Young Gambling Addict Blew Through $100k On Sports Gambling — But It Didn’t End There

A former college student who previously lost more than $100,000 gambling on sports turned to prediction markets after moving home to Utah, where betting was prohibited.

A man identified only by his first name Chad, began wagering hundreds of dollars a day on Kalshi and lost more than $12,000 on the platform, according to Bloomberg. His experience highlighted concerns about whether prediction markets could entice people struggling with gambling addiction

“It got to a point where it was whatever was next,” Chad told Bloomberg.

After noticing the transactions on her son’s bank statements, the man’s mother (identified by Bloomberg as Andrea), initially did not know what Kalshi was and had to search for information about the company, according to Bloomberg.

Her son struggled with sports gambling and entered treatment for his addiction. After moving back home to Utah, he discovered Kalshi and began using the platform to wager on sports.

Kalshi didn’t respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, but told Bloomberg Chad’s story was “cherry-picked,” and that the company offered a variety of risk-management tools.

The case highlighted concerns that prediction markets could blur the line between investing and gambling for people who have struggled with compulsive betting.

Marlene Warner, CEO of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health, told the DCNF that the lack of a clear regulatory framework made prediction markets difficult to assess from a gambling-health perspective.

“I don’t know enough frankly, we don’t know enough, nothing’s been studied about them, I can’t tell you whether they’re more less or exactly the same in terms of risk level,” Warner said. “But what I do know is they’re in a very gray, unregulated space and that alone makes it difficult.”

Warner told the DCNF that the situation with prediction markets “feels a bit like the wild, wild west right now,” noting that traditional sportsbooks typically operated under state regulations that established what licensed operators could do.

Kalshi rejected the argument that its platform was indistinguishable from a traditional sportsbook. In an August 27 response to a New York Times article about state lawsuits, Kalshi said exchanges and sportsbooks operated differently because Kalshi users traded through an order book rather than against the house.

Kalshi also said it offered “trading breaks, self-exclusion, and deposit limits” and partnered with the National Council on Problem Gambling and Birches Health to address risks associated with retail trading.

“Trading should give you control, not take it away,” Kalshi said on its responsible-trading page, where it listed trading breaks, self-exclusion, deposit limits and mental-health support among its safeguards.

Timothy Fong, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and co-director of the university’s Gambling Studies Program, discussed the risks associated with the expansion of sports betting in an April 2025 interview with SciLine.

“The real issue is the combination of legalizing sports betting, normalizing sports betting, and having sports betting on the phone,” Fong said. “The casino comes to us — the casino is on our phone.”

Fong said gambling disorders affected approximately 1% to 2% of the U.S. population and carried many of the same biological, psychological and social risk factors as substance-use disorders.

The concern was not whether someone lost money, Fong said, but whether they continued gambling despite the resulting harm.

“Gambling disorder is oftentimes characterized by people looking at gambling as a solution to their problems,” Fong said. “It’s when harm becomes the norm.”

A University of Toronto study of Polymarket’s trading history covering more than 2.4 million users and $67 billion in trading volume found that 69% of traders lost money, while the top 1% of profitable users captured 76.5% of all gains.

The researchers found that successful traders tended to provide liquidity through limit orders, while unsuccessful traders were more likely to take liquidity through market orders. The findings did not establish that prediction-market trading caused gambling addiction.

Polymarket didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Trading volume on prediction markets surpassed $55 billion in July, with Kalshi accounting for more than $40 billion, according to Bloomberg. Sports accounted for nearly $19 billion of Kalshi’s July volume.

Prediction markets also faced scrutiny from state officials who argued that sports contracts amounted to gambling and should be subject to state gaming laws.

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Kalshi could not prevent Nevada from regulating its sports prediction markets, finding that federal commodity laws did not override the state’s authority to regulate gambling. The decision conflicted with an earlier federal appeals court ruling that favored Kalshi in New Jersey, potentially setting up a Supreme Court fight over who has authority to regulate prediction markets.

Unlike traditional sportsbooks, prediction markets have been able to offer sports contracts in some states where conventional sports betting remained illegal or heavily restricted. Kalshi faced challenges from state regulators in Arizona, Nevada, New York, Utah, Maryland and Massachusetts, while traditional sports betting remained illegal in states including California and Utah, according to Fox Sports.

Prediction markets and traditional gambling companies were competing for influence in Washington. Kalshi, Polymarket and casino and gaming interests increased their lobbying efforts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections as the industries battled over how prediction markets should be regulated.

Fong said the proliferation of gambling opportunities on phones had changed how Americans interacted with betting.

“We have a tremendous wave of availability and access to gambling, normalization of gambling across all generations in America,” Fong said. “So, you put that wave of more interest and more demand and more people gambling, inevitably, you’re going to—that wave is going to reach some people who have biological, psychological, and social vulnerabilities to gambling disorder.”

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