Free Kids & Stop Predatory Gambling in the News

We Attract and Empower Difference Makers.

All Life Circumstances

All Life Circumstances

All Political Stripes

All Political Stripes

50 States

50 States

The 3-Step Solution

STEP 1

Protect the well-being of kids by restricting gambling advertising, marketing, and sponsorships, especially in sports.

LEARN MORE

STEP 2

Save kids from poverty by cutting gambling losses 50%, allowing families to keep $500 billion of wealth over the next six years.

LEARN MORE

STEP 3

Abolish the practice of gambling operators reaping more than half their profits from addicted gamblers.

LEARN MORE

Our Agreement

Is the corrupt and expanding power of commercialized gambling harming the young people in your life and the world around you?

Are you passionate about protecting kids from suffering the abuse, neglect, and poverty that predatory gambling causes?

When you see a wrong, do you act to make it right, no matter the power of your opponent?

Are you the kind of person who goes after the root of an evil rather than hacking at its branches?

Do you want to be with others who possess that same kind of character?

If you answered Yes to these questions, then you belong as a member of The Campaign for Gambling-Free Kids.

Thrift, which means being a wise and careful manager of one’s resources – the opposite of commercialized gambling – is a core value of our network. More than 90 cents of every dollar raised is spent directly on protecting kids from commercialized gambling advertising and marketing.

We do not accept contributions from commercialized gambling interests.

— Les Bernal, Guide
The Campaign for Gambling-Free Kids

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