LA therapists are seeing more young patients with gambling problems. They blame Kalshi | LAist
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Maya Mukherjee
Published Jul 13, 2026 5:00 AM
Updated Jul 13, 2026 9:40 AM
Health
LA therapists are seeing more young patients with gambling problems. They blame Kalshi
Maya Mukherjee
Published Jul 13, 2026 5:00 AM
Updated Jul 13, 2026 9:40 AM
A photo of various contracts trading on Kalshi's website.<br>(Martin Lelievre<br>Getty Images
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With a week left in the World Cup, fans may have noticed ads with soccer stars telling them they could win tickets to the final using their sports knowledge.<br>Those ads are for Kalshi, a prediction market that accounts for 90% of the U.S. market share. Right now, $1.1 billion worth of contracts are trading on who will win the World Cup. And it’s not just sports — Kalshi contracts can get as fine-grained as the exact margin of victory between Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman in the L.A. mayoral primary.<br>Jack Such, a spokesperson for the company, told LAist that the platform’s trading volume has skyrocketed over the past three months.<br>“It's just been going up and up and up,” he said.
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Sports betting is illegal in California, but prediction markets like Kalshi aren’t. That’s because users buy and sell contracts among themselves, instead of placing bets against a house. The distinction allows platforms to operate under federal rules for financial exchanges, rather than state gambling laws.<br>Although other states have taken prediction markets to court, saying they should be held to state regulation, California hasn’t initiated legal action of its own.<br>Some L.A. gambling addiction clinicians say that they’re already seeing the consequences of what they call unregulated betting, especially among young people.
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An uptick in patients dealing with gambling addiction<br>Dan Field, a licensed social worker and the clinical director of Westside Gambling Treatment in L.A., said he’s seeing “a lot more young sports bettors who are just going straight to Kalshi … and getting sucked in very easily.”
One of Field’s patients moved to California hoping the state’s sports betting laws would help him manage his recovery from gambling addiction.<br>“For almost two years, he was largely gambling free, and when Kalshi hit, he picked up right where he left off,” Field told LAist.<br>Dr. Timothy Fong, an addiction psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies program, said that as prediction markets have taken off, his program has “definitely seen an increase in the number of folks coming into treatment.”<br>He told LAist that for many now seeking help, online prediction markets were their first experience with gambling behavior. They’d never set foot in a brick-and-mortar casino, and began using prediction markets because of their interest in sports and investing, not betting.
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Why some are drawn to prediction markets<br>Yisroel Solomon, 32, said he began sports betting when he was 22 when he was living in New York. After he relocated to California, he told LAist that he started using prediction markets because they were the primary legal option.<br>But Solomon said prediction markets have the capacity to suck users in far beyond what traditional sports books, or even other apps, can do.<br>Because prices update almost instantaneously, in response to real-time information, "that gives an extra sense of dopamine, extra fear of missing out, extra sense of chasing,” he told LAist.<br>Field, the clinical director, noted that the constant price checking that comes with using prediction markets is “incredibly attention-grabbing and addictive.”<br>Jacob Hofflich, a San Diego resident and sophomore at the University of Michigan, began using Kalshi when he turned 18. He said the platform's visual design makes it hard to look away. Flashing green and red lines, and a running log of which bets are being placed, make the app appear “like the stock market,” he told LAist.<br>“It’s enticing you to get in on the action,” he explained.
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“There’s always new opportunities to bet. [With] sportsbooks,...