{"id":1300,"date":"2026-07-14T11:38:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2026-07-14T11:38:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:38:38","slug":"the-system-for-addressing-gambling-harm-is-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"The System for Addressing Gambling Harm Is Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sucker<\/h3>\n
In the April issue, McKay Coppins reflected on his year as a degenerate gambler.<\/em><\/div>\n
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Explore the August 2026 Issue<\/h2>\n

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

View More<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Perhaps the most sinister aspect of McKay Coppins\u2019s well-researched story on sports gambling is the combination of addictions cultivated by the app-based platforms he used. In the apps, the pathology of compulsive gambling partners with a ubiquitous pathology we all suffer from now: an addiction to our phones. One cannot help but wonder if, 50 years from now, we\u2019ll look back on our current norms with the same disbelief we today express when discussing cigarette smoking during its heyday. Online gambling comes with its own set of life-altering problems, to be sure, but it exists in the context of a serious addiction\u2014screen time\u2014that now afflicts everyone, not just gamblers.<\/p>\n

Read more Atlantic Trivia: Roman Holiday<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Langston, M.D.<\/strong>
Lookout Mountain, Ga.<\/em><\/p>\n

McKay Coppins criticizes Justice Samuel Alito for ignoring the \u201cpublic-policy rationale\u201d behind the federal sports-betting ban. But that was exactly Alito\u2019s job as a judge. The question in Murphy v. NCAA<\/i> was whether Congress could constitutionally order state legislatures to maintain state laws prohibiting sports betting. Under the anti-commandeering doctrine, it cannot. This is the same constitutional safeguard that would prevent a future Congress from, say, requiring states to keep their abortion bans on the books.<\/p>\n

As Coppins notes, experts estimate that only 2 to 5 percent of gamblers develop compulsive behaviors. That is a serious concern for those individuals. But when else do we ban an activity enjoyed responsibly by the majority because a small minority struggles? We tried that with alcohol and abandoned it. The consistent position on personal liberty must be that adults can make their own choices. Targeted regulation of predatory marketing and better self-exclusion tools are reasonable. Treating every adult sports bettor as a rube who needs saving is not.<\/p>\n

Owen Voutsinas-Klose<\/strong>
Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n

After reading McKay Coppins\u2019s article, I keep thinking about how easy it would be for him to start gambling again. I wonder: Has he ever crossed from Virginia into any of the five bordering states that wouldn\u2019t honor his self-exclusion in order to make a bet? Has he made a sports-related wager on one of the prediction markets available in all 50 states? Has he received offers for free bets in his inbox, even after opting out?<\/p>\n

I know this cycle firsthand. I\u2019m one of the millions of Americans in recovery for a gambling addiction. To borrow Coppins\u2019s words, I am a fellow degenerate. I knew I had a problem as a teenager playing poker in friends\u2019 basements, and it escalated through my 20s in casinos and on online sportsbooks.<\/p>\n

I tried to stop myself more than 100 times. Therapy, Gamblers Anonymous, new cities, new social circles\u2014nothing worked; the hook was set in my brain. I finally found recovery after more than a decade. I had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I\u2019d nearly lost my life. Today, six years bet-free, I manage it like a chronic disease. I have also founded Evive, a digital health company focused on supporting people with gambling problems.<\/p>\n

Self-exclusion, which Coppins pursued at the end of his reporting, is a first step. I use it too. But it is a screen-door barrier, not a solution. What actually works is what you build on the other side of that door: accountability tools, a community of people who get what you\u2019re going through, and a better understanding of what\u2019s happening in your brain.<\/p>\n

The system meant to address gambling harm is underfunded, underutilized, and built for an era before gambling was a 24\/7 digital activity. There\u2019s no shortage of infrastructure designed to bring you back into gambling, and almost none designed to help you stay out.<\/p>\n

Coppins has shown what gambling harm looks like today: It can hit anyone. His article invites a reckoning with what support looks like. The groundwork is there: digital tools that reach people before they\u2019ve hit rock bottom, peer support. We need casino operators, public-health agencies, regulators, and technological innovators to work together to create solutions as layered as the problem. We all deserve something more durable than a screen door.<\/p>\n

Sam DeMello<\/strong>
Beverly, Mass.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Women of Avenger Field<\/h3>\n

They bravely served as pilots during World War II, Ellen Cushing wrote in the April issue. Then America forgot them.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1943 my mother, 25 and single, left her job with IBM to join the war effort. She held a commercial pilot\u2019s license, so she joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots and reported for training. On orders from General Hap Arnold, she and 25 other WASPs were then transferred to Camp Davis, in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Anti-Growth Agenda<\/a><\/p>\n

My mom\u2019s cohort was assigned to tow targets behind their aircraft so gunners could practice tracking and firing 90-mm and 40-mm shells. Many of the planes returned with holes; the pilots returned with shaken nerves.<\/p>\n

The period was marked by several crashes and overt hostility from the base commander. Mom was proud of her service, but described it to my siblings and me as the most frightening time of her life. She was grounded with an ear infection in 1944 and left the WASPs, transferring to the Office of Strategic Services. Mom died in 2004, having finally been recognized for her service as a veteran. At her burial in Fremont, New Hampshire, she was attended by a military honor guard. A few years later, she received the Congressional Gold Medal. Her name was Frederica McAfee Richardson.<\/p>\n

Steven M. Richardson<\/strong>
Winona, Minn.<\/em><\/p>\n

My sister, Phyllis, was always more than a little irritated when someone expressed surprise that she, having surpassed 90, was still driving. \u201cOf course I\u2019m still driving,\u201d she would reply. \u201cI flew a B-17.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phyllis was a WASP. Ellen Cushing\u2019s article on the Women Airforce Service Pilots reminded me of all the photographs my grown-up sister sent home from the base: of the \u201cgirls\u201d gathered together in the bay, of her climbing into a plane with her leather jacket and parachute. I first viewed those photos when I was 5 years old; they constitute my chief memory of the war.<\/p>\n

Phyllis married another pilot in 1945 and raised three children. She was politically conservative and eschewed a feminist label, but she enthusiastically joined other WASPs in a visit to their Russian counterparts in the early days of glasnost, and she was thrilled to attend the ceremony in 2010 in Washington, D.C., where the WASPs were officially, finally recognized and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. She proudly displayed her medal in her home. But close to it sat her wings, the pin that symbolized what she personally had done for her country. I suspect that this was more important to her.<\/p>\n

Phyllis died in 2018, just short of her 100th birthday; she is buried in a family cemetery on a small island off the coast of Maine. There, etched on her memorial stone, is Fifinella, the winged and goggle-wearing female gremlin depicted on the WASP insignia. Fifinella was designed by Walt Disney for a film based on Roald Dahl\u2019s The Gremlins<\/i>. (It was never produced.) As gremlins came to be associated with aviation culture\u2014pilots would blame mechanical problems on the pesky creatures\u2014the WASPs adopted Fifinella as their symbol. She was a powerful figure who could wreak havoc on those who did not take her seriously.<\/p>\n

As the secretary of defense denies promotions to women in the military, as the Trump administration removes webpages telling the stories of the WASPs and other women who served their country, I think of Fifinella. Long may her spirit, and that of all the women who wore the insignia, live on.<\/p>\n

Christina Marsden Gillis<\/strong>
Berkeley, Calif.<\/em><\/p>\n

Behind the Cover<\/h3>\n

In this month\u2019s cover story, \u201cThe Age of Reading Is Over,\u201d Rose Horowitch describes the new postliterate era. The problem is less a crisis of literacy\u2014though many Americans do struggle with basic reading skills\u2014and more a crisis of comprehension. Americans lack the desire to read and are losing the higher-order intellectual powers that come with reading extended texts. For the cover, we used transparent paper to make the headline appear as if it\u2019s fading into obscurity.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Colin Hunter<\/strong>, Art Director<\/em><\/p>\n

Correction<\/h3>\n

\u201cHow to Tell the American Story\u201d (July) described an August car race in Washington, D.C., as a Formula 1 race. In fact, it is an IndyCar race.<\/p>\n

This article appears in the <\/i>August 2026<\/i> print edition with the headline \u201cThe Commons.\u201d<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

Read more Todd Blanche\u2019s War Against Journalism<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readers respond to our April 2026 cover story and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters"],"yoast_head":"\nThe System for Addressing Gambling Harm Is Broken - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1300\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The System for Addressing Gambling Harm Is Broken - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Readers respond to our April 2026 cover story and more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1300\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-14T11:38:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"The System for Addressing Gambling Harm Is Broken\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-14T11:38:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300\"},\"wordCount\":1449,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/491e8688121f408109b3704558e8370e.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Letters\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1300\",\"name\":\"The System for Addressing Gambling Harm Is Broken - 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