Working to create the Texas Lottery in 1991, state lawmakers ran into concerns that government-sponsored gaming would tempt Texans prone to compulsive or problem gambling.
In response, lawmakers devoted $2 million a year to a state-run “compulsive gambling program” to identify and treat problem gamblers.
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In its first two years, the program funded treatment for about 760 people with addictive gambling behavior and produced two influential studies of Texans’ gambling behavior.
That was the heyday of the state’s gambling addiction response.
In 1996, the Legislature cut funding by more than 80%, leaving enough money to continue a problem gambling hotline that handled thousands of calls a year. Money for the hotline was cut off in 2004 when lawmakers dissolved the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
The state law creating the compulsive gambling program was removed in 2009, only to be revived six years later when lawmakers updated health and human services statutes. The defunct program remains on the books, though with no state money allocated — despite indications from industry professionals that gambling addiction is a growing problem in Texas and the U.S.
“For all those years, thousands and thousands and thousands of Texans have been suffering,” said Carol Ann Maner, chair of the Texas Coalition on Problem Gambling, the state’s leading organization aimed at treating compulsive gambling.
Texas is among only seven states that do not fund assistance for problem gamblers, treatment experts say.
Maner and her coalition hope to step into the Texas void with help from an unexpected source: Las Vegas Sands, one of the world’s largest casino companies that has long sought to expand operations into Texas.
Sands gave $100,000 to the Texas Coalition on Problem Gambling in April to increase the number of trained therapists to treat gambling addiction. The coalition also hopes to convince lawmakers to create a state certification program for therapists, social workers and nurses to help compulsive gamblers, Maner said.
The coalition also hopes to start a Texas-specific hotline, she said.
“Their donation will make many of those programs possible,” Maner said.
Clinicians can qualify for an international certification after taking courses and passing an exam, but it is not attuned to Texans’ specific needs, Maner said. Six internationally certified gambling counselors operate in Texas, including Maner, up from three in 2025, according to the coalition.
The new push to address gambling addiction comes as researchers and clinicians warn of an emerging health crisis — particularly among young adults — fueled by a deluge of online betting opportunities in prediction markets, daily fantasy sports and offshore sportsbooks.
“Our kids and our young adults are in a really tough place right now because they just can’t get away from it. It’s nonstop,” said Linda Uphoff, a licensed counselor associate who runs a gambling clinic focused on minors and young adults in Dallas. “It’s the sports ads. It’s just everywhere. Like I said, it just pops up on your phone without you asking.”
Although Texas has some of the nation’s most restrictive gambling laws, there are more ways than ever to make wagers legally, illegally and in between. Those offerings, most of them unregulated, present opportunities to engage in problematic gambling habits, Uphoff said.
More than half of U.S. men ages 18 to 49 have an active account with a sportsbook, allowing them to wager on anything from game outcomes to who will hit the next home run, according to a Siena Institute study. A Common Sense Media study in January found that more than a third of U.S. boys ages 11 to 17 had already gambled in some way, including online sports betting.
Uphoff said specialized training for clinicians is paramount for gambling disorder, which is often more elusive — and potentially more dangerous — than others. Those with diagnosable gambling disorder have an increased risk of suicide that is comparable to depression, a 2025 study found.
“They call this the hidden addiction for a reason, because most of the time we don’t notice it until it’s usually in crisis,” Uphoff said. “There’s no smells, there’s no stumbling of words, there’s no paraphernalia to find. Kids are just doing it.”
Conversations about gambling addiction in Texas swelled after Brendan Sorsby, quarterback for Texas Tech University’s football team, was diagnosed in April with gambling disorder and admitted into an Arizona rehabilitation center. The 22-year-old had placed more than $90,000 in bets over four years while enrolled at Texas Tech and at two other universities, including betting on his own team while playing at Indiana University.
Maner and the coalition’s primary goal for the next legislative session is to improve care in Texas by creating a state certification program for clinicians. Several other states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, have programs Texas could model, she said.
“We can do the same here in Texas, and I got to tell you, the need is for that is very great,” Maner said.
In Texas, legislative attempts to bolster state resources for problem gambling have typically been tied to attempts to legalize casinos, sports betting or video lotteries.
With problem gambling already on the rise, Maner said, state leaders can no longer wait for a new game to help at-risk Texans.
The Texas Lottery, which briefly helped fund the problem-gambling hotline through ticket revenue, today provides no direct funding for gambling addiction treatment or awareness programs, a spokesperson confirmed. It does maintain a web page of problem-gambling hotlines and tips for “positive play.”
Gambling opponents, like Texans Against Gambling chair Russ Coleman, acknowledge that gambling addicts deserve treatment. However, Coleman said, state attention would be better spent closing gaps in enforcing state gambling restrictions.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he said. “The best way to deal with gambling addiction and how to treat it is to simply not have people become gambling addicts in the first place.”
Maner and Uphoff said Texas needs to acknowledge that many modern forms of gambling are readily available.
Prediction markets have exploded in popularity by selling contracts tied to the predicted outcomes of sporting events, elections and much more — a structure many, including most state attorneys general, consider to be poorly disguised wagering.
Thus far, prediction markets have escaped regulation by Texas and other states because a federal agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has allowed the activity under its authority to regulate financial trading.
“It’s becoming a bit of a problem,” said Devin Mills, an addiction and recovery researcher and professor at Texas Tech University. “A lot of people have actually already just assumed that sports betting is legal in the state — which maybe is the point. Maybe that’s the goal.”
Offshore sites, like digital casino Stake, are increasingly popular, allowing players to win money through cash payouts, gift cards or cryptocurrency by playing games similar to those found in casinos.
Daily fantasy sports apps from gambling companies like FanDuel and DraftKings — legal in many states but not in Texas, according to a nonbinding attorney general’s opinion — also allow players to bet on athletes’ performance.
“When I hear the argument from Texans saying, ‘well, it’s not legal here,’ I don’t think they understand the accessibility is really no different,” Uphoff said. “In fact, it could be worse in a way sometimes, because we’re dealing with an illegal, unregulated market that the kids are getting on.”
Sands did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its $100,000 donation to the Texas Coalition on Problem Gambling — the largest donation in the nonprofit’s history. Maner said the money will let the coalition expand its efforts to help Texans and does not reflect a change in the group’s approach.
“Addressing gambling-related harm requires collaboration across all these sectors,” Maner said. It’s just a natural part of what we do.”
Coleman, however, said gaming concerns often donate to anti-gambling efforts to launder their reputations.
“This is in some ways just to create a veneer of respectability,” Coleman said. “They come up with this concept of irresponsible, responsible gambling, and it’s an attempt to shift the onus to the gambler.”
Prediction markets, most of which opened business in the U.S. in 2025, have become a particular area of concern, and Uphoff said she has begun to see problem gamblers she has treated using them.
Mills, the Texas Tech researcher, said preliminary data from a soon-to-be-published study found roughly 10% of people in the U.S. were using Kalshi or Polymarket, the two largest prediction market platforms. Almost half of those users showed problem gambling symptoms, with 38% eligible to be classified as problem gamblers, he said.
“We are primed for having a huge issue with regards to gambling,” Mills said. “It just feels like it’s even faster and exploded far, far quicker, far more rapidly … and I think the harms from it are going to be felt much more acutely.”
Disclosure: Las Vegas Sands Corporation and Texas Tech University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.