From Barron's, July 10, 2025:
U.S. VC firms have invested $2 billion in gambling businesses in recent years. At least six of the firms are simultaneously betting on problem gambling treatments.
Alumni Ventures got in early on the sports betting trend. In 2017, the New Hampshire–based venture-capital firm was part of an initial round of investment that raised $2 million for Sleeper, a fantasy sports and betting app. Four years later, Sleeper was valued at $400 million. This past August, Alumni made a new bet—this time on gambling addiction treatment, investing $1.5 million in Kindbridge Behavioral Health.
Alumni isn’t the only one getting in on the pair trade. Bettor Capital, a VC firm devoted entirely to gambling, invested in Kindbridge in March. In all, Barron’s identified six VC firms simultaneously invested in gambling and gambling treatment. Most didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The investment thesis is straightforward: As more people gamble, more will eventually develop a gambling problem and seek help. Venture-capital firms see the market for treatment growing in lockstep with the market for gambling.
Tracy Barba, director of the Lucas Institute for Venture Ethics at Santa Clara University, says the paired investments are a clear “conflict of interest” without historical precedent.
“Nobody’s telling them they can’t do this,” Barba says. “When there’s no regulation, no rules, and there’s no consequences or accountability, the only thing that is going to be driving their decision-making is internal revenue return.”
Boston-based Will Ventures has a stake in both Birches Health, a telehealth gambling treatment firm with an “empathetic online care model,” and a stake in BetHog, a crypto casino and sportsbook that calls itself “nakedly degen,” short for degenerate.
All told, U.S. VC firms have invested $2 billion in gambling businesses since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling opened the door to nationwide sports betting in 2018, according to PitchBook. As a business, treating problem gambling is still in its early stages, with VCs generally participating in so-called seed round funding for treatment firms.
As the gambling industry has realigned itself toward a younger audience that prefers virtual betting, treatment is becoming more tech-forward, too: Casinos and in-person therapy are out; smartphone bets and app-based recovery are in....
....MUCH MORE
If one is interested in all things dopaminergic including signaling pathways and reward deficiency syndrome these prior posts may be of interes:
UK Announces New Crackdown On Predatory Addictive Gambling Games
This stuff is just evil. Deliberately using a human being's neurophysiology against them to extract every last penny that can be had, and destroy lives as they do it is nasty....
Previously on the dopamine channel:
Engineering Addiction Into Your Product: Lessons From the Professionals
The pros in this case being the gaming gurus at Gamasutra, November 13, 2017:L.A. Startup Dopamine Labs Manipulates Your Neurotransmitters to Hook You On Apps (and maybe unhook you)
Compulsion Loops & Dopamine in Games and Gamification....
The obsessive checking behavior some users exhibit is virtually indistinguishable from obsessive-compulsive disorder while the anxiety occasioned by withdrawal sure looks miserable.
We have quite a few posts on dopamine cascades and D4 receptors:
Want to Make Big Money? Engineer A Little Addiction Into Your Product
New
York Fed On "Anxiety, Overconfidence, and Excessive Risk Taking"
(pathological gambling and self-manipulation with booze and blow)
Ethanol: "Why Coffee, Cigarettes and Booze Can Be Good For You"
Your Brain and Financial Bubbles
"Your genes affect your betting behavior"
See also "Pleasure Dissociative Orgasmic Disorder"
Engineer a Little Addiction Into Your Product - Redux
From Dilbert.com:
December 15
December 21
There are three more in the series, very topical.
Previously in non-Dilbert commentary:
Dec. 11
Climateer Line of the Day: Neurotransmitters and Facebook Edition
Dec 3
"The Neurochemistry of Smartphone Addiction"
Sept. 25
Dopamine Labs: "Meet the tech company that wants to make you even more addicted to your phone"
Sept 24
"If You Want To Be Happy, Listen Up. Now! alternative title: The FT's Izabella Kaminska Is...".
And dozens and dozens more including the namesake 2015 post "Want to Make Big Money? Engineer A Little Addiction Into Your Product"
Finally, from the journal Cell:
