- October 06, 2025
- Gambling
Through his own journey, Jon-Pierre Miccuci developed a passion for contributing to the field of gambling recovery and is keenly focused on the gaps he noticed that often leave people struggling with this hidden addiction. From losing everything to becoming an innovative voice in gambling prevention, John Pierre brings his passion and perspective to a campaign called “The Fix,” a communication strategy for people who are tired of lying about their gambling.
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JON PIERRE
We all have two lives, and the second one starts when we realize we only have one.
SHANE
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Wager Danger, a podcast where we discuss gambling addiction and recovery. I’m Shane Cook, gambling disorder program director at Gateway Foundation, and our guest on this episode is Jon Pierre Miccuci. Jon Pierre shares with lived experience with us and tells his story of secretly borrowing money from dozens of friends during the pandemic to feed his gambling addiction, all while keeping it hidden from his fiancee to how he finally found the strength to quit by attending Gamblers Anonymous groups.
As a result of his own journey, John Pierre became passionate about contributing to the field of gambling recovery and changed his career to focus on the gaps he noticed, gaps that often leave people struggling with this hidden addiction. From losing everything to becoming an innovative voice in gambling prevention, John Pierre brings his passion and perspective to a campaign called The Fix, a communication strategy for people who are tired of lying about their gambling.
This is a conversation about innovation. Second chances, and why sometimes the biggest solutions come from the most unexpected places. Welcome to the show, Jon Pierre!
JON PIERRE
Thank you. Good to be here.
SHANE
All right. Hey.
JON PIERRE
By the way, this has been a great, series. So glad to be here.
SHANE
Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. It’s been, It’s been enlightening. It’s been a learning experience for me. And I think we’ve gotten some really good content from some of the guests we’ve had over the years. And I know that you have lived experience that, you’ve shared on other formats. I believe you had an opportunity to speak with Rob Audette, and his show, his new podcast that he’s doing.
So, if you wouldn’t mind, I think that would be a good background for the listener to understand and hear where it is you’re coming from when it comes to gambling disorder, problem gambling.
JON PIERRE
You got it. Thank you. And I will start, I’m going to I think it’s helpful to start with something that someone told me right when I came clean. The big time, there was kind of two iterations of coming clean. But the second time I came clean, I was my landlord at the time was, psychotherapist, and he has known me since I was really young.
And he when I told him about what had happened for the last couple of years, he said, you know, immediately he said, you know, you’ve been gambling your whole life one way or the other. And it and, and I really wasn’t a gambler until much later in life in terms of really like, disordered, compulsive gambling. Sure. And so to hear that, I can take a big step back and just think about things like my career, moving decisions to get an MBA, like they all were very in the moment, looking back, gambling.
There was nothing, you know, when I do the pathology or the. What is it? The pathway questionnaire for myself. I’ll kind of, like, self-diagnose myself. I’m definitely the what I feel is the the third, the third group that that feels to me like a little bit of the, impulsive ADHD person, which is, you know, you’re you’re born young with that.
So to think back on, like, all my decisions I’ve been making had a little bit of, like, an impulsive gambling feel to it makes perfect sense. And so, so to walk you like to to think about that. Self-employed in my 20s. Meanwhile. Always like aware that when I gambled, I really liked it. I luckily never got two out of, two out of touch with substances and drugs.
I mean, engage like a kind of a normal young person. Sure. But definitely would go to the casinos with my friends, let’s say every three months, four months during college, we drive there. I would be the first person to lose the, you know, $300 that we all showed up with to try to change our lives or who knows what.
And and you know, that was there scratch tickets here and there. If I went to Vegas with friends for something, it was like I never did anything crazy. But I always felt felt the feeling of, like, the high, the dopamine. There’s just like, whoa. I know I’ve been at that time. Let’s see, there was a girlfriend when I was 24 and another one when I was like 34, and both of them, we walked into a casino, and the first thing they said, it was like, I don’t ever want to see this person again.
Like, I, I’ve morphed and I disappeared, and I was like a completely different human. So cut, you know, I was born in 77, so I’m 47 now. So you cut to 40 young 40s. What was that? Right before the pandemic. So probably six months before Covid. You know, I’m, in a job that I’m not loving.
I’m in a relationship that I, you know, love my partner. But we were just in it after 7 or 8 years, and, and, like, one night I was like, wow, I can get online and gamble and and that was it. Like, I literally was 0 to 1000. I believe that, like, I look back and it was I started off with poker.
I started off with online poker for about a couple months, and I immediately moved to online slots. And the kind of joke to myself was that I was better at online slots than poker, which is like which is almost, you know, conceivably impossible. But yeah, I mean, it’s like I, yeah, I hit it super hard. Within 4 or 5 months, I was using a work credit card to, you know, try to chase losses and deal, came clean, a couple of months before the pandemic came clean, at least to my family and my fiancee.
Definitely, like, caused a fork in the road in that regard with life. But when the pandemic hit, we we reconnected and thought, okay, let’s try, like, sure, you had a six month crazy run, but it’s fine. And I told myself that too. And we, I moved back in together. But when the pandemic hit, I relapsed within minutes, and I spent two years, then really hitting it super hard because we’re locked in totally a, you know, when I learned about terms like financial infidelity, the kind of lying I was up to at that point, unfortunately, because you’re, you know, you’re locked in with one person and you’re still figuring out in the house
how to gamble for 4 or 5 hours a day. Sometimes it’s sneaking around. It’s totally gnarly and sad. And when I confessed two years later, at that point, I borrowed from, you know, again, the pandemic has such a theme for my experience because at that point I’m mid 40s. I’m calling friends to say, hey, I got, you know, I’m lying about saying I got, my salary did get cut a little bit because our business, the business I was working at at the time was having hit.
Hey, can I borrow a thousand bucks? You know, they would Venmo it. Not even remember, like everything was just so crazy. In a way, it would been the type of thing I check in and out a year later to be like, hey, I’m going to give you that money back. And they’re like, what money? So money started coming in in all sorts of directions, and the first time I borrowed and and lost it within a day, it just give me the green light to borrow from everyone I could that, you know, I knew and 25 people later, another run in with a company that I was spending money I shouldn’t have.
And right as the pandemic was ending, I confessed again to my fiancé. And that’s when, like, real treat, that’s when I, like, figured out what a treatment plan looked like for myself. And hit it super hard. Yeah. And how to I mean, it was like, it was it was crazy. I was doing 1099 income, which is a very common way to, like, create a dump load of debt and problems because you are clearly not reserving, you know, if you’re the 1099 money for taxes.
So I’m spending two years accumulating tens of thousands of dollars of debt through the IRS, all sorts of things. You know, it’s like it added up extremely fast. And I, I always I love the stat I heard around when you ask a gambler after a good like two or 3 or 5 year run how much they think they lost and they’re usually at like 20 to 25% of the real number, you know, and, and I’ve always when I sponsor people now I often especially the when we get into it and we’re at that point we do talk about the money.
I’m always kind of reconciling that data point to hear what they say. And it holds true for my experience. It’s amazing. And so, yeah, it was it was what it was. You know, like I all of a sudden had to go through the experience of, you know, there was a quote that really helped me that I heard early on, which is we all have two lives.
And the second one starts when we realize we only have one. And and it was it it really, like, set the right mindset for like, okay, this is a, definitely restart. Like, my whole relationship, especially with all the lying that goes on, you know, your whole relationship with like, your value system, all the people in your life, it is it totally gets reset and and in a beautiful way because I’m that’s where I’m at now, three years later, it’s a really neat opportunity.
In the moment, that’s not obviously what you’re telling yourself, but that’s what’s happening. And the, you know, the sooner you can get to that place, obviously the better. And, that was, you know, that’s what it was. And, and it was probably, you know, to finish off like that part of it, the it was probably six months later, I couple of observations I was having around, okay, what am I going to do for my career if I’m starting a second life, like let me wipe the slate clean.
At that point, I had been doing some disaster relief consulting in DC. I had done some brand strategy work in San Francisco. I wedged an MBA in between that. That was a very, different cool MBA program at an art school. It was all about like innovation. And, you, you know, consumer insights and consumer research on, how to do design thinking.
So it was like I was all over the map and I realized, okay, what am I going to do for work? I realized because I wasn’t saving a relationship, which is a weird insight, but I was I started off my GA cohort with three other people who at all were lying to their spouse like I was okay.
SHANE
And you all three came in at the same time.
JON PIERRE
All four of us having a call in, like, yeah, four of us, all four of us had to come in or managed to come in within, you know, 30, 40 days of one another. And it was really helpful. And, you know, at that time, I’m looking at my career and I’m thinking, okay, what am I going to do next?
I’m starting The Second Life. I’ve had an interesting, 20 to 25 years of professional experience. I remember being aware of the opportunity that I was, that I had, that others didn’t. And so when I remember starting the GA program, I, I happened to start with three other three other guys that we had all really like, just committed some serious financial infidelity to our spouses.
And so and, and I was the one that moved out. They a couple of them had kids. So they were trying to save their relationship. All three of them were trying to save the relationship. And that is that is a whole different world of time. Like, I, I just really respect how different the opportunity that I was given, which again, in the moment that didn’t feel like an opportunity.
I’m like sad and heartbroken, like, why am I not? Well, you know, but you know, when you look back and you’re like, okay, I got to really like sink in to recovery quickly and and give it its all its attention. And like I said, six months later, I’m still in that space where I’ve, I’ve gotten different opportunities in other people’s path.
And I was like, wow, I could actually I could actually invest the time to change my career because it does take, you know, it does take you not trying to support a kid and a wife. You know, I knew it was going to be a big salary hit and stuff like that. So I was like, well, I got that opportunity and others don’t.
So that’s interesting. And then, you know, this is all on like the decision of like, wow, could I work in the field? And which is definitely a, for a lived experience gambler is still a, you know, even a couple years ago was a different experience. There wasn’t a ton of us. And it was finally the moment of like, if I do that, am I okay with the world knowing that this was my, you know, embarrassing life to some extent, like I have?
I don’t say that with, trying to attach a stigma to it, but in the moment, that’s how it feels, right? Sure. And totally different, you know, not the words I would use now just to like the way I’ve framed even what addiction is in the Grand scheme of things or what having a gambling disorder was. But in that moment, you’re just like, wow, my LinkedIn is going to say I work in problem gambling.
It kind of begs the question, why? After 25 years for all my friends, family, everybody, any colleague I’ve ever had, any, any anyone I’ve ever interacted with, it’s coming out. And I was like, who cares? Like, I it felt like a little mini calling. There was definitely a conversation I was having with like my, you know, bookie grandfather that taught me how to play cards.
And my father, who passed away when I was young and never gambled. I’m like, this is it. I gotta do it. Pull them, pull the Band-Aid off. And luckily found, I found a gig first at an advocacy group. A national advocacy group. I met a guy named Les Bernal who runs Stop Predatory Gambling. It’s a national advocacy group.
SHANE
He’s amazing. I met him, yeah. He’s amazing. It’s in DC, right?
JON PIERRE
Yep, yep. Reached out to him, did a little bit of just, like, volunteer freelance work for a few months. And then luckily I found a great opportunity at a, public health nonprofit called Health Resources and Action. They had a opening to be the project manager of their problem gambling helpline. So they they were the contracting officer for the state of Illinois, the state of Massachusetts, to run their one 800 gambler and the and the mass number and did that for a couple years and, wrap that up in the beginning of April.
And now on to kind of like the next phase of how I’m going to, you know, really spend, you know, have a passion, have a purpose for the first time in my life and spend the next whatever I got in the tank ten, 15, 20 years to like, try to really make a dent in this field again with the with the brand of both lived experience, professional experience and now having a really like amazing understanding of how the public health world approaches addiction gambling where we’re at in 2025 in America.
Yeah.
SHANE
That’s great. Thanks. Thanks for going through that, kind of providing that backstory. A lot to unpack there. So I want to go back on a couple of points.
JON PIERRE
Please.
SHANE
You had mentioned initially what drew you into gambling was it sounded like casino based. And then once the advent of online gambling, becomes available, it hits a totally different gear. Right. So what do you attribute that to? Is it just pure access or. I mean.
JON PIERRE
It’s just a great question. You know, I used to say online slots were like Tetris meets scratch tickets, okay. Because I, I, I was I’m not a gamer. I, I didn’t even play video games that much in college. But I was five years old. I got an Atari eight years old. I got a Nintendo nine years. I got a Sega.
Like I hit from five years old to 13. I logged an inordinate amount of video gaming. Okay. And I do think that that, you know, just that kind of connection with the screen. Right? Is an invitation to all of a sudden if you also, enjoy the allure of when I was in a casino, you know, and I was always playing the classic kind of like, the two versions of, you know, the way I, the way I understand even things like the, the binge gambling versus the social gambling or the, escape gambler versus the, you know, there’s a couple, like, personas that the public health world has come through on
research. I definitely was, craps slots, like rags to riches. Okay, let me let me try to do the high risk games that were, like, a lot of fun. I didn’t care about the strategy. I mean, I was a math major, I was a I was an accounting major and a math major for a couple of years.
So it’s not like I couldn’t have figured out, like, the 1.8% Vig and Bakura and try to, like, fight through, you know, like, make me make my money and live my time. But I was into the yeah, the same kind of ADHD pathology young of the video game. I just feel like that kind of interaction with the screen was definitely appetizing.
And so there was also a part of me that was to either lazy or not willing to just drive the hour to casinos, you know, because I have the ability is a real thing. I mean, I do believe that it’s not even just the ease. It’s not that I think the ease of the money is also a thing.
Like, I know online once, once you’re in that world, all of a sudden there’s just an electronic ways to have like lie and lose, like all those things contributed to it. But, you know.
SHANE
It really eliminates the friction, right?
JON PIERRE
Eliminates all the friction. It’s unbelievable.
SHANE
Yeah. So, during this time, I’m just curious where where were you residing?
JON PIERRE
Where you.
SHANE
Coast.
JON PIERRE
Or. I was in the West coast? Yeah.
SHANE
You were so, curious.
JON PIERRE
Legal? Yeah. All offshore. UK, Australia, new Zealand.
SHANE
Oh, no, I’m talking about the physical locations. I mean, you had you had physical casinos nearby in California.
JON PIERRE
Oh, yeah. There is, there’s one about an hour away. That is on a reservation.
SHANE
Reservation? Okay.
JON PIERRE
And then there’s card rooms, all over San Francisco and Oakland, which is a big that’s one of the big, bigger industries in California. Our card rooms. And they’re always they’re always in the conversation when, when lobbying is happening and they’re changing laws, they have a big play. They have a big role in how things are gonna unfold, going forth.
They want a piece of the pie, obviously. So it’s a fight between like what the card rooms are getting access to, what the tribes are getting access to and how they’re going to partner with one day, a sports betting industry coming here. You know, I mean, it didn’t pass in 2022. It was on the ballot, lost pretty considerably.
But it’s the whatever where California’s about the fifth biggest economy in the world. Fourth biggest. Now, I mean, it is it’s not a matter of if but when knowing the kind of lobby money they can put behind it. So, but yeah, it was yeah. So we do have some, we do have some land based opportunities, but I was doing the, you know, but with that we don’t have any gaming obviously at that time.
We’re talking 2021. Right. When was the pandemic in 2021? Nothing like nothing existed. You know, they just started sweeps casinos. There was a couple poker apps you could sneak on sweeps. It’s like, kind of sneaky way to play online. Okay. On a sneaky way of doing gaming where you’re, you know, Rob is really good at talking through all these, like, different ways.
But for me, it was like they they made it as easy as possible. I mean, one of the things right now I worry about are I gaming and old people because as the AI gaming comes, I just feel like the part of the a part of the frictionless ness that they’re so good at is how easy it is to be able to log on and all of a sudden start spending money, and it is like point and click stupid.
And and when I know all of a sudden older people are alone, sitting around not knowing what to do, and they have, 3 or 4 different sources of money and different accounts through pensions, through this and through that, the, the, the ease in which they’re going to be able to like.
SHANE
Yeah.
JON PIERRE
You know, market to it’s just scary.
SHANE
It’s interesting you mentioned that I was I was actually driving yesterday. I look over next to me, were stopped at a stoplight, three older adults, and I mean older than me by maybe 20 years, which is, you know, I would have guessed somewhere late 70s to mid 80s. These people were two women in the front, one gentleman in the back, and his head was buried in his phone.
And I just thought to myself, is this guy sitting there? Is he playing a game or is he wagering I just what is it that’s got his attention? Because it’s it’s unusual to see older adults of that age.
JON PIERRE
He’s so engaged.
SHANE
To be so engaged in a phone.
JON PIERRE
Especially. I mean, I totally agree, that makes a lot of sense. And I you know, we’re both in this world now. So I think our spidey sense is particularly sensitive to. Yeah. Like that’s a great example of, how I react to things now. It’s like anytime I hear a friend say, oh, my aunt sister just moved in with my aunt because something happened with her landlord, and and she lost her job and the whole everything from there on out.
I’m like, she’s gambling her life, you know, like. Yeah, there’s just too many moments now where I hear anything either about financially or I see the kind of engagement that you’re talking about. And I immediately jump to, like, I mean, it’s so prevalent that I don’t think it’s a poor jump to conclusions. You know, it’s way the hits behind addiction.
It is totally easy to hide. And so I think if we’re saying we only actually are aware sometimes of studies or like we’re only aware of one out of 20 gamblers that are doing it, that’s the 19 and 2019 to 20. You’re out there in the back seat on the app, you know, doing what you just saw in the backseat, or, you know, the aunt’s friend moving into the house because and she’s not saying anything.
I mean, it’s a lot of, you know, some of the things we’ll talk about later, it’s the hidden part of it is definitely one of the things I think we we could just hammer home and really unpack. Yeah. And see how we can improve things like intervention or or leaning in on really like, different treatment programs.
SHANE
Well, that’s a great segue at that, because you’re looking forward here in terms of where you envision yourself being and, you know, share, at least share with us what from your perspective, what that vision looks like for, where you’re headed here and. Yeah. Thank you. And in the final years of your career.
JON PIERRE
Yep. So to it, two ways to answer that. One is I definitely still am curious just from like a job job what the right next step is. Being around the advocacy world for a little bit, being around being around a helpline, I see that as kind of like a point of intervention, obviously. So sitting right in between, let’s say, like prevention and treatment is a moment of intervention.
So what I picked up in those things and where I, where I want to play next, I’m not I’m not even sure yet from a job, but I know there’s a couple pet projects that I’m taking this time to finally launch. And one of them, yeah, one of them is really just like trying to take a step back and start to put out content and ideas through, you know, it’s probably going to be, channels like this where I can actually just share about, you know, brainstorm with someone like you who’s in and as well and, and see how we can start to fix certain things that or, you know, not even try to
fix, like we have all the answers, but trying to ignite some innovation and brainstorming into gambling. Okay. Gambling, gambling disorder.
SHANE
Well, let me take a different approach here, because you and I, you and I have talked about this in a few different contexts and, a few different venues, even, where we’ve had this conversation. But, as I understand it, you’ve got you’ve got a, a vision for partnering with or I don’t know if partnering is the right way to put it, but supplementing what’s available in the public health space.
You had shared with me some kind of a list of intersecting points.
JON PIERRE
Sure. Yeah. I mean, a.
SHANE
Continuum where you believe we can make some progress, either in the behavioral health field or with people that are experiencing disordered gambling.
JON PIERRE
Right. That’s perfect. That’s a great way to frame it. So I’m going to connect the two dots from what I sort of introduced with what you’re speaking about when I take a step back now, my, you know, what my opportunity of what I’ve seen experience in life, different careers. I know that when gambling became a real thing for the public health world, 2013 DSM greenlights it as a legitimate, you know, disorder in line with substance use and alcohol.
It kind of created a moment in time where I think, for better and some for worse, public health comes in and kind of copy and paste everything we’re doing in the, in, substance use and alcohol world and applies it to gambling. Part of that is insurance based, treatment center based. There’s a lot of reasons. Part of it is good research and reality around the fMRI that we’re doing and gambling, digging, gambling up like, like some really like speedy drugs.
Even so, I don’t only get it, and, and there are some, like, practical things around intervention and treatment programs that I definitely want to figure out how to get on the street. And for now, blogging about it, talking about it, it’s going to be the first pathway. So we can talk about a couple of those in a, in a second.
I think they’re a private conversation. And but I’ll just finish the loop or close the loop on where that’s also led, which is taking even a bigger step back of like, wow, because we have a 50 state approach right now. What I’m versus a federal approach.
SHANE
Right. What you mean is independent states are approaching it very differently.
JON PIERRE
And they and.
SHANE
There’s no consistency.
JON PIERRE
There’s no either consistency. But because, you know, one of the one of the biggest challenges without having, federal budget or this being a federal initiative, everyone talks about the money. That’s definitely a thing. There’s no federal money coming in from SAMSA and that. But what it’s also preventing is, kind of an aggregation of what the best practice is.
Right? And so what you have instead is all of a sudden 50 gambling divisions and public health departments across the country doing the best they can. But and there are definitely certain conferences and things like that where they can cross-pollinate. But I think it doesn’t. Just letting the things that are really working elevate and make it easy, or even having, you know, other opportunities to just say, hey, part of figuring out what we need to figure out is putting out even bad ideas.
And when state budgets are so tight, they can’t even take those kind of risks where when you got to a big federal budget, you can start putting out campaigns and other things that maybe hit or miss. So.
SHANE
Right. Well, a great example of that. I’ll just, chime in here is the one 800 number, right? One 800 gambler. We’ve yet to settle on that as a nationwide help line.
JON PIERRE
Help line.
SHANE
And you see these commercials in different states where that same commercial might be in different states, but they have to list off all the different states and all the different. Unbelievable is so confusing at the end. So it’s a little things like that that I think really highlight what you’re talking about. Yeah. And there’s, there’s got to be at least on some level, a way that we can nationalize some of these programs.
JON PIERRE
I agree, and nationalize at this point, you know, nationalize, a forum for things that work. You know, they’re even even when you look at certain like, there’s some, some non-profits that are good at creating awards or trying to publicize campaigns. Are you really winning? How to how to really good, you know, response a couple years ago at the National conference for CPG.
Right. But yeah, so some of this is relating to lived experience. Some of it is relating to just having a platform to say like, hey, these are some insights coming in and, and also, you know, having a, having a forum for elevating other people’s ideas. I mean, at this point, I’m going to be putting out through some, some framework of, of kind of channel.
So I know and, you know, in the public health sphere, it really helped me to learn because I was going in, you know, I’ve done, yes, some of the disaster relief work I did after Katrina was actually a decent framework to, to, to learn kind of a triage mindset to when you’re approaching problems and public health. Certainly, you know, are they’re amazing at it.
And some of the frameworks learning on how they even approach the problem from 30,000ft. It’s like the difference between awareness and prevention, the difference between prevention and treatment, the difference between treatment and recovery, like these are some of the big pillars of, you know, where even money gets funneled. It’s like it’s going to be through an event, an awareness program, a prevention program, or a treatment program or recovery program, things like research and advocacy.
These are like pillars of what’s out there in the ether. So, you know, what can we do to just help, like help gamblers, you know? And so even jumping in, I can jump into the first thing that I’m right now working on, is something I’ve been calling, Tri Ops. Okay. And some of this, you know, some of where I approach these things is I kind of try to think about it.
Soup to nuts in terms of even the, the, the branding effort that’s going to go out there because any good treatment program, it’s only as good as how well it’s marketed or reaches the consumer. Right. And, and this is a particularly hard consumer because, we love hiding. So even if there’s like the perfect treatment program out there, how are we going to get them to kind of, bite the apple and say, come and try knowing that they are trying, you know, they’re trying.
The hidden recovery often is what I say. So IOP programs specifically, I say Tri-Ops because these would be, targeted. Go ahead.
SHANE
No, I was going to say because that’s interesting. I’ve never heard that term hidden recovery. What, what do you mean by that? Can you.
JON PIERRE
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of people. It’s funny when I, when I host my GA Wednesday night programs, the last thing I do when we, you know, before you read the Serenity Prayer, you give a moment of silence to groups of people. And my first group of people is always the people doing hidden recovery, which are, you know, they’re white knuckling it.
They’re trying to keep it from their wife. Still, they’re trying to just like, figure out how to control, mainly stop gambling, but even try to control it without letting anyone know, not having a therapist, not going to a GA meeting, not telling their wife, not telling their parent, not telling a friend they aren’t hit it. They’re keeping it hidden and taking it to the grave.
They’re figuring out how to how to deal with the losses and in in the substance use and alcohol world, they actually refer to this, I’ve heard as natural recovery. So this would be, again, just trying to do it on your own with no peer support. No professional support. And it is, it is a very appetizing option because again, of the, the shame around, the money losses in the activity and the, the propensity and ability that we have to hide it, it’s like it’s right there for the taking, you know, you’re like, oh my God, if I can hide the addiction, I could probably hide the recovery.
And it is hard. I mean, that is a like I give the moment of silence to those people because I’m like, if you can do it, I’m all for it. However, you can treat yourself and and do better, in the battle against gambling, I’m all for. But I know that is a really tough challenge. So yeah.
SHANE
Well, how do you how do you break through that? I mean, have you have you thought that thought about that?
JON PIERRE
So, so so that’s a great question.
SHANE
That’s like an area that could utilize or use some focus or some ideas on how to break that cycle. For an individual. Is it, is it I mean, part of it’s got to be disturbing to this day.
JON PIERRE
Stigmatization.
SHANE
Right? Yeah. Destigmatizing. It, but there’s got to be other components there, too, that create the motivation, for an individual.
JON PIERRE
Two things I think of one would be what I, you know, the any kind of ideas take a step back. Any kind of idea. We’re talking it’s a campaign. It’s a it’s a tool. You know, like there’s not many. It’s like where you start to get to down to when you’re thinking about what is the real product or what is the real idea in the space.
There’s not many types of, ways to approach a solve. And so in this case, the first thing I think of is a self-help tool that speaks specifically to having a communication plan, like helping someone with the communication plan that you need to figure out in the first 15 to 30 days. And I say that partly from a through the lens, a little bit of a PR like you have to, you know, so right now, use me as an example.
I am, I have an amazingly close family. I didn’t borrow from them on purpose, during the two years. So I and that was partly because I, I felt like I didn’t want my fiancé to know I was borrowing money. So I ended up the 20 friends I borrowed from were people that they wouldn’t feel like they were lying to her because they weren’t really that close with her.
Where my siblings, it’s like, this is their sister in law. So they I didn’t want to borrow from my family. So I have all of a sudden, these factions of people where I have 20 friends that I borrowed from and they do not know that I asked for them. Like, I have a fiance that I’ve been lying to.
I have six siblings that I’m extremely close to, that I’ve been lied to. And it becomes so, part of the brainstorm that you’re going through, because I do believe in the kind of readiness for change or the stages of change. I do think a lot of disordered gamblers are ready to change for a while, but they are frozen on how and and I think that, a guide or, a push on really stressing how important it is to think through and give them ideas on how to think through how you’re going to share this.
So you know, ideally with, let’s say, stuff I didn’t do, but ideally with, partner, you know, there’s a place called the Gottman Institute out of I think they’re out of Washington. Are you familiar with them? It’s a very it’s like a, very specific certification for couples counseling. So that would be, I think of them as like the they’re like the Tony Robbins of couples counseling certification.
Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. And you know, having or I also was introduced I remember finding a, therapy network in, Massachusetts where they had a, they literally had a specific, almost like an ILP program for couples that were experiencing sexual infidelity. So either the spouse hadn’t, told their spouse, their partner that they were cheating, or I was right at the point of when they got caught guiding them through that process.
But, regardless of what the actual like treatment is, I think just, to take a pause, help people, realize that there’s going to be a way there’s going to be a time and place to tell your spouse, there’s going to be a time and place to tell your family. There’s going to be a time place to tell your friends.
It doesn’t have to be all at once what you say, how you say it. There’s a number of ways to do it, but why I why I think it’s so important to both like guide and stress people on how to possibly do it, is that it ends up being one of the best things you can possibly do to change the pattern.
Like as soon as you stop the hiding, you can actually stop the gambling, okay? And that is a track like that is something I, I, I’m, I know there’s some research around it, but I think the kind of ethnographic research that you get when you sit through hundreds of GA meetings and you start to hear what really works, and all of a sudden you’re like, wow, the moment I told X everything changed.
That is that is without a doubt true. And so by both now having like a tool for being able to say, hey, you can do this, this is going to be important. This is the make or break thing. And, and even tying it now to, you know, so when I think about when I say soup to nuts concept, this is something where when I even think we can do it right now.
But if I think about the campaign that exists in Illinois, are you really winning having now a sub brand or a sub campaign of are you tired of lying?
SHANE
Okay.
JON PIERRE
You know, like all of a sudden it becomes, you know, a little, a little mini campaign that we can target through social media for the mid 40 year old people that are possibly lying or whoever the whoever the target they figure out is, I just think that’s an so that’s one thing that I think the, the go ahead.
SHANE
No, I was going to say, okay. So that, that sounds like an interesting topic that you might explore for the blog, right?
JON PIERRE
Yeah.
SHANE
In terms of getting that information out there. And you’ve also shared with me this idea of, what you call the fix. And, and that seems like a bridging strategy to get someone kicked off on that pathway to the fix.
JON PIERRE
Correct.
SHANE
So 100% tell us a little bit more about the fix.
JON PIERRE
Yeah. The fix is it’s really like a home for any of these ideas. And because of course you have you know bookies the the vig is often called the fix. You know, like their profit. You have the fix of what a gambler the metaphor. I’m just like I need to place another bet is a very, the fixation of an addiction is a real thing.
But of course, putting it out there above all to say like, hey, let’s try to see if we can fix some things that maybe aren’t working. So, yeah, the fix is that I think there’s some long term ideas I have around the brand, but for the time being, it’s a, place to, like, get some of these ideas down.
In a blog forum, people can submit ideas to me. I’ll post them. You know, coming out of my coming out of my MBA program, certainly ideation, innovation was something that yeah, it’s like it’s going to be one of the few ways that we could actually try to fight this behemoth we’re up against. I mean, talk about like a David and Goliath fight in just terms of, where we’re out in 2025.
I mean, all the metaphors this year, we’re in like 2000. Yeah, we’re I feel like it’s 2000 opioid crisis right now. We haven’t even started, you know.
SHANE
Yeah, I, I think, is very innovative. You’re thinking around this, like that, and primarily because I think in today’s world, we’re all looking for very niche pathways to receive information, right? Yeah. We all consume it differently today. And all age groups consume differently. So, I think to the extent that you can provide a new pathway for information in a time tested format being the blogs, right?
Yeah. It’s always out there. You can constantly refer to it, and it gives you the opportunity to promote it, in a very broad sense. So, I like that. And I look forward to hearing more about that as, as you further develop that.
JON PIERRE
I think you’re right too, on the blog. I’ll just say, like, it needs, you know, there’s a really great sports, sports writer I love from Massachusetts, Bill Simmons. He’s got a bit he does every like year on his podcast called Half Baked Ideas. Okay. And him and his buddy just they they show up and they, they really just give a disclaimer about what a horrible idea is.
But they put out a big idea. And, I think of that as, as just a really like, simple, simple concept to put things out. But I would say from, you know, part of why I want to do a blog is I want I do want to start putting out like three quarter baked, nine 10th baked ideas that like if someone from another public health department reads, they’re like, wow, we’ve been looking for something like this.
It makes sense. And it’s got some grounded concept behind it. And so it really does require, rather than, you know, a ten minute or a ten minute blog on on trading ideas. It does it does give the right place to. Yeah, maybe spend 1000, 2000 words explaining why. Maybe this is this is something that has some possibility.
SHANE
Yeah. Well, it sounds like a good conduit as well to create some back and forth and ideas that other people might have in mind where then expand, add to it.
JON PIERRE
You know.
SHANE
Exactly or whatever turns it into something completely different. 100%.
JON PIERRE
So it’s a great call out. So because there is I mean, I have a lot of humility in the notion of the it’s not like what I put out there is, going to be home runs. I it’s like baseball. 300 is a three batting average comedian. You know, one out of three jokes they tell are funny. So if even like I, I about that at the end or get the opportunity to have people, respond and refine.
I mean, that’s part of good design thinking is just literally prototyping iteration, diverging, converging. And at some point you land on either a good bill, you know, like, some of this is about could be about there’s an advocacy portion. I’ll jump to just another like simple example to like talk about, oh, how are we going to fix the marketing problem that exists?
Everyone knows that, like we are getting hammered on marketing. There is a, you know, I yeah, there is a, there is a, there is a way to possibly raise some money for, for what they consider an excise tax on marketing dollars. So, I think there’s a, you know, sharing with Keith White and he’s like, wow, I could see how this has some legs, a bill that literally just charges a 5% or whatever percent you want on the marketing dollars spent by operators, because part of what you know, all the money we raise from operators right now are revenue based.
And that’s always a contentious conversation. I mean, we’re in a capitalist society where we’re we’re allowing them to create this industry, and now we’re going to say, let’s take 51% of your profits. It’s like, what business model does that even happen in? But when you look at a excise tax, they’re actually call there’s like a very specific excise tax called Pig Pigouvian
excise tax where they you know, you’re literally using a tax to correct harms caused by a, an industry. So you it shows up in the oil industry, the tobacco industry, things like that. It’s like, let’s if if they’re putting out huge marketing campaigns, we know now that anywhere from 3 to 7% of the people that they’re going to flip are going to have a real problem.
So let’s make them pay the pay the vig on that. And, and every dollar of marketing, we want 5% back. And we could actually create a slush fund to, to fight back a little bit with marketing campaigns. Because at this point we just.
SHANE
Well, and and to our point earlier, that’s something that would be beneficial at a national level, of course, because each state has, has, negotiated their own deals with the exact, you know, operators and some got really good deals and others got really poor deals. And, and, and there’s, there’s some inequity then that exists across the states right now.
This might be one way to kind of smooth that out or create a more level playing field for each of the states involved. So good idea I like it.
JON PIERRE
I mean, that one, I love the goal of that one too, is honestly either a Super Bowl commercial or like, getting the getting the video on the on the sphere in Vegas. Like, if we really created, you know, and conceivably I mean I’m again, I’ve well, I lived in DC for 15 years. I never was a lobby wonk.
And so, some of this, some of these ideas or some of this platform is really to say, okay, for the people that can possibly execute it, like, here’s a concept or a thought if you haven’t thought of it, because we all can’t do everything. But something like that. It’s like, there’s conceivable ways to pass it through House and Ways Committee.
I mean, I know the, the way that this thing works. It could conceivably, all of a sudden give us a slush fund to. Yeah, take the sphere, take 24 hours in Vegas and have access to the sphere and put real like, awareness out there on what this is doing. Or get a 30 second spot at the at the Super Bowl.
I mean, it’s like we, you know, how are we going to fight this stuff other than with our own campaigns or our own outreach? And it’s expensive. I mean, it is expensive, as you know. So yeah. Less. Yeah, 5% of all the marketing dollars. We would all of a sudden have a huge slush fund to do some really, awesome things.
SHANE
Well, I like it. It’s a big idea, but I like it.
JON PIERRE
Appreciate it, appreciate it. They’re not they’re not all that good.
SHANE
So, John Pierre, any final thoughts? Yeah.
JON PIERRE
Good question.
SHANE
You want to share before we wrap things up here.
JON PIERRE
Good question. Shane I mean, I guess the the caveat of this is, I’m always very like, aware and respectful. None of that, none of the notion of saying burning down the house or, you know, nothing we’ve done is right. I is what I’m saying, where everyone is busting their butts, doing the best we can, and insights from substance use, alcohol are amazing.
And any, any anything that’s happening I’m all for And so I’m not even trying to suggest that, Yeah. I don’t want to say anything around. Hey, we need new ideas. Is that a detriment to old ideas? But, yeah.
SHANE
I think I think what you’re trying to say is we’re at this kind of crossover. I want. I don’t want to call it a crossroads. I think we’re at a juncture with problem gambling, and it’s really this juncture of there is so much activity going on with gambling, the messaging, everything that’s a part of this, it’s it’s almost a lifestyle that’s being created right in front of our, our, our right on the front of us as hundred percent yet develop.
So what are some new innovative ideas that we can bring to the table that seek to intercede, correct, in this proliferation? That’s correct. And that’s really I think that’s what that’s why we have new ideas. So that’s why new ideas work. Nothing’s a bad idea. It’s just, you know, how do we make it workable. So and I think, you know, the conversation we’ve had here today, I mean, my takeaway from that is, hey, let’s explore new pathways.
Let’s explore new opportunities to at least intersect what’s going on with individuals who find themselves.
JON PIERRE
Thank you.
SHANE
Kind of, you know, kind of plugged in to gambling so hard. Let’s try and steer away.
JON PIERRE
Love it.
SHANE
That’s almost a diversion technique.
JON PIERRE
That’s it. Thank you. I mean, and that’s what some of this is. We’re we’re so out manned and out funded. Sometimes it is just like the random small idea that can have a big pop. Right. That’s partly what we’re trying to. So. Yeah. Go. I mean, practically the gambling fix.com. Go there. You can comment on, you know, you can start to see the blogs that I’m putting out there.
Reach out to me through that channel. If you have your own ideas that you want to get posted, comment on the ones that you see out there. Tell me what’s good or bad about it. Sign up for the Substack. So when those things, when I launch them, you know, they’ll go through the Substack. But yeah, the gambling fix.com and let’s see what we can, we can collectively figure out.
SHANE
Outstanding. John Pierre Miccuci, thanks for joining us.
JON PIERRE
Thanks so much.
SHANE
And we love hearing from you. So please take a moment to like, share and comment on our podcast. You can reach out to us directly via email at Wager Danger at Gateway Foundation dot org. Look for us on Facebook and Twitter at Recover Gateway, on LinkedIn at gateway Dash Foundation, or through our website at Gateway foundation.org. Wager Danger is funded in whole or in part by the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery. And remember, recovery is a lifelong process. If you or a family member is struggling with a gambling problem. Call gateway at (844) 975-3663 and speak with one of our counselors for a confidential assessment.
