He stepped groggily out of the van and shuffled inside, golden rock formations and Arizona wildlife bringing no warmth before 7 a.m.
The room made him uncomfortable. The people made him uncomfortable. Craig Carton didn’t belong around the dozen faces finding chairs in a circle around him.
As he sank in his own seat, the gruff sports radio host and self-proclaimed “single greatest blackjack player to ever grace God’s earth” could only remind himself this would make his wife happy. Rehab would look good to a federal court considering his charges of fraud.
He didn’t have a problem, and he certainly didn’t need this group therapy session. He had started wagering nearly $20,000 a hand in blackjack. He could handle multiple tables at once. He illegally gambled on sports online. He could win big, borrowing more than $30 million to fuel all his exploits. No one would ever understand his strategy.
Only, that bravado would shatter.
A woman from Nevada spoke first, outlining calmly her Fridays spent bringing every paycheck to its knees for $5 scratch-offs. She’d cash the check, find a bar, grab a seat and buy lottery tickets until she could only pay for the drinks in front of her.
“She described why she did it, how she did it, what her process was emotionally, mentally, how she hid it, how she lied about it,” Carton recalled, sitting in his studio. “And I was overwhelmed.”
A 24-year-old from Oklahoma was addicted to casino gambling. Then a Chicago kid shared the same, as the circle tightened.
“I was dumbfounded. I felt as if I had written a script — and they stole it.”
A 2017 arrest threatened to send him to federal prison for his role in a concert ticket resale scheme, having in large part fueled his gambling. It forced the now-53-year-old to resign from the No. 1 sports-talk show in New York City, “Boomer & Carton,” after a decade alongside famed former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason. Unlike those sitting around the quiet room, his rock bottom would soon play out on a national stage.
“But this is what addiction is. There’s nothing special about me. There’s nothing unique about me. The money is irrelevant,” he recalled realizing. “That was the first time I was willing to admit that I had a problem.”
Carton may have wagered millions, but he believes his story can not only echo in high-stakes casino gambling — but across everyday living rooms and smartphone screens. At a time when gambling accessibility has grown more than ever before, Carton has fixed himself on a path to humanize an addiction often painted as “degenerate.”
His message meets a changing playing field.
In New York, mobile sports betting launched in January 2022. New Jersey legalized sports betting in 2018. With sports betting now legal in some 30 states, 18 offering online sports betting, roughly $120 billion in bets have been placed — nearly the combined GDP of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
From the Empire State’s launch alone, sportsbooks saw $1.67 billion in online wagers in their first month, $1.53 billion in February and $1.64 billion in March. New Jersey’s sports betting handle topped $1 billion for the sixth time in seven months in March.
And of course, the PGA Tour is all in on the sports gambling trend. The Tour has deals with Draft Kings, Fan Duel, PointsBet and BetMGM as partners. The Tour has said that it may provide an area at tournaments in states where gaming is legal so fans can make a bet on site. And an expansion in technology has allowed for talk of live odds on the golf course, either to win the tournament outright or to be the low player in a pairing on the day.
As an addictive activity fits legally in the palm of a user’s hand, some advocates worry a similar growth is headed toward problem gambling.
“That’s ultimately the story here, as more and more people start gambling for the first time,” said the radio personality nearing four years in recovery this June. “The far majority is going to be able to do it recreationally. … But there’s a group of people that are not going to be able to do it responsibly.
“And they have no idea, until they try it.”
How he failed his test
Carton was back at a blackjack table by June 2018. The second time in a casino since rehab, he still knew he had a problem — but his ego left him with something to prove.
He had a test.
Carton had left cash in the car, hoping to see he could simply walk away from the casino outside of Philadelphia if he lost what he brought in his pockets. But, staring down at the hand in front of him, he knew the right move was to double-down. He just didn’t have enough money.
He ran out to the car. He lost it all in about an hour.
“That’s the last time I’ve ever wagered,” said the husband and father of four. “I failed my own test, where I couldn’t control myself financially. And that was when I decided, I’ve got to really dedicate my life to not gambling.”
Carton’s charges marked a culmination of a roughly two-year period when gambling had seized his life. A dance recital, a kid’s ballgame, a work event: He was always focused on how he would gamble that day. He gambled illegally online. He scheduled vacations to be near casinos. He found himself driving to the blackjack table at midnight or 1 a.m., hoping to gamble without suspicion before starting his 6 a.m. show.
In the spring of 2019, Carton was convicted of fraud, sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison and $4.8 million in restitution. He stepped out of the minimum-security federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, by 2020.
Four months later, he returned to sports radio with WFAN. But he planned to do things differently.
In addition to his show “Carton and Roberts” — where the sports radio head can bring his brash on-air persona in full-force — Carton runs a weekly show centered around gambling addiction and recovery. “Hello, My Name is Craig” airs every Saturday. Also, in 2021, Carton was named ambassador for FanDuel’s responsible gambling initiatives.
An ordered 15 percent of each paycheck goes directly toward his restitution, Carton’s lawyer told federal court in 2021. His current salary wasn’t disclosed in news reports when he returned to airwaves and was not disclosed to USA TODAY Network — though his lawyer has called it “a fraction” of the $2 million reportedly made on “Boomer and Carton.”
“The reason I do ‘Hello, My Name is Craig’ is because of those 12 people,” Carton said, thinking back to his time at Algamus recovery center in Arizona. “My last night at rehab, they came to me knowing what I did for a living … and they asked me to make them a promise — if I ever get back on the radio, would I be the face and voice of gambling addiction? Because it doesn’t have one.
“So, part of my life now is trying to humanize the addict.”
Vulnerable sports betting populations
The newest way to bet is seemingly everywhere.
Social media platforms feed ads between scrolls. Watching any sporting event on TV comes with betting lines and commercials; listening to any radio show or podcast comes with sponsors like FanDuel, DraftKings and Caesars Casino. Where there aren’t physical posters and billboards towering over highways, online campaigns offer $1,000 welcome bonuses, betting matches and “risk-free bets” with strings attached.
Even familiar faces like Drew Brees, the fifth high-profile brand ambassador for PointsBet’s U.S. marketing and second from the NFL, stream in living rooms across the country, telling audiences just how easy it is to place a bet.
Carton is all for it — with conditions.
“I’m a huge proponent of legalized wagering, and one of the main reasons is that we’ve taken gambling conversations out of the back alley, and we’ve made it mainstream,” he said. “Now with that, comes a huge caveat: In my opinion, every state that has legalized wagering should set aside a portion of the tax revenue that comes in and set up compulsive gambling support centers.”
In New York, problem gambling services will receive a cap of $6 million annually out of mobile sports betting proceeds after its first year. If profits in New York meet projections of $1.1 billion by 2025, as set by VIXIO GamblingCompliance, that year would see about half a percent of state dollars allocated to support services. In New Jersey, fiscal year 2022 saw just about $3.9 million collected for gambling addiction treatment programs, according to the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Two years before this launch, a New York State survey on gambling prevalence said 14.6 percent of adults who gambled in 2020 met criteria for problem gambling, while just over 4 percent — or about 600,000 people — experienced problems directly related to their gambling.
The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that 2 million Americans have a severe gambling problem while another 4 to 6 million are considered to have mild or moderate gambling problems.
The youngest age group, 18 to 24, had the highest risk. Communities of color, alongside lower income brackets, also faced higher rates of gambling addiction.
“We know that young males tend to have the highest rates of gambling participation and gambling problems,” said Keith Whyte, the National Council’s executive director. “And that also appears to be the group that is most heavily targeted for new online sports betting marketing.”
Carton hopes his story helps people see, or feel, the signs of problem gambling — because “it’s only going to continue to get bigger.”
Gambling should be a group activity, the radioman says, if done responsibly. It should not be hidden. If someone is sitting off in the corner on their phone, wagering on a 1 a.m. basketball game they know nothing about, or asking friends to cover a bet they can’t afford, these are signs of a potential problem. That joins noticeable mood changes, constant chasing of losses, borrowing money, opening new credit cards, not following a plan and more.
“There are enough warning signs out there to be aware of, for somebody to say: ‘Hey, buddy, stop. Hey, let’s have a conversation.'” Carton said. “Because if no one does that … there’s no happy ending to compulsive gambling. It doesn’t exist, until you are willing to acknowledge you have a problem.”
Often called the “hidden addiction,” with signs harder to spot than substance abuse, gambling disorders maintain the highest rates of suicide compared to any other addiction.
“The hardest and most important first step was the step that I internalized in that very first meeting, which was: ‘There’s something going on,'” Carton said.
He still sees a long road ahead.
“I’m still upset about some of the decisions I made and some of the things I did, the risks I took and the financial devastation and emotional devastation that I brought,” he continued.
“But I’m proud to be able to tell you that I’m an addict. I own it. And I’m not ashamed of it.”
Kelly Powers is a culture reporter for the How We Live team — covering race, culture and identity for the USA TODAY Network’s Atlantic Region. Contact her at kepowers@gannett.com or 443-694-0770, and follow her on Twitter @kpowers01.