LDS leader decries explosion in sports betting, prediction markets<\/a><\/p>\n“The smartphone has transformed gambling from an occasional activity\u00a0requiring a trip\u00a0to a casino,\u00a0racetrack,\u00a0or lottery kiosk into an activity available continuously,\u00a0privately,\u00a0and almost anywhere. This has led to an explosion in gambling,\u201d said Christofferson.<\/p>\n
While Kalshi denies it is a gambling company, mental health experts say the app can affect some of its users in a similar way.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a mental health practitioner and as a mental health professional and supervisor and educator, I worry about the existence of such things just like I worry about the existence of the availability of alcohol,\u201d said Matthew Draper, a clinical director at Paramita Perspectives.<\/p>\n
Part of Draper\u2019s concerns is because he said apps like these employ a concept called intermittent reinforcement that we see similarly in traditional forms of gambling.<\/p>\n
“So, intermittent reinforcement is for example how slot machines work, I could put in a quarter, pull a level, put a quarter, pull a lever and I don’t know if it will take 100 lever pulls or only one to win and when it’s unpredictable like that, it’s more likely to set up these compulsive relationships with gambling,\u201d said Draper.<\/p>\n
On Kalshi, you can place a bet on a whole host of topics.<\/p>\n
“Sports, politics, elections, crypto, culture, economics, all of these things,\u201d said Ed Peterson, a therapist at Peterson Family Therapy.<\/p>\n
The access to placing a bet concerns Peterson because he said people dealing with mood disorders, like depression, can get especially hooked to apps like these.<\/p>\n
“People, especially who have ADHD, and also Bipolar can be a big thing because when people are hypo-manic or manic, their judgment has gone out the window,\u201d said Peterson.<\/p>\n
Mental health experts said some studies and surveys show as low as 8% of people dealing with a gambling disorder seek help.<\/p>\n
They urged that if you are dealing with a gambling disorder to reach out to Gamblers Anonymous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALT LAKE CITY, Utah \u2014 After top Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints official echoed concerns from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-872269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}