The International Center for Responsible Gaming (ICRG) is a research organization that funds scientific studies and educational programs focused on problem gambling and responsible gaming. Its mission is to help individuals affected by gambling problems, prevent new problems from emerging, and improve the overall health and well-being of communities influenced by the gambling industry. Each year, the ICRG hosts the Conference on Gambling and Addiction (CGA). The annual forum brings together researchers, treatment providers, industry professionals, and regulators to discuss the latest research on problem / responsible gambling. It provides a platform for dialogue on advances in treatment, responsible gambling strategies, and the intersection of science and industry in addressing gambling-related challenges.
The press, the 26th ICRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction just concluded in Las Vegas, Nevada (Oct 5-6, 2025). Kindbridge Behavioral Health and Kindbridge Research Institute’s own Daniel Umfleet (view bio) was featured as a keynote speaker. Within “Mind, Money, and Risk: Reframing Gambling as a Public Health Issue”, Daniel dove deep into discussion of how financial stress needs to be reframed as a public health metric, and in doing so, the nation can better manage gambling’s role in the overall wellness of the American public.
The entire one-hour keynote was not recorded, but short clips have been made available for viewing on YouTube, right here. Further, given the wealth of information provided by Umfleet, Kindbridge is beholden to share his insights from the 2025 ICRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction. Below is the full transcript.
Good morning. I’m pleased to be here today to open up this wonderful conference here in good ol’ Las Vegas. My name is Daniel Umfleet, and today I will be talking about Financial Stability, Gambling Literacy, and Mental Health. For the purpose of this talk, I’m speaking with you as the Kindbridge Research Institute’s Director of the Financial Stability and Responsible Gambling Initiative. This Initiative is in its infancy. We’ve only just started. With the help of Dr. Fong from UCLA, we’ve brought together a group that comprises on credit card companies, credit bureaus, credit unions, banks, payment providers, operators, and social media platforms. All with a common objective to build a tool kit for generations to come that educates early and often about financial stability in this new digital world we live in, tie in gambling literacy, and identify the necessary distribution paths for normalization of such a tool kit.
This initiative is showing a lot of promise and I hope to be stepping on this stage next year to show you some of the outputs that are in the pipeline.
So, with that said, I understand my audience today, I know some of the best brains in the space are in the room, and I want to disclose that I am not a researcher. I am a storyteller, a scene setter, a connector, and a builder.
This talk is meant to be informational. Not scientific. We’re here to discuss concepts and constructs. Understand more about how our past informs our today. And how our today informs our tomorrow. Let me start off by painting a picture, a picture that everyone in this room knows very well, but a picture that sets the scene for the lion share of the discussion…
Let’s talk about Tom.
Abstract
When Tom placed a bet, he had options his father could never imagine. His dad’s world was simple: a bookie down the street, a handshake, maybe a ledger scribbled in pencil. Tom, by contrast, could choose between grey-market websites, government-licensed casinos, or sports betting apps on his phone. It felt like empowerment, like progress.
But now, Tom’s son is coming of age in a very different world. He has more choices than either of the previous generations before him had, crypto casinos, eSports betting, gambling apps packaged into video games, financial products that blur into sports betting. For him, gambling isn’t confined to a corner of the community or even a dedicated website. It is everywhere, always on, part of his digital landscape.
Every generation, like Tom’s family, inherits new financial products and gambling vehicles, introduced as progress or empowerment. Over time, these products are normalized, have a period of collapse, and leave lasting scars on financial health and mental well-being for a portion of the population.
This combined presentation brings together three prior drafts. It strengthens the narrative with the full generational detail, the mental health throughlines, the event versus systems thinker framing, the regulatory analysis, and the role of gambling literacy.
Our position is clear: we need more emphasis on financial stress metrics guiding us in the public health space. It isn’t only about money, it’s about well-being, resilience, and how systems support or fail people.
We’re exploring a Virtuous Cycle, where each generation does not hand down scars, but instead hands down playbooks. These playbooks become the tools and strategies that help people navigate risk and avoid harm.
And we close by situating this moment as an inflection point — where gambling and finance converge. The Financial Stability and Responsible Gambling Initiative offers a path forward. It transforms scars into signals and turns repeating cycles into systems of prevention.
Introduction: Why This Matters Now
Financial innovation and gambling expansion are not isolated events; they are systemic processes tied to capitalist model design. From credit cards in the 1960s to crypto in the 2010s, each decade introduced new products to solve economic pressures and generate revenue. Each time, the older generation hesitated, clinging to familiar norms. Each time, cultural reframing normalized risk. And each time, some financial products collapsed,and left scars that compounded over generations.
For decades, gambling existed apart from finance. Glitzy, stigmatized, and geographically contained. But today, the lines are barely recognizable, if recognizable at all in some instances. Platforms like Robinhood gamify trading; Kalshi markets prediction as finance; NFTs and esports betting fuse gambling with identity. The systems are converging. We’ve seen this pattern in other industries. Music executives once sued their own customers over Napster; today, the entire market has been reshaped, and the old battles seem irrelevant.
This moment is not a doomsday call or a battle cry for the alarmists, but a recognition of normalization in real time. Gambling has become a form of entertainment, and that provides an exceptional opportunity to have the larger conversation about financial health, stress, and resilience across generations. Think about Tom’s dad. He introduced his son to gambling by teaching him about averages and how to pick a winner. For him, it was a way of making math more engaging. But at the same time, it normalized gambling, framing it as a methodology for making money, or more often, chasing losses.
Generational Narratives and Scars
Each decade brought innovations that were introduced, normalized, resisted, and absorbed. The scars grew each time. Let’s take a look at the last 65 years to see what each decade can share.
Think about these timelines we’re about to discuss in the terms of 2 and in some cases 3, parallel lines. Silo’d activity, marketing itself differently, separate regulatory frameworks, measuring itself separately.
Financial products introduced meant to encourage innovation, and create opportunity for the everyday working man to self-manage their retirement plans, as pensions became less and less a private sector promise or guarantee.
Gambling packaged with all the glamor and glitz, the appeal of escapism, a form of high class entertainment, and the promise of hope.
Mental Health doesn’t come into the picture until later in the timeline, we’re starting in the 60’s, but when it does enter, it starts with measuring the very basics with little to no understanding of what is driving ill health in the country.
So let’s start with the 60’s!
1960s – Credit Cards, Mutual Funds, Vegas Glamour
Why Introduced: Wall Street sought middle-class inflows via mutual funds; banks launched credit cards to drive consumption; Nevada sold Vegas as taxable entertainment.
Normalization: Employees got payroll deductions put directly into mutual funds; credit cards are marketed as convenience; Vegas is reframed as family tourism run by corporations, not the mob.
Impact & Scars: Families assumed new risks; 3–5% of households reported chronic debt stress.
Evidence: Gallup Polls (1965); BLS debt adoption data.
1970s – IRAs, Money Markets, State Lotteries
Why Introduced: Stagflation (oil embargo, war spending, wage-price spirals) eroded savings; IRAs created via ERISA (1974); states adopted lotteries to raise revenue without new taxes.
Normalization: Ads branded IRAs as patriotic; money markets “smarter savings”; lotteries reframed as civic duty (“for the schools”).
Impact & Scars: Savings destabilized; gambling normalized; 5–7% of adults reported persistent financial stress. Low-income households are disproportionately harmed.
Evidence: Gallup Polls (1970s inflation surveys); early state lottery participation studies.
1980s – 401(k)s, Junk Bonds, Atlantic City Casinos
Why Introduced: Employers replaced pensions with 401(k)s; junk bonds fueled leveraged buyouts; Atlantic City casinos marketed as urban revival.
Normalization: 401(k)s reframed as “empowerment”; employer matches drove adoption; junk bonds glamorized; gambling reframed as economic growth.
Impact & Scars: Retirement security eroded; gambling expanded east; ~8% of population scarred. Surveys: 60% of workers felt unprepared for retirement.
Evidence: Employee Benefit Research Institute (1980s); Shaffer et al. gambling prevalence studies.
1990s – Dot-Coms, Online Trading, Tribal Casinos
Why Introduced: Dot-com IPOs fueled speculative mania; online trading democratized investing; tribal casinos expanded under sovereignty.
Normalization: Tech IPOs hyped as future-proof; E*TRADE glamorized day-trading; ESPN televised poker as skill; casinos sold as empowerment.
Impact & Scars: Dot-com crash erased savings; 6–8% of adults reported financial-stress depression. DSM-IV (1994) recognized gambling disorder (~1% prevalence).
Evidence: APA stress surveys (1990s); Kessler et al. (1994).
2000s – Housing Boom, Subprime Loans, Online Poker
Why Introduced: Mortgage-backed securities fueled subprime lending; bipartisan housing policy celebrated ownership; online poker surged post-Moneymaker (2003).
Normalization: Realtors promoted “housing never goes down”; subprime framed as inclusion; poker glamorized as hustle.
Impact & Scars: 2008 crash caused ~5,000 excess suicides; 9–10% of adults reported severe financial stress impairing functioning. Online poker debt derailed student lives.
Evidence: Chang et al. (2013, BMJ); National Comorbidity Survey (2001–2003).
2010s – Crypto, DFS, Sports Betting
Why Introduced: Bitcoin pitched as anti-bank but monetized as speculation; DFS skirted gambling bans via “skill” framing; PASPA repeal (2018) fueled sports betting expansion.
Normalization: Celebrities promoted crypto; Coinbase ran Super Bowl ads; DFS integrated into ESPN; sports betting odds embedded into broadcasts.
Impact & Scars: 35–40% of crypto investors lost money; ~10% of young male bettors met problem gambling criteria. Depression prevalence in Millennials reached 12–15%.
Evidence: Bank for International Settlements (2018); DSM-5 (2013); Petry et al. (2013).
2020s – Meme Stocks, NFTs, Esports Betting
Why Introduced: Meme stocks framed as populist rebellion; NFTs monetized digital scarcity; esports betting monetized Gen Z culture.
Normalization: Robinhood gamified trades with confetti; NFTs legitimized by Christie’s and celebrities; esports odds embedded in Twitch.
Impact & Scars: APA (2022): 72% of Gen Z cite money as top stressor; 20–25% report severe financial distress. Online gambling prevalence 10–15%.
Evidence: APA Stress in America (2022); Wardle et al. (2021).
2030s (Forecast) – Tokenization, AI Portfolios, VR Gambling
Why Introduced: Tokenization fractionalizes assets; AI portfolios marketed as safer; VR casinos merge gambling and play.
Normalization: Schools may teach tokenization as literacy; AI framed as responsibility; VR gambling packaged as gaming.
Impact & Scars (Forecast): 20–30% of Gen Alpha could experience clinically significant distress tied to financial/gambling systems.
Evidence: Projection based on APA stress trajectory (2007–2022) + youth gambling prevalence growth.
Summary Table
| Decade | Financial/Gambling Vehicle | Normalization Process | Portion Scarred | Evidence Anchor |
| 1960s | Mutual funds, credit cards, Vegas | Payroll, convenience, glamour | 3–5% | Gallup (1965) |
| 1970s | IRAs, money markets, lotteries | Patriotism, civic duty | 5–7% | Gallup, state lottery studies |
| 1980s | 401(k)s, junk bonds, casinos | Empowerment, glamor, growth | ~8% | EBRI; Shaffer et al. |
| 1990s | Dot-coms, online trading, tribal casinos | Future-proof hype, skill framing | 6–8% | APA, DSM-IV |
| 2000s | Subprime housing, online poker | “Housing never goes down,” hustle | 9–10% | Chang et al. 2013; NCS |
| 2010s | Crypto, DFS, sports betting | Celebrities, ESPN, apps | 15%+ | BIS (2018); DSM-5 |
| 2020s | Meme stocks, NFTs, esports | Gamification, legitimacy, Twitch | 20–25% | APA (2022); Wardle |
| 2030s* | Tokenization, AI, VR gambling | Education, AI, gaming | 20–30% (forecast) | APA trajectory + youth prevalence |
Mental Health as the Throughline
Mental health knowledge evolved unevenly across these decades. In the 1960s and 70s, financial stress was poorly recognized in psychology. By the 1980s, anxiety and depression tied to financial insecurity gained attention. The 2000s marked the first time suicides were directly tied to financial collapse in mainstream health research. Today, data clearly shows financial stress predicts depression, anxiety, and even physical health decline. The scars left by each wave are not just financial they are psychological.
How Normalization Happens
Normalization follows a five-step playbook: 1) Problem arises (inflation, pensions, budget deficits). 2) Innovation introduced (IRAs, 401(k)s, subprime loans, crypto). 3) Older generation resists. 4) Normalization reframes risk as virtue and governments rubber stamp the products as safe. Lotteries framed as civic duty, 401(k)s as empowerment, crypto as intelligence. 5) Collapse occurs, not always, but sometimes. Institutions survive; individuals carry scars.
Behavioral economics amplifies the cycle: loss aversion, herding, normalization of deviance.
It’s also worth noting here that financial distress associated with some of these vehicles happens because the old product falls away and the volume of people hesitating and resisting adoption of these new vehicles are heavily impacted when that happens. Not every collapse is tied to an event. Collapse comes when old models are phased out and resisters are left behind, unsure of how to proceed with the new products they have tochoose from. Confusion ensues, finances suffer, mental health concerns grow.
Now, here’s where we get into some interesting thinking. The brain works in mysterious ways and humans are just that, human. We make mistakes, we learn from patterns, we adjust, mostly, so that we understand how certain things impact our lives, we carry on with activity. Most of us don’t think too deeply about the systems that are in place that are guiding our thinking or why some things are encouraged more than others while contradictory evidence suggests we should be more aware of our surroundings. A lot of us follow the tracks that are laid in front of us keeping our eyes on events that tether us to a feeling. And we don’t often think much about why an event is more important to us than a high level understanding of the mechanisms that are influencing our emotions.
Event Thinking vs Systems Thinking is Real (and needs discussion)
Event thinkers focus on moments: a winning ticket, a stock spike. They are vulnerable to dopamine and marketing.
Systems thinkers see loops, cycles, feedback. They recognize bubbles and risk transfers.
Mental health differs: Event thinkers internalize failure, leading to shame, depression, anxiety.
Systems thinkers externalize blame to flawed systems, creating resilience.
In Terms of Why We Hand Over Money
We don’t hand over money mindlessly; we hand it over systematically because: cultural reframing, emotional regulation, institutional trust, and hope dynamics all form and crystalize our thinking. Speculation becomes identity; spending becomes civic duty; and hope of escape feels like survival in stagnant wage environments.
Defining Gambling Literacy
True gambling literacy = systems literacy. It must teach: how gambling and financial products are designed by understanding the psychology of the human mind, how odds and reinforcement schedules work, how shame and stress manifest as mental health harm, how generational patterns repeat. Imagine a teenager who understands not only that odds are bad, but why risk is framed as virtue. That is resilience.
What Role do the Financial Institutions Play?
Because financial transaction data tells a story and it helps us see the collective whole of how a culture, society, or people, are doing in a gamified world of constant access. Credit score patterns help us see it, spend categories help us see it. Cross reference that with mental health trends, and that helps us see it.
The reality is with all of the ways that money is serviced leaving the account of a consumer and making its way into a financial institution of any sort, each pathway provides insights into a whole picture of financial stability.
Banks and credit unions can embed gambling literacy in financial education. Payment providers can enable alerts, limits, and blocks. Employers can integrate education into workplace benefits. If financial institutions distribute risk, they must also distribute literacy.
And banks have a responsibility to their community and its patrons. Making them an excellent source to distribute helpful information to every generation whose lives they interact with.
Regulatory Gaps and Public Vulnerability
Industry verticals across the board design systems knowing they leverage behavioral psychology. Regulation is reactive, arriving only after collapse and harm is obvious. This leaves the public unprotected during the normalization phase, when habits are formed and harms accumulate silently. Innovation in any arena is encouraged and celebrated for obvious reasons. Something that grabs our attention and generates an immense amount of interest is always capitalized on. We proceed without knowing the consequences for a reason. We love the thrill of something new. We’re designed to react after business models are shored up and revenue channels are solidified, not before. Not completely before anyway. We do have a history of trying to see around corners early but only later recognizing we didn’t do enough because we didn’t understand what full implementation across a population would do. We could only speculate. This is very predictable across every regulatory body and every product that we interact with. Sometimes we learn and get aggressive later, other times we let bad finance practice creep back in after a period of de-regulation. The pattern is there. It’s easy to see if you know what you’re looking for.
Why We’ve Missed It
We miss it because of short memory, siloed studies, and stigma. Each generation thinks its innovation is new; finance, gambling, and health are not studied together; and shame hides true harms.
Financial Stress as a Population Health Metric
Financial stress is more than a personal burden; it is a measurable, consequential factor in population health. Roughly 40% of Americans report moderate to high financial stress. Among young adults, 17% report high stress, and those individuals have over six-times greater odds of high psychological distress. Financial strain correlates with anxiety, depression, chronic illness, and mortality. Because of its prevalence and predictive value, financial stress should be tracked alongside depression, substance use, and other health indicators.
Capitalism’s Role
This cycle is tied to capitalism: innovation drives growth but ignores scars, risk is shifted to individuals, regulation is reactive, and population health is excluded. But it isn’t inevitable. Collective protections and regulation can reduce harm. The key is measuring what matters: financial stress as a health metric.
The Virtuous Cycle: From Scars to Playbook
The alternative is to stop handing down scars and start handing down the playbook. Current generation educates the next. Older generation guides the one behind. Institutions normalize prevention by embedding literacy. The flywheel gains strength with each turn. This is why Kindbridge Research Institute launched the FSRG Initiative: to connect financial health, gambling harm, and mental health.
Conclusion: Opportunity in Real Time
Tom’s family illustrates this cycle clearly. His father taught him gambling as a way tolearn math and probability, never imagining it could become a pathway to lifelong stress. Tom grew up with more options than his dad legal markets, grey markets, the first online sites. And now Tom’s son faces an overwhelming landscape, with gambling fused into video games, finance apps, and social identity.
Each generation thought it was just “normal.” Each generation handed down not only lessons but scars. This is how financial, and gambling products evolve: first introduced as innovation, then normalized, then collapsing into harm that the next generation must carry.
That is why regulation must focus on the normalization phase, not just the collapse. It is why we must treat financial stress as a population health metric, the way we treat depression or substance use. And it is why we must build the virtuous cycle, handing down playbooks instead of scars.
The story of Tom’s family is not unusual. It is the story of entire populations living through cycles of innovation, stress, and collapse. But it does not have to be the story of the next generation. The FSRG Initiative exists to break that cycle. It connects gambling harm, financial health, and mental health into one framework.
This is not a doomsday warning. It is an opportunity in real time. Don’t be the music industry, clinging to the past. Be Steve Jobs. Introduce the iPod.
The choice is clear: we can keep repeating Tom’s story, generation after generation. Or we can write a new story, one where prevention, literacy, and regulation give his son, and ours, not scars but the playbook.
Short Clips from the 2025 ICRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction
Appendix A: Charts
Figure 1: Generational Scars from Financial & Gambling Innovations
Figure 2: Wall Street vs. Vegas — From Separation to Convergence
Methods: Constructing the Generational Scars Chart
This chart was developed as a synthetic index, integrating multiple sources of financial, gambling, and mental health data across decades. Because no single dataset spans 1960–2030, we correlated evidence from surveys, prevalence studies, epidemiological research, and crisis-linked outcomes.
Step 1: Identify dominant financial & gambling innovations per decade.
• Based on economic history (e.g., credit cards in the 1960s, IRAs in the 1970s, 401(k)s in the 1980s, dot-coms in the 1990s, housing bubble in the 2000s, crypto in the 2010s, meme stocks/NFTs in the 2020s).
Step 2: Map mental health recognition in each decade.
• Tracked DSM editions (DSM-II 1968, DSM-III 1980, DSM-IV 1994, DSM-5 2013).
• Noted when gambling and financial stress entered the diagnostic or survey lexicon.
Step 3: Quantify scars as % of population significantly impacted.
• Anchored to survey prevalence of financial stress (Gallup, APA Stress in America, EBRI retirement surveys).
• Incorporated gambling prevalence studies (Shaffer et al., Petry, Kessler et al.).
• Included excess mortality/suicide studies during crises (Chang et al. 2013).
• Adjusted ranges into a conservative point estimate per decade.
Step 4: Integrate forward projection for 2030s.
• Used APA stress trajectories, gambling prevalence growth among youth, and normalization trends to forecast 20–30% of Gen Alpha could face clinically significant financial/gambling-related distress.
Bibliography
• American Psychological Association. (2022). Stress in America Survey.
• Bank for International Settlements. (2018). Retail crypto investor outcomes.
• Chang, S.S., et al. (2013). Impact of 2008 global economic crisis on suicide: time trend study in 54 countries. BMJ, 347.
• Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Retirement Confidence Surveys.
• Gallup Polls (1960s–2000s). Financial worry and debt stress surveys.
• Kessler, R.C. et al. (1994). DSM-IV pathological gambling prevalence studies.
• Petry, N.M., Blanco, C., Stinchfield, R., Volberg, R. (2013). DSM-5 Gambling Disorder evaluation.
• Ryu, S. et al. (2022). Financial worries and psychological distress. National Health Interview Survey.
• Samuel, L.J. et al. (2025). Financial strain and adult health. Social Science & Medicine.
• Shaffer, H.J., Hall, M.N., & Vander Bilt, J. (1999). Estimating prevalence of disordered gambling in the US & Canada.
• Volberg, R. et al. (Youth gambling prevalence studies).
• Wardle, H., Donnachie, C., Critchlow, N. et al. (2021). Gambling and mental health in young people.