Only a matter of months after his 12-step meetings in a church basement transitioned to Zoom calls with the pandemic lockdown, a former sports bettor named Robby started seeing the next generation of problem gamblers begin to show their faces on his computer screen.

He noticed the first new members once legalized sports betting launched in Colorado in May of 2020, and saw their numbers increase after major U.S. sports returned to action following a COVID pause. The faces, almost all of them young men, tell stories that echo his own past: A fun social activity with friends somehow veered off the rails.