Inside the Fight For 1-800-Gambler: As Betting Soars, an Addiction Helpline Is Torn Apart

Candice Cookson, an operator and trainer at a Cleveland crisis call center, answers calls to 1-800-Gambler from Ohio residents. (Photograph by Daniel Lozada)

A New Jersey court recently stripped 1-800-Gambler of its national sponsor and millions in donations. Some advocates of problem gambling prevention are breathing a sigh of relief.

As sports betting became ubiquitous, so did one phone number: 1-800-Gambler.

The helpline digits appear in fine print on gambling ads and lottery tickets nationwide, offering gamblers an immediate source of support if their play turns problematic. Call volume soared in recent years as dozens of states legalized sports betting and the industry centralized its problem gambling efforts to one point of contact. Some 326,000 calls went to the number over a recent 12-month period, along with another 8,500 texts.

But in September, the helpline was thrown into disarray after a New Jersey court stripped 1-800-Gambler of its national sponsor and millions in donations. The ruling transferred control of 1-800-Gambler from the National Council on Problem Gambling, or NCPG, to a New Jersey advocacy group that launched the number four decades ago.

The legal battle and sharp accusations among advocates threaten to undermine years of progress in treating gambling addiction in the U.S. At the core of the debate are disagreements around national standards versus individual care.

Any disruption in helpline services can have life-or-death consequences; call-center operators have stories of talking people off a ledge. People with gambling disorders have higher suicide rates relative to other mental health conditions. Research from the American Association on Suicidality has found that helplines significantly decrease crisis states and hopelessness.

“It’s just a little bit horrifying to see this happening, because I think we all want the same thing, ultimately, which are our pathways to connect people to treatment or information on this issue that are easily memorable and accessible,” says Ted Hartwell, a former executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling.

Problem gambling treatment faces a scarcity of funding across the country, as Barron’s has previously reported. The federal government, for its part, has no programs in place for gambling addiction.

In 2021, the National Football League stepped into the void with a $6.2 million grant to the NCPG, which also receives backing from major casino companies and online sportsbooks. The NFL funds boosted the council’s revenue by 450% year over year, giving the group the firepower to nationalize problem gambling efforts.

The NCPG used the money to license the 1-800-Gambler number, develop nationwide text and chat features, and spark an advertising blitz. The council, which says it is “neutral on legalized gambling,” leveraged industry connections to get big brands on board with the helpline, while lobbying state regulators to mandate use of the number.

The NFL told Barron’s that its grant “enabled the NCPG to unify helpline access nationwide under 1-800-Gambler, making it easier for anyone, anywhere in the U.S., to get help when they need it.” The grant was renewed in 2024, bringing the NFL’s promised contributions to $12.6 million.

But as the problem gambling effort grew on a national scale, longstanding local advocates felt sidelined. The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, which created 1-800-Gambler in 1983 and still owns the number, began to have second thoughts on its licensing deal with the NCPG after the group imposed requirements on local call centers.

New data-collection efforts from the NCPG also created tension with local groups. In some cases, gamblers were asked to answer survey questions before receiving assistance, according to state advocates in New Jersey, Florida, and New Mexico.

Beverly Cody, left, and Matt Trahan take calls at the Cleveland call center. (Photograph by Daniel Lozada)

The NCPG and the NFL say national data are crucial in the fight against gambling addiction. Local counselors say data collection is incompatible with a need for anonymity, since gambling addicts often experience a level of shame around their behavior.

“If they were sharing identifiable information, I don’t think people would share with us as much as they do,” says Candice Cookson, who answers problem gambling calls in Ohio and leads helpline operations for the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

Gathering information on 1-800-Gambler callers became a priority for the NCPG after the NFL’s investment.

In November 2022, the NCPG’s helpline committee prepared a document outlining data collection recommendations. “As call centers begin collecting the same key data points and using similar language, it will enable comparisons across states and will give us the ability to spot trends in real time,” reads the document, which was reviewed by Barron’s. Age, gender, race, military service, and information on the caller’s relationship to gambling are all recommended data points for collection.

“Data-collection efforts are key to providing NCPG with insights into contact trends, allowing the organization to better advocate for federal funding that supports problem gambling prevention, education, and treatment efforts,” the national group said in announcing a renewal of the NFL’s multimillion-dollar grant in 2024.

Florida helpline operators, who handled 33,000 calls and texts via 1-800-Gambler over a recent 36-month period, never collected that kind of data and pushed back on the changes, saying that additional friction on calls could result in hang-ups and untreated callers.

This past May, the NCPG cut operators at the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling out of the national system. The move was “due to FCCG’s lack of communication surrounding the Network Contact Center Standards,” Jaime Costello, the NCPG official overseeing helpline operations, told the organization in an email viewed by Barron’s. “Because we are unable to verify whether or not FCCG meets the requirements, we were forced to reroute contacts,” Costello wrote.

Florida’s removal ran counter to a recent audit conducted for the NCPG, which had lauded the Florida council’s helpline operations.

On April 30, the Florida council answered a call to its helpline from a caller who identified herself as Julia seeking help for her gambling problem, according to a recording of the call reviewed by Barron’s. After nearly a half-hour of the operator answering her questions and assembling a list of resources, Julia revealed that it had “actually been a quality-assurance call paid for by the National Council on Problem Gambling.” She praised the operator for his handling of their interaction. “You did awesome,” Julia said. “You conducted this call in a manner that is high quality.”

By the next day, the NCPG had begun rerouting helpline calls away from its Florida affiliate, according to an official familiar with the decision. Callers with a Florida area code were sent to a call center contracted by the NCPG where critics say disconnects and unreturned messages frequently occur.

Costello says the rerouting was about a lack of communication from the group. As for the audit, she says that “one call does not signify consistent quality care.”

Calls from New Mexico numbers saw a similar rerouting in May after the state’s problem gambling council also resisted the NCPG’s new data collection efforts.

Before the NCPG rerouted calls earlier this year, Kandace Blanchard, the New Mexico council’s executive director, says her call center was picking up 1-800-Gambler calls from New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. Her operators developed long-term relationships, she says, with frequent callers looking to speak to the same person each time.

Blanchard’s helpline had also handled calls from the Navajo Nation, whose territory stretches across the New Mexico and Arizona border. She has Navajo-speaking counselors on-call 24/7. A 2014 study found that Native Americans experience more than double the rate of problem gambling compared with the broader U.S. population.

After the rerouting, some Navajo callers to 1-800-Gambler found that no one could understand them. On multiple occasions, Blanchard says, the NCPG’s call center was forced to transfer a Navajo-speaker back to the New Mexico line in the middle of the night. The delay in service compromised care, Blanchard says.

Costello says she was unaware of those instances. Her group offers interpretive services through a third party. Blanchard says she had flagged the issue to Costello and provided Barron’s with emails that corroborate her claims.

During a meeting of the NCPG’s helpline committee in May, the group’s chair said the decision to reroute callers from Florida and New Mexico was made to ensure that they received a certain level of care. He added that the NCPG was “trying to be discreet” about the rerouting, according to a meeting attendee who spoke with Barron’s.

The New Mexico and Florida councils “refused to provide any documentation that they met any of our standards,” Costello says.

The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling declined to comment.

The dispute over 1-800-Gambler has brought a long-simmering debate to the forefront: whether to nationalize problem gambling treatment even as casinos face a patchwork of state regulations and rules.

While the NFL donation supercharged 1-800-Gambler, problem gambling treatment remains fragmented. There are nearly two dozen state-specific numbers run by local advocacy groups like the New Mexico and Florida councils.

The NCPG and other nationally minded officials believe that gambling’s omnipresence in popular culture requires a streamlined helpline system with one memorable number; state-based advocates say problem gambling treatment requires a regional approach tailored to the specific challenges of local communities.

Unification of the helpline system was a longtime goal for Keith Whyte, who spent 26 years as the executive director of the NCPG before he left in January to start a responsible gambling consultancy firm. “It’s an embarrassment in some ways that the field has not been able to unify behind a number,” he says. The move to 1-800-Gambler was a crowning achievement for Whyte, but his national system has splintered in the months since he left the NCPG.

A training session at the United Way of Greater Cleveland, which operates the 211 crisis helpline for Ohio residents. (Photograph by Daniel Lozada)

In May, gambling treatment advocates in New Jersey began to rethink their licensing arrangement with the NCPG for 1-800-Gambler.

Luis Del Orbe, executive director of the New Jersey council, says he expressed concerns about rerouted calls and the helpline’s service quality to the NCPG. When the time came to renew the licensing agreement in 2025, Del Orbe presented a contract with new conditions that gave him final say over routing of calls. The NCPG balked at those terms, and the New Jersey council moved to regain legal authority over its number.

The impasse boiled over into a legal battle that unnerved gambling industry operators, regulators, and advocates. The NCPG warned of serious consequences if it lost control of the helpline number. Costello wrote in a sworn legal filing that “if NCPG’s access to 1-800-Gambler were cut off, the texting system would also be completely shut down.”

Last month, in a small courtroom in Trenton, N.J., the dispute came to a quick resolution. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Hurd ordered the NCPG to return the phone number to the state’s own problem gambling council. “No later than September 29, 2025, the National Council on Problem Gambling shall cease and desist from continuing to use the 1-800-Gambler helpline,” Hurd wrote in a signed order.

The NCPG’s appeal to New Jersey’s Supreme Court was rejected on the day of the deadline. Mentions of 1-800-Gambler have been scrubbed from the NCPG’s website, which now promotes a less memorable set of digits: 1-800-522-4700.

New Jersey’s council has control of 1-800-Gambler once again, and most of the NCPG’s dire predictions haven’t come to pass. A Barron’s reporter confirmed that texts to the helpline number were still going through. “The world did not come to an end,” Del Orbe told Barron’s after the handoff was complete. His group has continued to route 1-800-Gambler calls across the country, maintaining the number’s primary function.

Acrimony between the two organizations has since escalated. Last week, the NCPG revoked the New Jersey Council’s membership in its national affiliate system, Barron’s has learned. The NCPG told Barron’s it took the step because of disparaging comments from the New Jersey council and other behavior that it deemed “prejudicial to the interests” of the national group. Del Orbe didn’t respond to a request for comment on the move but has told other state affiliate groups that the NCPG had “used its bylaws to retaliate” against his group.

With control of the number back in Del Orbe’s hands, advocates of problem gambling prevention in New Mexico are breathing a sigh of relief. Blanchard says calls from the state to 1-800-Gambler are going to her call center once again.

But some state advocates have raised doubts that the New Jersey council has the manpower and experience to run a national helpline that has grown far larger since it was licensed to the NCPG. New Jersey says it has had no issues routing 1-800-Gambler calls to the appropriate state call center.

Since getting control of the number, the New Jersey council, like the national group before it, has used its own standards to justify rerouting calls away from state-based organizations with decadeslong histories of answering helpline calls. The Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health says it has lost access to 1-800-Gambler calls from the state, with callers now being routed to the state’s health department, which offers a more limited set of information.

Amid all of the wrangling, a few things haven’t changed. This past Sunday, gambling promos filled NFL broadcasts; 1-800-Gambler remains a staple at the bottom of the ads.

Write to Nick Devor at nicholas.devor@barrons.com