The researcher exposing America’s hidden gambling crisis

A house. A career. A college degree. A family.

Dr. Carolyn Hawley has spent years studying how gambling addiction quietly strips those things away.

Not just money. Futures.

“We made gambling available 24 hours a day and then act surprised when people become addicted,” she says.

The unseen addiction

For millions of Americans, gambling no longer requires a trip to Las Vegas or a casino floor. It lives in their pockets – on smartphones via sports betting apps, video games and social feeds.

And according to Hawley, one of the nation’s leading researchers on gambling addiction, the country legalized this new era of gambling far faster than it built protections around it.

Since the Supreme Court opened the door for legalized sports betting nationwide in 2018, gambling has become deeply woven into American culture. Odds scroll across sports broadcasts. Betting apps promise instant rewards. Online platforms operate around the clock.

At Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a university known for its research excellence, Hawley has become one of the most influential voices trying to close that gap.

A professor in VCU’s College of Health Professions and director of the Virginia Partnership for Gaming and Health, Hawley studies what experts often call a hidden addiction because, unlike substance abuse, its warning signs can remain invisible until someone reaches financial, emotional or legal collapse.

“You can hide gambling much longer than you can hide alcohol or drug use,” she says. “Especially now. You can gamble anywhere.”

The unwinnable cycle

Part of what makes gambling addiction so powerful, she explains, is that the brain responds not only to winning but also to anticipation – the possibility of a win, the uncertainty, the near miss.

Eventually, gambling stops being fun and becomes compulsive.

“It becomes this cycle,” she says. “What’s hurting you is also what you believe will save you.”

Yet despite the rapid growth of legalized gambling in the United States, federal funding for gambling- addiction treatment and research remains remarkably scarce. Unlike with substance-use disorders, the country still lacks even a basic national framework for prevention, treatment and recovery.

So, Hawley helped build one.

Building what didn’t exist

Working through VCU and alongside state leaders, clinicians and recovery specialists, Hawley helped create Virginia’s coordinated gambling-treatment network, one of the only university-led systems of its kind in the nation.

But Hawley’s work doesn’t stop at research. Through the Virginia Partnership for Gaming and Health, she and her team oversee the state’s gambling helpline, train mental-health providers across Virginia and connect people to counseling and recovery support regardless of their ability to pay.

Hawley realized early that research alone would not be enough. Through continuing education programs, provider networks and regional recovery specialists, VCU is helping to create a lifeline of counselors trained to recognize and treat gambling disorders.

The impact has been undeniable. Today, 93 percent of Virginians who contact the state’s gambling helpline are connected with treatment providers within one week – a turnaround time virtually unheard of in mental-health care.

That speed matters. Research shows that gambling addiction carries one of the highest suicide-attempt rates among addictive disorders.

“Every data point represents a person,” Hawley says. “That’s what keeps me grounded.”

The uncommon response

At VCU, colleagues supported the work long before gambling addiction became a mainstream public-health issue. Hawley credits the university’s willingness to embrace difficult, unconventional problems as one reason Virginia has emerged as a national model for gambling-health infrastructure.

“We just kept moving forward,” she says. “Nobody said stop.”

That persistence is important because the crisis Hawley studies often hides in plain sight. A young man betting alone on his phone during the big game. A parent checking odds while watching football with a 7-year-old. A college student chasing losses at 2 a.m. from a dorm room bed.

On Hawley’s poker table, the chips are not dollars.

They are futures.