- July 01, 2026
- Gambling
Saul Malik’s real college education had nothing to do with his major. A fantasy league at eleven years old turned into bookies and $25,000 in debt by twenty-one. Now in long-term recovery, he’s sharing his story by traveling the country and warning young people before they’re in too deep.
Connect with Saul Malek: SaulMalek.com
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Transcript:
SAUL MALEK
I had this gut feeling on some basketball game. When I won that, that was a high like no other.
SHANE COOK
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Wager Danger, a podcast about gambling addiction and recovery. I’m your host, Shane Cook, gambling disorder program director, Gateway Foundation. And on this episode, we’re talking to Saul Malik.
Saul was just 11 years old when he placed his first bet. However, he didn’t realize that it was a bet in his mind. He was managing a fantasy baseball league.
Ten years later, he was $25,000 in debt, juggling bookies and lying to the people who loved him the most.
His parents finally convinced him to go to Gamblers Anonymous, but he would gamble in his car before he walked in the door to the meetings.
Saul came back from the depths of his gambling, and now he’s flourishing in long term recovery.
He travels to schools across the country, talking to students from junior high through college about the truth of how this behavior starts.
It’s not a casino. It’s on your phone with games, loot boxes, apps, and prediction markets.
He tells us how he got in, how he got out, and what every parent and teenager needs to hear right now.
Saul welcome to the show.
SAUL MALEK
Thanks, Shane. Good to be here, thanks for having me on.
SHANE COOK
Tell us a little bit about yourself and, what’s your connection to problem gambling?
SAUL MALEK
Shane, it’s good to see you all the way from rainy Nashville, Tennessee, here today.
I am in long term recovery from gambling addiction that took form in my college years. Now, for the past number of years, I guess around four years, five years, I’ve been working to raise awareness of this issue as a mental health disorder, as well as lead, trainings for prevention professionals on how they can more effectively,
implement gambling, addiction awareness, prevention, education and, doing that full time, full time, work as well as working on my own recovery.
So it’s, it’s, takes up a lot of time these days.
SHANE COOK
Yeah. And I know you’ve had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time over the last several years to share your story of recovery. I think it’s I think it’s really interesting. And I think this message is so important to share, especially from your perspective. And I hope it resonates not only with, with younger individuals, but also resonates with the parents,
that are faced with kind of an uprise of gambling access that individuals have not only not only individuals across the spectrum, but in particular, what’s happening with adolescents, in terms of the grooming process that adolescents can go through, when it comes to gambling?
Take us there and start from that vantage point and how it all developed for you.
SAUL MALEK
You know, Shane, it’s interesting to look back on what one calls gambling or not. Right. I, I started in the fantasy baseball world at the, at that age at, at 11 years old. And it’s not something that I considered gambling at the time. It’s something that I would consider gambling, at least for myself nowadays. You know, going back and looking at those early formative years, I, I can see exactly why sports, fantasy sports, eventually daily fantasy sports, eventually sports betting was all so glamorous, so attractive.
And I’m thinking, as we have this back and forth dialog today, that it would be of interest to see, like, how is this so enticing to young people, especially young men and, how subtle it can progress.
SHANE COOK
Right. So were you were you, an athlete? Is that as a kid, were you playing sports? Was it something that really kind of kind of captivated you on some level? Even if you weren’t playing, did you follow baseball? Did you follow, other sports and really kind of into it?
SAUL MALEK
I guess I would call someone like Victor Wembanyama an athlete. I would say I was someone who enjoyed the hobby of playing sports. I mean, certainly not in any sort of professional capacity, but I did do you know, YMCA basketball, baseball, you know, never very good. But I was drawn to the the world of sports and I believe that that was how I got so interested from the fan side of things was thinking, well, I’m realistic.
I’m never going to do this as a professional or anything. So the next best thing is knowing the most about the game. Following being a fan of the Houston Astros when I was growing up, which then led to the interest in fantasy sports. But I see it as also, you know, we’re talking about being interested in sports, but but I also see that as how was I interested in in making friends with my peers at school. And being a young guy at that age, there was a lot of interest in following sports. And I would say that for me it was like, hey, this is just a seamless transition into making friendships is that we’re all having this shared common interest. So as both, you know, I like to play not great, but, I was a big fan of just watching and studying the game.
SHANE COOK
Okay. So as a as, as a kid, 11 years old, you’re enjoying the fantasy aspect of you. It is a form of gambling. And depending on how, how, large you embrace that. Right. But there had to be a natural progression at some point where you where you made the leap between fantasy sports into directly betting, whether that sports betting or cards or anything else, you know, there’s probably a natural progression. We’ve talked about that with other guests. How did that take form for you when?
SAUL MALEK
When I look back on my gambling career, what I recall from high school, what I had already at this point been in the fantasy baseball league a few years. I recall there being an app that I had that I didn’t even consider gambling per se, but I remember there was a sports app that that I had that my friends also played big win sports, and it was something where you would simulate the outcome of, sporting like baseball, basketball, whatever, with these like virtual characters.
And part of that was opening up card packs where you could unlock players of varying attributes or different attributes to enhance their skill set. And there was a randomness about, am I going to win? Am I going to get this? Am I going to open up this rare pack, which, you know, when we talk about loot boxes and things nowadays, it’s one of those sort of, mechanisms that was a very popular app on the App Store.
And I think, gosh, I was logging thousands of games. Big win baseball. Basketball, I was probably keeping them in business for a few years! And, I think back on that, which I usually don’t bring it up because I see it as a little bit different from actual betting on sports. But it was that sort of priming, I think, to where when a friend of mine had discovered that there was such a thing as DFS like daily fantasy sports my senior year of high school, at this point, I had already I had done fantasy, I had done this app.
And then I thought, well, that that seems really cool, really interesting to me. And so my senior year of high school was when I first got involved in DFS of like, I’m going to put in a dollar to be able to make a lineup for that night. And, you know, that that was, I think, the next step for me.
And then when I went off to college, it was someone who I’d done the daily fantasy contest with an acquaintance of mine who had said he had found a bookie. And do I want to do any sports betting with him? And so I don’t see any defining moment where this thing turned sour or anything like that. It was sort of like, hey, we have the Fantasy League.
Okay? Now I’m doing the daily fantasy. I put it to the side when I went off to college, because I could see how that would be a distraction. And then someone introduced me to this bookie and I thought, what the heck am I? I know sports pretty well. I, I’m a student of the game, so to speak. And what’s wrong with placing a $10 bet on a baseball game?
It’s not something I thought was a significant decision in my life. When I placed my first real sports bet back in 2017, I just, I just had no, second thought about it.
SHANE COOK
All right. So that’s really interesting. sure it’s it’s a, it’s a fair amount of reflection that’s gotten to the point where you can where you can understand where maybe some of these inflection points happened, in your progression. So this sounds like a major one that, really took you in a different direction.
You’re actually working with somebody who’s, who’s placing bets for you, has the ability to extend credit to you, and things like that, which a lot of people don’t fully understand. The whole bookie relationship, until until you’ve been through it or hear the stories from somebody. But so you so you were involved with working with a particular bookie, was that a relationship that you kept, for, a long period of time, or was this kind of an entry point?
And then eventually you found a different avenue or different pursuit, or did you did you grow from this point with that individual?
SAUL MALEK
That bookie was only active for a month or month and a half after I started betting with him, he he and I would text back and forth. Then he made me an account briefly where I was given a line of credit, and then he stepped away from, from the game, from the sports betting bookie situation. So then I used someone else, and then it was this other person who I bet with on credit for some time, and that that was the first time where I, eventually ran into debt over that, over that summer where I turned to my parents, my parents had to bail me out from that situation.
I got more credit than from that bookie because I had paid him. So the credit renewed the next week, and then I felt forced to block his contact because I didn’t have the money to pay him.
SHANE COOK
Okay.
SAUL MALEK
And then that’s where my my junior year of college was, where everything really snowballed because I was finding new bookies, blocking phone numbers, finding someone else, accumulating more credit debt stress, more people coming after me. And, so I didn’t have just one bookie through this whole journey. I mean, I have if you go through my Venmo transactions, I guess they’re on private.
But if I were to go through them, I could see all these different people that I’m Venmo going to pay them back over the years that I had been making these payments, there were occasions where I would deposit if I had some money around, and I’d say, I want to deposit right now, 20 bucks on Bovada, like the offshore account online, where I would deposit up front that a little bit, but I preferred the bookie relationship.
I like the idea that I’m kicking this guy’s ass, you know that he knows knows when I’m winning that he has to go on his phone, go on Venmo, send me this money and know that I was superior in my, picking of the games and everything. And I’m taking that money from him. So if I go sit down and eat a nice steak, it’s on his dime.
Sure. It’s it’s it’s, intriguing.
SHANE COOK
What was the choice or what was the decision being made to do to take that route rather than, one of these one of the these outlets that’s readily available to us today, like FanDuel, or DraftKings or somebody like that that spends billions of dollars on advertising.
SAUL MALEK
I, I preferred, I mean, without having gambled on one of these newer fangled new, you know, platforms recently. I would say having the personal connection with the bookie was attractive to me, to have someone know that I’m beating them. You know, I get direct interaction with them, that they’re sending me the money and they’re easier. You know, you can’t go to DraftKings and say, well, I’ll get you next week, bro.
SAUL MALEK
Let me have more credit with with some cheering, like some college frat kid, you can say, like, bro, like, you know, I’m so-and-so’s boy. Like, I got you, I’ll get you next week. And they’ll say, okay, for sure and like give you another line of credit. So, you know, you don’t have that personal connection. But I think it’s part of it was the timing.
I think it was mainly that I just enjoyed that setup of the Venmo credit bookie situation.
SHANE COOK
All right. So. So give us, give us the give us the the magnitude here. In terms of, you know, at what point, at what point did you recognize, man, I gotta I gotta rein this in. I, I’m, I’m so far in debt. How far in debt were you? You know, and and who’s the source for the majority of the debt and how you were paying this back?
SAUL MALEK
Okay, so if you listen to my demo reel, my speaker reel, at that time, I’d said, it’s $20,000 in debt. But then I looked at some of these guys that I wasn’t able to find on Venmo that I still owed a few thousand to. And I said, no, I think it actually is closer to 25, so I’d say about 25 K in total debt that I.
SHANE COOK
And you’re how old at this point?
SAUL MALEK
When I quit gambling I was 21.
SHANE COOK
Okay.
SAUL MALEK
Yeah. 21. So because I stopped in 2019. So as 21 at the time and, you know, it’s a great question of at what point did I notice and I, I think that it’s in the reason I think it’s a tricky question is because I was not of sound mind at the time of my gambling progression. And so I think to say there was some moment of lucidity that changed everything, I think would be inaccurate.
I would say that there were times in this progression where I would notice, gosh, you know, I’m really I’m lying to my parents and it it hurts. It hurts to see my parents upset when I talk to them on the phone or, you know, I’m driving to a GA meeting because I told them I would go and I’m sitting in my car gambling on my phone like I, I can sense that that’s not right, per se, but satisfying the compulsion takes precedent over any sort of discomfort or, respect for my family or anything.
So I think that throughout this journey there was some sort of awareness I had and I would have moments of like, I’m in my car crying, I can’t do this anymore. This is destroying me. How am I going to tell so-and-so? And how am I going to get the money to pay this guy who keeps texting me? And it wouldn’t stop that compulsion that I had to place the next bet.
So I don’t know if I’m giving you a great answer. I mean, I have a moment that stands out to me early on where I, finally bet like $250 on a basketball game and I hadn’t bet more than like 100 before that, but I just I had this gut feeling on some basketball game, and I, I feel that when I won that that was like a high like no other.
And perhaps at that time I felt like I’ve, you know, I found the, the solution to to life was, was this thing which I guess was not the sense of it is a problem, but I knew I was different. I guess I felt different than what I thought other people felt about gambling.
SHANE COOK
Sure. Okay. So you’re cycling through some highs and lows here. And in your mind, you’re trying to sort through that and start to make some sense of it.
And, you know, ultimately, I think you got to this point where you recognize that you had to do something, because it was it was consuming you at some point. And I, I would imagine it kind of feels like and I think others have described it similarly as everything’s closing in and everything’s coming to a, to a point where, it’s, you know, it’s either Armageddon or redemption, right. And it’s, it’s one of those two paths.
So I was just kind of curious to kind of understand from your perspective, how you interpret that looking back.
SAUL MALEK
Yeah. Looking back, I see this. You know, I think it’s Doctor Custer or whoever it was that talked about the phases of gambling addiction, winning, losing desperation, hopeless phase. And I feel that that does a pretty good job of describing the trajectory that I went on, where early on, I was coming out ahead. In some of these bets, I felt that I had discovered this hack of making a quick income.
In addition, I felt the sort of aura of being this big shot gambler, and I thought that people were going to respect me more for it. And living in this whole delusional world and I think the losing was not so bad when I started to lose more often it’s just, hey, next week or this next bet is a guarantee situation. But you know, when it came down to how it progressed of, well, now I’m doing it more often for higher amounts, betting on more random things, losing sleep over it, you know, kind of the the natural tendency of someone who is addicted or becoming addicted to it. I see that real crossroads or turning point as, not just the financial trouble that I found myself in, but having the, you know, the accumulation of all these consequences of relationships, emotional destruction, mental destruction, anxiety, feeling, almost like really feeling subhuman in my own skin that I’m so itchy and uncomfortable even existing because I know I’m living like someone who’s hiding something 24 over seven. And then that’s not a way to live a decent life at all. And when I finally quit, it was, well, I quit because I didn’t have any credit with any bookies, I didn’t have any money or anything. And, it was actually a month after that. My girlfriend broke up with me over the phone that summer when I was back seeing my parents in Houston.
And, it was just devastating to me to think, well, now I’ve lost this to, like, this relationship where we should have gotten married in the future or something. And then, you know, all this debt. No girlfriend. Don’t even know if I’m going to go back to school for my senior year of college. Just everything was was a failure.
And, I think at that point there was nothing else to do but face like, this isn’t working, and either I’m going to die from this or, you know, go back and take Gamblers Anonymous seriously because I had experience in the meetings before. I mean, my my parents had pushed me to go when I, started my junior year.
So I’d been in the meetings before.
SHANE COOK
Yeah. So you so your parents, were aware of your gambling and probably caught on fairly early, to this, as I think parents kind of have that, innate sense, to, to be able to understand when something’s not quite right, how how how were they through this process.
SAUL MALEK
Their first understanding of, what was going on was because my mom had seen that I was depositing money into my Wells Fargo bank account from these Venmo payments that I was getting from the bookie. Okay. So there was a question my mom had of, where’s this money coming from? And I explained I was doing sports betting and thought that it was this valid side hustle while I was a college student, and she had cautioned me against it.
She’d even mentioned that I had known on my dad’s side of the family that his father had a gambling addiction, and essentially my dad grew up without a father because of that. And, so I was cautioned not to, do this. And so I told her, okay, I’m going to stop. And so what I did was just kept money in my Venmo reserve.
So if I lost, I could pay from that. It wouldn’t show up in my bank account or I, you know, just keep money hidden there. And I figured, well, if I do this for long enough, when enough money, I’ll just move it all into my bank account later and show her, prove to her, hey, I won thousands of dollars and you can see where I was, right?
So I for a while, my parents didn’t know that I was still gambling when I had gotten started. And I recall there was a time where, like, the money I had in my Venmo couldn’t cover my debt, and I needed money from my mom. And she’d said, well, why? I feel like I’ve been keep replenishing your bank account.
Why? Why do you need more money? Right? Okay. Whatever the excuse was. And, it wasn’t until that summer where a therapist I had been seeing at the time had actually encouraged me to tell my parents what was going on because she had feared for my safety with, owing money to this bookie at the time. So I guess really the overarching theme of the experience was my parents knew pieces of the truth through a lot of the developing addiction, which in hindsight, pieces of the truth is just a lie because it’s not the truth.
It’s just like, here’s little bits of what I’m going through. Or I’d say, hey, I went back and gambled again. But I would lie about the amount, or I would wait until I had someone come after me where then I would tell them what was going on. And, you know, my parents are very supportive in the sense that they didn’t want me to get harmed or killed by some bookie.
So a lot of the time they would then ultimately come to my rescue and say, we’ll just pay us back later. I would say their support had changed over my experience. Like toward the end, they were encouraged by the GA people not to bail me out.
SHANE COOK
Right?
SAUL MALEK
So they said, if you you know, if you bail them out, then there’s no chance that he can ever fix this. And so getting okay with that was, was, I believe very difficult for my parents.
But it it’s not something I think was ever really on their radar because they they were always concerned about my well-being in school.
Am I making good grades? You know, I struggled a lot in my behavior growing up with, real bad behavioral issues, ADHD stuff, and that was a big part of their concern. They’d spend all these all this time in doctor’s visits, meeting with the principals and things. And so what parent says, oh, we think that he’s going to go off and have a gambling problem in college.
I don’t I don’t think many, at least at that time, would, would think that.
SHANE COOK
Sure. Okay. So and what was the defining moment for you then when you, you’re like, okay, I’m done. I’m going to focus on you had been participating in gamblers anonymous.
Up until this point I suspect that had something to do with it. But there was there was probably one moment that you could really point to and say, okay, this was a defining moment for me, and I appreciate you sharing how your parents were supportive of you during this process.
And working alongside Gamblers Anonymous as well, and supporting that process for you. But there. Sure. But I mean, ultimately it’s it’s got to be motivated by you. So, there’s got to be a moment that really sticks with you.
SAUL MALEK
I, you know, I was looking back on a lot of messages I had with other people in the program where I’d see different moments in the journey that I thought would be defining moments. March of 2019, saying I could see gambling being the thing that kills me. I need to stop. I need to stop. And then still continuing on gambling again.
Yeah, I would say the defining, the actual defining moment was in August of that year, 2019, where I was a month from my last bet, and that was the moment where my my girlfriend called me and said she’d heard that I was, sneaking around with a different girl behind her back at the time, it was sort of, weird to me in hindsight that this defining moment in my gambling journey was not a final bet that I had placed. It was just risky behavior that was harmful behavior to someone else. And that was ultimately the final straw of why she broke up with me.
And I just remember that being this last thing I’d lost control over was this relationship. And so I believe that wanting to quit gambling, that moment was not motivated for the right reason. I had said to this old timer in GA who I had had sponsor me, even though I wasn’t really taking the program seriously. I had told him, hey, if I can go like six months without placing a bet, will you tell this girl that I have changed and like that I’m, you know, worth getting back together with what you call her on my behalf.
And he had said no, he was not going to do that. And that, you know, he said I was selfish, that I was stubborn. Then I was not working the program, that I had no real shot at sobriety or any long term recovery unless I got serious. He said, go to a meeting tomorrow, call me, call this person, and like actually get to work on on your life because you’re in life or death territory.
And he knew that because prior to that, I’d told him that I’d felt suicidal over my gambling. I mean, I hadn’t devised a plan or anything. It was just more like each day is just so painful to wake up to. But it was really like a last ditch effort to show someone, show this girl. Oh, I’ve changed. It was almost like, I want to be relevant.
I want to be the hero. I want her to come back and notice what an upstanding guy I was. And then I found, having started to really work in the program. Hey, this is a much better life. I feel like I’m making some progress and it was not really about her. It was then about me. And I believe that’s what enabled it to stick was that it became about me right.
SHANE COOK
And and since that time, you, you have, you’ve really taken this experience and you’ve had the ability and, you’ve looked for opportunities to share this with other people. I mean, you’ve got national media attention for your story. You’ve had the opportunity to to actually interact with some, some really, big platforms, and, and share your story.
So let, let’s kind of talk about that because I think you kind of hit it right on the head as you recognize that you have to work on you. And, and the moment you kind of embrace that and began to work on you, you started looking for opportunities to share. And I think that’s that’s unique.
Tell us a little bit about how that got started. And, and you know, how how you were able to at least kind of crack the seam, to have this conversation, on a national stage?
SAUL MALEK
Sure. It’s it’s been a privilege for sure. I finished college, so that was something I was fortunate to go back and finish my senior year, having just gotten into recovery. So I graduated in 2020 right when Covid was starting, which inspired the idea to not rush into the job market and to go to graduate school to become an addictions therapist.
I saw a need in schools first. I thought it would complement the work I was doing to study, to be an addiction counselor. I also, at this point was a few years into recovery and had a connection from one of the state gambling coalitions of someone I knew in recovery who had been approached by the New York Times to talk about young people and gambling.
And so that was my first day. You know, I figured I don’t have a digital footprint to protect. I’m not some celebrity who, you know, will be the subject of a tabloid if they find out I have a gambling problem. Plus, I’m in recovery now, so I think people enjoy those sort of redemption art. Right? So I see I have nothing to really lose by putting my name out.
And yeah, it’d be cool to be in the New York Times. I mean, there was some self motivated, reasoning for that. And so I had that media, I had a couple of these school visits and I was like, hey, I have some content I can put together to start a website. You know, start trying to branch out and do more of this.
And I ultimately did not finish that, that grad program, I wasn’t really enjoying it wasn’t really staying on top of everything I needed to there. So, in 2023, when I left that program, that was when I was really actually getting to do some more traveling outside of just Texas, where I was to do some of these speaking gigs.
And, from there I just started to build more credibility, more trust. I started to develop my programing so that it was still based on my story, but I have more knowledge of the world around me, of the industry. I have more stories to bring in from previous engagements that I conducted and, organically, I’ve just sort of grown it to where I want to, and I feel I am considered someone who is, worthy of being, listened to on the topic and not just some fleeting, oh, he has a cool story.
And then now another guy has a cool story and he’s old news. I’m trying to keep myself up to date, relevant, and, long answer to say it’s, it’s a necessary time in history, I think, to not only talk about this because people say, oh, we need to have more people talking about it. I say, well, why not just have the right people talking about it?
And I want to be one of the right people who has a coherent message, who can interact with, clients and things in a way that gets people to really explore this issue.
SHANE COOK
when you’re out speaking with, younger folks, it could be junior high, middle school, high school, college.
What are the differences in those audiences and what are the different types of things that you talk about with those groups there?
SAUL MALEK
There are definitely distinctions among all of them. I’d say in the younger middle school, age six, seventh, eighth grade, that’s more of the gaming side. The loot boxes, micro-transactions, the fantasy sports leagues, the introductory things and how that behavior can, you know, escalate into more serious gambling. I would say in the high school level, it is more about sports betting and crypto casinos and, prediction markets.
And then what do you what happens when you go off in college, how to be prepared for the invitations to gamble that you will inevitably get from your peers in college and then in college? I would say, because some of these students are of a legal gambling age in the state where they are is, less about the early prevention and more about, well, how do you recognize this behavior as a problem?
How can your fraternity be more, gamble safe when you guys are doing poker night or something? Things like that.
know that these kids are savvy. There’s a lot of references I bring in from social media content and things where even like students that seem quiet, sitting off in the corner, like, you know, they get a real reaction. Like, I’m like, oh, no, this is reaching really the majority of the student body.
And, I’d say I’ve had favorable reactions for the most part. I mean, I, I’m seeing some emails and LinkedIn and Instagram messages of students saying things like, you know, this has helped me think about my relationship with micro-transactions in gaming, in these sort of gambling adjacent things. And I think that’s why it’s so important to not only share just my story, because I’m like, there are kids out there who are not going to be dabbling with bookies from ten years ago or anything like they’re they’re on to crypto, they’re on to microtransactions and things.
And so being able to link these things in a way that that works is great. I mean, I’ve had students who talk to me about things that you might not even consider, like Pokemon card pack gambling or, you know, buying all these cards, hoping I’m going to get a rare thing and I’m going to flip it. I’m going to do that.
And hearing from students that they’ve experienced some problems with things like that. So I’m, I’m, I guess what I’m really hearing is that this is hitting this is landing. There’s very there is a need for it. And students, I believe, respond well to being given information to make their own decisions about gambling versus being told, gambling is evil.
You’re you’re going to hell if you gamble. You know, things like that. I think it’s, a lot more attractive for a student to say, wait, you know, I don’t know that I want to get involved in this.
SHANE COOK
Okay? And from educators that are, working on working with this population on, on a routine basis, on a daily basis. What has been some of the response from them is this is this surprising? In a lot of ways, the things that they’re just not aware of or what’s been your experience there.
SAUL MALEK
I’ve found that there is a very large disconnect between what students are engaging in and what faculty are caught up in, but I don’t blame them. Like you work a full time job as a school admin, you have papers to grade, you have parents to meet with, like you’re not going on TikTok watching rain bet ads in your free time.
So like I, I understand why they’re not so clued in. But at the same time, I think that’s why it is important when working with the school to have some faculty component to it and say, here’s how we can bridge that gap between faculty and student, so that that way the faculty can speak their language a little bit better and, continue on in that education, even when you don’t have the luxury of Saul Malik speaking, walking around your hallways, you know, to be able to continue on in that. So.
SHANE COOK
Yeah, I think it’s an important message for, schools, school teachers, teachers in general, I should say, that are working with the youth population to at least, broach the subject.
And what would be your, your advice to somebody, who was in a position like that that can at least address it and, there’s really an opportunity to create awareness at that level.
as you just demonstrated, a lot of educators or people that are working with our youth, may not know how to do that. So is there anything that’s simple enough that that population could take away and say, okay, there’s at least one thing I could do,
that might make a difference or create a spark for somebody to explore it a little bit more.
SAUL MALEK
I think about all the news that comes out on a regular basis of gambling scandals in athletics, in the pro and college level, and what’s going on with legislation around platforms like Kalshi or Poly Market. And I point to those as here are organic opportunities to have these conversations with students in the athletic department, for instance, or speaking to them in in a math class or something like, hey, today we’re going to talk about gambling in personal finance, gambling and the math behind it.
You know, I think there are ways to organically, promote more education that faculty can look into and say, here are real world examples to make this more engaging, more interesting. Kids are seeing it everywhere. So if we are able to bring it in in that way, then it leads to a more consistent conversation about the issue.
SHANE COOK
Yeah. And bringing it in, introducing it in that manner, can reduce a lot of friction to have these conversations.
SAUL MALEK
Oh, sure. And that’s a good point too, is that it’s not accusatory, I think, or singling someone out, it’s like, hey, this is something we see all over. So, you.
SHANE COOK
Know. Exactly. So I’m glad you mentioned, Kalshi and Polymarket. It’s one of the things that we’ve been discussing quite a bit lately is what are we doing with prediction markets? And, how is the the youth demographic interpreting those outlets? How did they interpret those outlets? Do they did they see it as gambling, or is it, just another platform that allows them to speculate?
SAUL MALEK
You know, it’s it’s interesting, I heard I mean, I hear you’re varying opinions, but some there was a student recently, I heard from who said, well, I think that there is some value to things like prediction markets because they encourage people to analyze or think about the world around them. For instance, like if there is a prediction market on something going on in the government that allows you to use your brain to formulate an opinion of like, well, you know, what’s going on in a war or something, if that makes sense, like it’s promoting some sort of critical analysis of getting people involved in politics or in things that are going on.
It encourages them to do more research on the world around them and make predictions based on that. I think the overwhelming, thought school of thought is that it’s it’s just gambling. I mean, it’s it’s just it is I mean, it’s just dangerous, gambling that opens up this whole floodgate of, gambling on anything whenever, wherever you know, do it through a gamified platform.
And, you know, everyone’s talking about it and it’s disguised as investing. I’m not investing
I mean, that’s clearly betting. So I think that the language has really made it more dangerous for especially young people that want to be investors, you know.
SHANE COOK
Yeah. Now, good insight on that. So I appreciate it.
So, Saul, I really appreciate our conversation here today. And, one thing I’d like to, give you the opportunity to talk about is you’ve created this platform, you’re engaged, on a national level with, various organizations. Where would you like to see this go? And what’s your what’s your vision for progressing this message? Within our communities, across across the US.
SAUL MALEK
I personally see as, as there’s still a very high demand for the services I’m providing now of of speaking in schools, of leading trainings for prevention professionals to just continue on in that effort as, as the demand warrants it. I don’t have an amazing answer because I also wouldn’t have been able to tell you that this is what I would be doing back when I would have given you some canned answer of, I’m going to be a counseling whatever associate.
You know, I don’t know that I ever really, truly saw myself doing that. It just seemed like that’s the right answer. That’s kind of why I went to school. So I, I don’t know, I really I don’t know, I think I’m going to leave that up to whatever direction this naturally seems to push me toward. And my hope is that whatever that is, I’ve developed the credibility, relationships and the skill set to not only know what I’m talking about, but to be a hustler who can, you know, cultivate relationships and network and, you know, be successful and whatever it is.
SHANE COOK
So if we could, extrapolate a little bit more from that, in, in general, is is it your desire to, keep at this for a while and, and and really try to explore areas where you can contribute, and expand the message over time?
SAUL MALEK
I would say yes. I would say my my hope is to stay committed to the gambling recovery, gambling addiction awareness space. Of course there is an increasing need for it. And so my hope and plan is to stay in this field as, as long as I can. Yeah.
SHANE COOK
Well, I, I feel like we’re I feel like we’re just at the beginning of this and, I think it, it’s going to be something, as, as, as a, a specific disorder. I believe it’s going to be with us for a little while.
if you had to take a crystal ball and, and, and look at it and extrapolate from that where you see yourself five years down the road, what does that look like?
SAUL MALEK
I guess my hope is in developing this five years from now. Maybe I have a position with a State Council or something where I’m overseeing on a more, consistent level, the day to day operations of gambling prevention in my state, perhaps, or, you know, with stakeholders on on that level, not just on a one on one gig basis, but like, hey, I’m overseeing what these different regions are doing with gambling prevention.
I think that’s a very fair direction. Possibly.
SHANE COOK
No. And I think that’s an important aspect to to think about because as, gambling continues to evolve, and access to gaming continues to evolve, across the U.S., there’s going to be more and more opportunities for this.
And I think just for the short amount of time that that I’ve been involved in this, in this space, which is about five and a half years, very similar to you.
In slightly different capacities. But, when you look at the, the general landscape, and the acceleration behind the gaming itself, I think a lot of us, at least from the prevention side and from the treatment side.
So I, I look at it from two different, two different angles here. I think we’re doing a bit of catch up, but I think we’re, we’re quickly establishing some equilibrium, here as well. Five years from now, I would anticipate that we’ve got more access, more, states that are, that are, have legalized gambling of various forms available and that, we start to see some regulation or regulatory, activity at a, at a national level rather than, statewide levels.
So I think there’s there’s a lot of room for growth here over time. And I think the more that we, you know, folks like you myself, and various other organizations, the more we can stay connected and working in partnership. The further ahead will be, in terms of, sure, eventually being out in front of this.
SAUL MALEK
Right? That’s that’s the hope. I mean, especially when we can see how, this issue has transpired in, like the UK in different areas where they’re like, dang, you know, we wish we’d done things differently because now it’s really snowballed. Well, I think the US still has a lot of that opportunity.
SHANE COOK
Yeah. And, and, we have some good guidance to look at, between some of the, some of our European friends, and their, their access to gambling, because there, there are a few paces ahead of us, at least in Europe and Australia in particular.
SAUL MALEK
Yeah, I hear Australia. There’s a lot of no shortage of gambling over there.
SHANE COOK
Yeah all right. Saul, I really appreciate having you on the show today. And, and having you come in and share your experience with us and some of the great things that you’re doing in our communities.
SAUL MALEK
Oh, thanks for having me, Shane. It was good to put a face to the name and to be part of this awesome podcast that you that you have.
SHANE COOK
Excellent. Well, I appreciate it. Again, I and best of luck to you.
SHANE COOK
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