RECOVERY | Minnesota Alliance on Problem Gambling

A New Front Door to Gambling Support: How Evive Is Helping Connect More People to Recovery

Oct 16, 2026 | HEALTHY PLAY, PROBLEM GAMBLING, PROFESSIONALS, RECOVERY, RESOURCES

For years, the front door to gambling support has looked much the same: a helpline, a counselor or a support group.

While those resources remain invaluable, they’re no longer the only way people seek help.

Today, many people facing challenges first reach for their phone to search for answers, connect with others or learn on their own. That’s the thinking behind Evive, a free digital platform now available to Minnesotans through the Minnesota Alliance on Problem Gambling (MNAPG).

Created by entrepreneur and person in recovery Sam DeMello, Evive combines education, self-guided tools, peer support and connections to local resources in one place. Rather than replacing traditional treatment, it’s designed to help more people find it.

“It’s not so much an app as it is digital infrastructure for the public health system,” says Sam.

What You’ll Find in Evive
• Daily check-ins
• Mood and urge tracking
• Recovery journal
• Educational lessons
• Guided coping exercises
• Peer support community
• Virtual support meetings
• Minnesota-specific resources
• Connections to counselors and treatment
• Goal options: stop gambling or manage gambling

Evive Foundation
The Evive Foundation provides help for gambling problems to anyone who needs it, regardless of income, location or insurance status. The foundation operates as a fiscal sponsorship program under a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, helping make support more accessible to people affected by gambling.

Built from Lived Experience
Sam didn’t set out to build a gambling recovery platform. He spent more than a decade building technology companies before entering the digital health field, where he saw how software was being used to help people manage behavioral health conditions. At the same time, he was quietly fighting a gambling addiction that had begun in childhood.

His gambling started with poker at age 12 and escalated dramatically with online sports betting. Despite earning a good living and paying his bills, he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

“I looked very successful,” he says. “The addiction wasn’t just hidden from other people. It was hidden from me.”

Because he wasn’t bankrupt and didn’t fit the stereotype often associated with gambling disorder, he never believed treatment was meant for someone like him. When he finally sought help, he found caring professionals, but many resources simply didn’t reflect his experience.

“I was gambling on my cellphone with cryptocurrency,” he recalls. “They were talking about the horse track in 1978.”
Eventually, with support from his wife and a better understanding of the neuroscience behind addiction, he entered recovery. As his life improved, he assumed that chapter was behind him.

Then, after unexpectedly losing his job in 2023, he began searching for tools that could strengthen his recovery. He hoped to find a comprehensive digital resource, but instead found a gap. “There was nowhere that you could go to find all of the resources in one place,” he says.

Meeting People Where They Are
One of Evive’s defining characteristics is that it doesn’t require users to identify as having a gambling problem. When someone opens the platform, they’re simply asked what they’d like to accomplish: stop gambling or manage gambling.

“The reason it’s called Evive and not ‘Quit Gambling Today’ is because it’s for everybody,” says Sam.

Rather than labeling people, Evive focuses on helping them understand their own behavior and supporting whatever positive changes they’re ready to make.

“I don’t need to tell people to stop gambling,” says Sam. “I just need to hold up a mirror.”

Support Whenever It’s Needed
Evive brings together resources that are often scattered across multiple organizations, including daily check-ins, tracking tools, educational lessons, coping exercises, virtual peer meetings and direct connections to local treatment resources.

For Minnesotans, the experience is customized with links to MNAPG resources and services available throughout the state.

Community First
Although Evive includes sophisticated technology, its greatest strength isn’t the software.
“The community is probably the most valuable experience,” says Sam. Members encourage one another, share setbacks and successes, attend recovery meetings together and remind each other they’re not alone.
The community aspect helps address the shame and stigma that keep many from reaching out for help.

A Partner for Minnesota
MNAPG partnered with Evive because it complements — not replaces — the state’s existing prevention, treatment and recovery efforts.

For someone who’s ready to call the helpline or meet with a counselor, those resources remain available. For someone who’s not quite ready, Evive offers another path into the support system.
Sam believes that’s essential as gambling continues to evolve. “If we’re going to address this problem in the United States we have to break the stigma,” he says.

For him, every person who discovers they aren’t alone represents progress. “The reason I talk about it out loud now is that every time I do, I get emails from people saying, ‘I didn’t think anyone else was like me.’”

That’s ultimately what Evive hopes to offer Minnesotans—a welcoming first step toward support, recovery and hope, wherever they are on their journey.

In Their Own Words – Maude’s Story

Oct 16, 2026 | CONCERNED OTHERS, PROBLEM GAMBLING, RECOVERY, STORIES

As someone who’s been addicted to both gambling and substances — and who was even charged with a drug felony — I can honestly say that nothing compares with the shame of a gambling addiction. To realize you’ve maxed out your debt, opened credit cards using your husband’s name without his knowledge and then had to tell the people you love what you’ve done … there’s nothing that makes you feel more ashamed.

The good news is that I found help for my gambling addiction. I still struggle to share my full story with people I talk to, but I’m working on it.

While my gambling addiction started about five years ago, in many ways the roots go back to 1998. That’s when I was in a car accident that left me with herniated discs. The first treatment was narcotics. That was fine until 2007, when I lost twins at 22 weeks due to preterm labor. That’s when I started using the narcotics to numb the grief.

Fast-forward to about five years ago. I went with a friend to the casino. I set out $50 or so to spend. No problem. I remember my friend telling me that I shouldn’t come alone to a casino. But after I won one time, I went back alone — and won again. Before long, gambling became another addiction. I would take several hours out of the day to go to the casino, which was about a 45-minute drive away. Eventually, I started going at night and would stay there all night.

I only gambled for about a year, but it escalated quickly. At first, I just played the penny and nickel slots. At some point I had a big win and moved on to higher stakes, such as the $10 slots. I remember that my ex-husband owed me $40,000. I blew all of that in one day, went back the next day and won it all back, and then went back the next day and lost it all again. The more I could bet, the more excitement I felt when I won. It was like my brain was craving that feeling.

My gambling debt quickly accumulated to more than $100,000. My husband took out a line of credit with our bank to use for home improvements, and I gambled that away too. The casinos would advance thousands of dollars, and eventually I maxed that out, too.

“I couldn’t grasp how I could be addicted when no substance was entering my body. I learned how the wins and the anticipation of winning affected my brain, and I came to understand that addiction isn’t necessarily about a substance.”

Finally, at my husband’s urging, I surrendered and sought help. I told my parents about my gambling and started going to Gamblers Anonymous (GA). My husband went to Gam-Anon. I noticed some of the similarities with GA’s 12-step approach with what happens at the AA meetings I continued to attend. I didn’t realize how quickly I could essentially switch addictions. Now I know I can become addicted to anything.

At first, I couldn’t grasp how I could be addicted when no substance was entering my body. I learned how the wins and the anticipation of winning affected my brain, and I came to understand that addiction isn’t necessarily about a substance. For me, gambling was affecting my brain in much the same way my substance addiction had.

At about the same time my gambling took off, I was being treated for restless legs syndrome. I later learned that the medication I was prescribed can cause a compulsive urge to gamble. I assume that was also a factor in my behavior.
I’m doing well in my recovery now, but I have to be smart and careful. I’ve been to Las Vegas several times since I started my recovery and always make sure to check in with my sponsor. Sometimes the cravings are still there, and they can be really strong. I also occasionally perform a music gig at casinos, and I’m careful to make sure someone is always with me.

I occasionally go back to the place where I received treatment for my substance addiction to share my story. Unfortunately, I still don’t feel comfortable sharing the gambling piece of my journey. I’m still trying to overcome that shame.
There are two important things I’ve learned through my experience. The first is to be aware of “switching addictions.” If you’re prone to addiction, you’ll probably find another addiction, even one that doesn’t involve ingesting anything into your body.

The second message is that you should be careful not to isolate or hide. Being alone is what triggered all this for me. I now realize that addiction is taking something on the outside to fix something on the inside and, for an effective recovery, you need community.

In Their Own Words – Ryan’s Story

Apr 10, 2026 | RECOVERY, SPORTS BETTING, YOUTH GAMBLING

When I quit using alcohol and drugs, I thought that was the hard part. What I didn’t realize was that I had created a huge void in my life. I wasn’t getting those instant dopamine hits anymore, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. That’s when gambling quietly slipped in. My gambling didn’t start in a casino or with sports betting like it does with a lot of people. It started, oddly enough, with clothes. When I was in college, streetwear was big. There were online raffles for limited-edition clothing. You’d throw in $10 or $25 for a chance to win something worth a lot more. I started doing those raffles all the time. If I won, I’d try to resell the item. Before long, I was doing this every single day—including watching the raffle videos—while having basically no money. That should’ve been a red flag, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. I did the clothing raffles for about two years and then stopped gambling for about a year. Then I started playing fantasy football with friends and things gradually progressed. I started doing future bets, like whether a team would win the championship or how it would do for the whole season. Then it became point spreads and over/unders for individual games. Then it became in-game live betting. That all felt “manageable,” at least compared to what came next. My sports betting got worse. DraftKings wasn’t what it is today, so I used an illegal offshore site. It started small with $5 and $10 bets, but gradually turned into betting every day, multiple times a day. I was betting on games I didn’t even watch or know anything about, like baseball games in a league on the other side of the world. That made it harder to lie to myself that this was just for fun. What really pushed me over the edge was online casino gambling. While watching sports, I started clicking into online casinos on my phone for fun. I quickly went through five-dollar slots and started chasing my losses. Then I’d lose $100 trying to get it back on roulette or blackjack. I started using money I didn’t have—dipping into credit cards and debit cards. I wasn’t paying rent and was barely eating. I had a decent job and still couldn’t afford to live. I was living with my girlfriend at the time, as gambling slowly took over my life. I’d get home from work and watch games from 4 p.m. until midnight instead of spending time with her. She had no idea how bad it was. When she eventually broke up with me and moved out—taking the dog—I couldn’t afford the apartment on my own because of gambling. I had only been to one or two GA meetings at that point, so I didn’t really have a GA program. I asked someone in AA if they knew anyone who had been to GA, and I got connected with someone who offered to take me to a meeting. He became my GA sponsor. I thought it would be just like AA—and at a high level it is—but it’s clearly different because I couldn’t manage my gambling addiction as well as I managed my alcohol addiction. I was surprised how few young people were in the GA rooms. Given how much I know younger people are gambling, particularly on sports, I’d expected more people in their 20s and 30s. I found that many of the people went to live casinos and played a lot of scratch-offs, activities I think are less common in my age group. As I look back on my gambling, I wasn’t really chasing wins; I was chasing a feeling. I don’t even remember having many big wins. No win ever felt that good and every loss felt awful. I just wanted to feel something, or avoid being present in my own life. After I stopped gambling almost two years ago, I couldn’t watch sports for a long time. I’d always think, “I would’ve won that if I’d bet.” Eventually, I was able to watch again, but the ads are everywhere now. I honestly can’t imagine trying to quit for the first time today with all those reminders. I just turned 30. I still get urges to gamble more than I ever get urges to drink. Gambling ads hit me in a way alcohol ads don’t. I also see how normalized betting has become, especially for younger people. My little brother is in college, and betting is just part of the culture—everyone seems to be doing it. I try to keep the door open so he knows he can talk to me if it ever becomes a problem. Thankfully, life today is much more manageable. I know my brain is always going to look for something, so I try to channel that energy into healthier things—running, relationships, being present. I’m not perfect, but I’m honest now. And that makes all the difference. If any of this sounds familiar, I promise you’re not alone—and that there is hope. Help is out there. Recovery doesn’t make life perfect, but it does make it livable—and for me, that’s more than enough.

In Their Own Words – Randall’s Story

Dec 17, 2025 | HELP, PROBLEM GAMBLING, RECOVERY, STORIES

I’m 42 years old, and I never thought gambling would take over my life the way it did. Growing up, I played lotto tickets occasionally, but it was harmless, nothing more than a little game. I could walk away without a second thought. Gambling didn’t become a real problem until about 10 years ago, and even then it wasn’t because I suddenly developed a taste for it. It was because of a medication. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on a drug called Latuda. At the time, I didn’t know that one of its rare side effects was compulsive gambling. It’s right there in the warnings, but no one ever told me. Looking back, it feels like a switch flipped in my brain. All of a sudden, I couldn’t stop. Poker and electronic machines became my games of choice. Omaha, Hold ’Em, slots and electronic pulltabs, which were a real curse for me. I could be up thousands of dollars, but by midnight it was gone. Friends and family would urge me to cash out, but I couldn’t. The first time I realized I was addicted to gambling was in 2016. But I didn’t talk to a therapist about it until years later. By then, gambling had already destroyed so much of my life. It pushed me into doing things I never imagined myself capable of. I borrowed money I couldn’t repay, stole from people I loved and even stole credit card information from a friend on her deathbed. My addiction led me to commit aggravated armed robbery. I was preparing to go to treatment at Project Turnabout, waiting for medical records to clear, and in the middle of that chaos I made a bad decision. I got caught and went to prison for 33 months. I asked the judge to send me to treatment instead, but he wouldn’t. There are no real gambling programs in the prison system, and I struggled in there. Gambling is everywhere—sports bets, high-stakes spades games, etc.—with considerable money moving through canteen accounts. The system hides it from the outside world, but it’s real. I even talked with a chaplain about starting a GA group inside the prison. He told me, “If you can find a volunteer, we’ll do it.” But no one ever stepped up. Since getting out, I’ve been working with a counselor through Club Recovery. I’ve had stretches of abstinence—four months clean at one point—but I’ve struggled too. I even put Gamban on my phone to block gambling apps, but then I bought a new phone so I could gamble again. That’s how strong the pull can be. But I’ve realized I can’t be a hypocrite. If I want to help others, I have to stay clean myself. I’m starting a new Gamblers Anonymous group in Little Falls. Zoom meetings didn’t work for me—they didn’t feel personal enough. I wanted a place where people could sit down face-to-face, look each other in the eye and admit what’s really going on. There’s an epidemic of gambling up there. People buy pulltabs by the box, yet most don’t think of gambling as a real addiction. That’s bullshit. I know firsthand how destructive it is. Starting the GA group wasn’t easy. I had to call GA International, get a starter kit, work with the library to secure space, put flyers up in hospitals, bars, even in the local paper and radio. But it matters. These programs hold me accountable, and hopefully they’ll give others the same chance. I’ve thought about suicide from time to time. But one day, a driver told me about his best friend who killed himself because of gambling. Hearing that cracked me open. I teared up in the car and knew it was time for me to step up—for myself, for others and for my family. Thanks to gambling, I’ve lost a lot—money, relationships, trust. Some of those losses I’ll never get back. But I’m trying to move forward. I want to bring GA into prisons. I want to write a blog about addiction and suicide. I want to make sure others know they’re not alone, and that gambling addiction is every bit as real and dangerous as alcohol or drugs. I can’t change the past, but I can use it. If sharing my story helps one person stop before they lose everything, then it’s worth it.

BASIS: I Study Gambling Addiction. I Still Got Hooked on Cryptocurrency.

Nov 26, 2025 | RECOVERY

Read the original post on the BASIS here. By Tiange (Patrick) Xu, PhD Editor’s note: This op-ed was prepared by Dr. Tiange (Patrick) Xu, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the International Gaming Institute, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), specializing in problem gambling research. He earned his Ph.D. in Hospitality Administration from the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV in 2025. His research portfolio encompasses systematic reviews, empirical studies on problem gambling, and policy-relevant investigations. He has received funding from the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling and the International Center for Responsible Gaming. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, Addictive Behaviors, and Journal of Gambling Studies, and he currently serves as Associate Editor for the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal. This op-ed is part of our Special Series on Addiction and Technology, which was funded by a research and consulting contract with DraftKings.

Throughout 2021, rags-to-riches cryptocurrency stories dominated my social media feeds as Bitcoin climbed higher and higher. Everyone seemed to be getting rich while I sat on the sidelines. By November, when Bitcoin reached what was then its all-time high of $68,000, the fear of missing out became unbearable. I kept thinking about that programmer who spent 10,000 Bitcoins on two pizzas back in 2010, a purchase now worth over $1 billion. I didn’t want to be the person who looked back with regret. So I decided to enter the market and purchased Bitcoin for the first time. I bought at the peak. Within two months, Bitcoin plunged below $40,000 and nearly half my investment vanished. The rational choice would have been to cut my losses, but instead I told myself I wasn’t a day trader chasing quick profits. I was a long-term investor who just needed patience. The crypto community had a term for this strategy: HODL, or hold on for dear life. I convinced myself that’s all I needed to do. That’s when something unexpected started happening. I began checking the price obsessively, every morning over coffee, during lunch breaks, before bed, at 2 AM when I couldn’t sleep. My heart would race with each price notification. I wasn’t trading anything, just holding, but I had become completely consumed by watching those numbers change. As a problem gambling researcher, I suddenly saw my own behavior through a different lens. I was experiencing the classic hallmarks of addiction: obsessive monitoring, emotional highs and lows tied to outcomes beyond my control, and the inability to stop despite knowing it had become unhealthy. I wasn’t gambling in the traditional sense, but the psychological experience was identical. This recognition made me look more carefully at the cryptocurrency landscape around me. I began to see how the elements combined to encourage addictive engagement: markets operating around the clock with no closing bell, extreme volatility generating constant excitement, and a community culture that glorifies risk-taking behavior. I realized I needed to study this phenomenon systematically. My own experience had made me wonder whether this represented a public health blind spot: a large population engaging in potentially harmful behavior with no established framework for recognizing or addressing the risks. But where to start? Given the psychological parallels between crypto trading and gambling, I decided to examine whether people drawn to cryptocurrency also struggle with gambling problems. I surveyed 700 cryptocurrency traders using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), a validated screening tool for assessing gambling-related harm. The results were striking. Only one-third showed no signs of gambling problems. Another third were at risk, and the final third met criteria for problematic gambling. Two-thirds of cryptocurrency traders in my study were experiencing gambling-related harm at some level. This wasn’t a small vulnerable subset but the majority. But I encountered a challenge in interpreting these findings. The screening tool I used was designed to assess problems with traditional gambling activities like slot machines. When participants answered questions like, “Have you felt that you might have a problem with gambling?” I couldn’t know whether they were thinking only about casino visits or whether some also included their cryptocurrency trading. Someone obsessively checking crypto prices at 2 AM might answer “yes” because they view their trading as gambling, while another person doing the exact same behavior might answer “no” because they see themselves as an investor. This ambiguity meant I couldn’t determine what I was actually measuring: traditional gambling problems among crypto traders, problematic trading behaviors that participants experience as gambling, or some combination of both. This measurement challenge reflects a broader issue: our research frameworks haven’t kept pace with technologies that blur established categories. Cryptocurrency trading shares the psychological features of gambling but exists somewhere between gambling and investing, and our screening tools weren’t built for this ambiguous territory. Addressing this gap likely requires measuring these behaviors separately. When using traditional gambling screens like the PGSI, researchers could explicitly instruct participants not to include cryptocurrency trading in their responses. We also need screening instruments designed specifically for cryptocurrency trading. With both tools, we could then determine whether problematic trading and gambling are distinct issues that sometimes overlap, or whether they’re different expressions of the same underlying vulnerability. My own Bitcoin still sits in my wallet today, a reminder of how easily harmful patterns can develop around cryptocurrency and how much work remains in understanding these risks.

In Their Own Words – Ella’s Story

Sep 5, 2025 | PROBLEM GAMBLING, RECOVERY

I’ll never forget the day my manager called me into his office. “I have something to tell you,” he said. “There’s something I need to get off my chest. I have a problem … I owe a lot of money.” I had a sense he gambled. He had a VIP parking spot at a casino and often talked about the free gifts and fancy dinners they gave him. I figured he went a lot—but I had no idea how deep it really went. I was shocked to learn it was a gambling addiction. He’s very faith-based, and his father was a minister. I just didn’t expect it. His disclosure stirred up a lot of emotions. At first, I was kind of mad. Why was he telling me this? Why put me in this position? I felt like I shouldn’t even know. And because part of his job involved overseeing money, I worried—was my paycheck at risk? Then my thinking shifted: How do I support him without enabling him? And since he was my boss, how do I even navigate that? I felt torn between what was best for me, for him—he was also my friend—and for our employer. I remember when we were planning a team-building event and he suggested having it take place at a casino. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that. That wasn’t easy to do, but it felt good to hold that boundary. Still, I cared about him and wanted to help. I knew I was in over my head, and that he needed more than I could offer. Luckily, I knew someone who had been through addiction recovery himself. He’d always been honest with me about his experience. My manager was open to meeting him. So the two of us, along with his daughter, met him for coffee. He shared what recovery looked like—offering hope but also reminding him that he had work to do. Looking back, I realize how powerful it is when people open up and share. My manager’s honesty—and my friend’s willingness to tell his story—really showed me that. I’m happy to say he’s doing well now. He’s in counseling, attending meetings and has put other safeguards in place. I’ve learned a lot from this experience. Recovery takes a village—you can’t do it alone, and you can’t be someone’s only support. You can help connect them to resources, but ultimately it’s their road to walk. You didn’t break them, and you can’t fix them. Boundaries matter. Be kind but firm. And don’t judge. Behind every issue—addiction, depression, narcissism—there’s a deeper wound. The behavior is just a symptom. In the end, compassion is everything. No one’s perfect. But recovery is real—and it’s a great place to be.

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