Psychologist Michael Zhang Talks Prediction Markets vs Sports Betting, Adolescent Brain

Prediction markets are having a moment, and they’re being pitched as smarter than gambling. The problem is that the brain doesn’t always care what you call it. When the interface looks like trading and the language sounds like forecasting, it can quietly lower your guard while the risk, volatility, and urge cycle stay fully intact.

We sit down with psychologist Dr. Michael Zhang to unpack why prediction markets can hook people differently than sportsbooks. He lays out a sharp framework: prediction markets don’t remove gambling, they repackage it by bundling four systems at once. You still pay structural costs through fees and spreads, you still ride crowd-driven price shifts, you still face casino-style uncertainty, and you also inherit poker-like dynamics where you’re effectively playing other participants and battling information asymmetry. That mix can feel analytical and “earned,” which makes chasing losses easier to justify.

Then we look at what’s happening to young men as sports betting, micro-betting, and prediction markets get normalized through group chats, fantasy leagues, and everyday sports culture. Wins get posted, losses get hidden, and harm grows in private. We also talk solutions you can use right now: start with honesty, tell one person, and add real friction through blockers, self-exclusion, and tools designed for the moment an urge hits. Dr. Zhang shares how his guided recovery app, Incumental, aims to provide that in-the-moment support so recovery isn’t limited to a single hour of therapy a week.

If you care about gambling addiction recovery, behavioral health, and the future of “investing-like” wagering, listen, share this with someone who needs it, and subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the help sooner.

Transcript

Welcome And Recovery Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Yes, today we have a treat. We have an interview, but not just any interview. We are going to be talking to a psychologist, but not just any psychologist. His background is Australian. He's even got he's also got Chinese roots. But he lives in Salt Lake City. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day to work hard. Work hard in recovery, work hard in relationships, work hard in your business, job, school, just work. And to love unconditionally. Put much more love out there and watch much more love return to you. Because we always say recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ, and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. So what we encourage people to do is go to the website lifeiswonderful. Download the free. I repeat the free recovery growth scorecard. It's a scorecard where you can keep track of natural dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, all those natural hormones to change the neuroplasticity in your brain to start healing as you begin this beautiful road of recovery. Now, help me welcome Dr. Michael Zhang. How are you feeling today, Doc?

Karate Kid Nostalgia And Identity

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Hello, everybody. I'm feeling great today. Very excited to be with you, Hugo.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Excellent. Well, let's start off. Tell the audience one thing you love.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I love the karate kid movies. I'm sure everyone listening to this has seen at least one of them and has great memories of it. And the beauty of those movies, and now with a lot of the remakes and the reboots and the continuations, is in recent years they made a whole series uh called Cobra Kai, which picked up decades after the Karate Kid, and it was just so much fun, so much nostalgia. I loved it so much, and it's my favorite, favorite uh universe, the Karate Kid Cobra Kai universe.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Uh yeah, when Karate Kid came out, you know, I was in high school. You know, I always tell people, I'm 59, I was in high school and college in the 80s. Also, I also say 80s had the best music. But everyone always remembers wax on, wax off. Everyone could say that line and get that, get block it, block it.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah. I tell you what, I remember all of that, and just it's uh it's it's such an amazing experience for me. The karate kid uh movies and now the Cobra Kai uh series. I mean, just everything about it. Uh I love it so much, Hugo.

Prediction Markets Meet Sports Betting

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Oh, I agree. Oh, I've I'm glad you do. Well, let's jump into the questions. Question one. You posted something really intriguing on LinkedIn about prediction markets and sports betting. Because what people don't realize that they're finally trying to understand sports betting, and sports betting is constantly evolving because the gambling industry is always trying to maximize how many bets can be made per hour. So that's why all the micro betting, the live betting has was added to the gains, the totals, the prop betting. But now, because prediction markets come from a different angle, for especially from a regulatory angle, you know, about exchanges. You posted something very significant that prediction markets, the way they work, they attack the brain or the gambler in a different way. Explain some of the similarities and some of the differences and why it's kind of the new, I guess, gem of the gambling industry, and why even DraftKings Fan Duels has their own division of prediction markets because they see it as either the future or at least a part of the future.

Four Gambling Systems In One

SPEAKER_00 4:31

It's pretty brilliant, actually, the the whole existence of prediction markets, because on the surface, prediction markets and sports betting, they look very similar. Some would even say there's like identical elements within them. You know, you've got the money wagered on uh uncertain outcomes, the win or lose factor. But underneath it, like they're also they've also been framed quite differently. Uh and I so appreciate that question because I think what a lot of people miss is that prediction markets, like they're not really replacing gambling. It's more like they've absorbed gambling and and and the new framing is very unique in in some ways. So uh a lot of people, they may think they're doing something new uh when they trade on the platforms like Calchi or Polymarket. In fact, uh one of one of the uh uh one of our users on our on our app uh just recently uh I should say what our app is, uh, Incumental. Uh I'm the founder of uh a guided recovery support app for gambling and prediction markets called Incumental. So one of our users was just telling me this very thing that, hey, uh I'm getting over the gambling, but then this thing, prediction markets, has come into the picture and it's it's it's engaging me in a different way now, and I and I'm not seeing it quite like gambling. So just getting into it. So what I believe actually, as I've kind of uh deconstructed the prediction markets, is that really what we have inside of them is still gambling, but four gambling systems at at once. So uh I would love to walk through my analysis of these four systems because I think like once once you see them, uh you can't unsee them. So let's kind of break it down. The first one is very similar, right? It's it's with the sports book, the the bookmaker model. So in this case, you still have fees, okay, spreads that are built into every transaction, every trade that's made on a prediction market. Um, difference is you're not beating the house, you're paying the house, okay? So the edge, it's not like a house edge in the same way, but it's still there and it's structural, okay? Uh and then the second is the paramutual model. So this is where you know we think about how does horse racing work? We have odds that will shift based on, you know, how the crowd is positioned. Um, the more people that bet one way, you know, the worse your return gets and things like that. So prediction markets. That's right. So prediction markets, same thing, but cleaner interface, okay? But the underlying dynamic we have to recognize is still there. Okay. And the third, the third gambling system is straight up casino, casino exposure, we could say. Okay. So you're still, as I mentioned earlier, you're still putting money on the uncertain outcomes. The probabilities in this case just feel more analytical because it feels more like you're actually engaging in an investment, like you're trading, okay? And it's more calculated as a result. So then it's like, oh, it's like I've done my homework. Okay, I've done my research into this, but at the end of the day, the uncertainty is still there. The outcome is unknown, and the losses that are experienced are still very real. So uh the fourth system that I think is uh really crucial in this whole piece, and maybe, maybe the biggest differentiator is the poker dynamics. Okay. So here within prediction markets, you're winning directly from other participants. And that what that's what makes it uh that's what makes it unique compared to sports betting uh or sportsbooks, you know, where where you're up against uh quote unquote house. So uh in this case, it's about like who who's better informed than you are, okay? And in prediction markets, it's what we call the information asymmetry. Okay. That's that's that's the problem that we're dealing with. Because then you've got maybe some who are advantaged with inside knowledge, uh, you know, who could profit in that way. I know that's I know that they they're uh scrutinizing that a lot more uh these days, but still that's a thing, and we've seen many examples of that already, okay?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Well, we've seen that already with the government. I mean, with certain things about whether predictions around oil or bombings or this and that, where certain people had opened an account within six days and then they made a million dollars. I mean, there's a lot of that. It's no different when I always kind of laugh at the gambling industry when they talk about that with more regulation, with more legality, they'll be able to uncover that many more either scams or fixing. And I say, no, it actually encourages more. Yeah. Because it's legal, and that's why we're constantly seeing whether it's an NFL player or to this week a college football quarterback who has a gambling addiction, or before it was college baseball. I mean, it every, you know, with it just takes a couple months, a couple weeks, and there's always a new scandal being brought to light.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Oh, exactly, Hugo. Um, and you know, we we think about the the differences or the similarities between sports betting and prediction markets, I think something really important for people to understand is at least currently, I'm pretty sure it's 90% or more of the contracts being traded on prediction markets are sports event contracts. So that will tell you something else about what's really going on. It's kind of, again, four systems of gambling bundled into one that appears more like a stock market, that appears more like we're actually investing and we're trading. But and you think about the layers of deception that may go into this as well and what makes it so much more dangerous, because it just appears so different, even though it's so similar at the same time. And the similarity, as we know, is ultimately this could become problematic for people who are engaging. They could lose a lot of money. This could become addictive. And as a result, uh they may suffer a lot because of what they're doing on the prediction market platforms.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Right, because I think, you know, when I gamble, everything was gambling is gambling. You know, the the any any industry, any of this gambling industry is they're very particular in the words they use. You know, because now they keep saying, well, gambling is fun, gambling's entertaining. But like what you said, the prediction markets, when you hand over, you're not technically placing a bet, you are buying a contract. Yeah. So that that in turn changes how a person thinks of what they're risking. This is a contract, no different than a contract on any type of future commodity, whether you're dealing with cotton or oil. And I think that changes how people view that because, like you says, there's a big, I think one of the conversations that need to be had, even now, probably even at the middle school level, we'll get that in question two, but at the high school and college level, that they're looking at whether it's prediction markets, gambling, or options or crypto, that it's all kind of, well, I'm investing, I'm not gambling.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

And not realizing, call it what it is, it's still high risk.

The “Forecasting” Story That Hooks

SPEAKER_00 12:49

To your point, you know, there was this narrative before. Uh, for most of my life, right? Uh uh, gambling is gambling. And and those were your words. And now gambling is not gambling in the same way. It doesn't feel the same. The messaging has evolved a lot. And moreover, it's not just that the messaging has evolved now, the identity of it has evolved too. It really is, the more I think about it, Hugo, like a beautiful deception that's going on. Because now you've got people convinced and and they're probably telling themselves uh uh uh things like, hey, I'm I'm forecasting. I'm not gambling. I I understand this market. This is different. This is not what this is not gambling. Come on. This is and that may be true, like for some, okay? Uh, but I think that at the end of the day, the mechanisms, right? The mechanics of how the thing actually works, they don't care what you call it. They don't care what how it's framed. And and and ultimately, they just care that you're putting your money into that experience. And the system may make you feel, you know, that you know something that others don't. And there's like a real psychological hook there as well. Like it's you know, the hook of, hey, I'm I may be right. Like, you know, I feel good about that. Uh and it's something that makes me want to engage more because who doesn't love being right?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Exactly. Right. And if if you really look at the history of the two people who started Call Shi, they came from the financial world. You know, the financial world has been using prediction markets to make financial decisions for years, long before any of this call she polymarket stuff actually came to existence. And that's where they actually initially got the idea, and we don't even realize how the financial industry has been placing a lot of the, they would call it maybe hedges, but they were either making hedges, forecasting bets, uh, and then sometimes they'd win and sometimes they would lose big, and you know, and the world has to suffer.

Who Actually Wins On These Platforms

SPEAKER_00 15:06

So it really is, like, as I mentioned at the outset, pretty brilliant what they've done now, you know, with the uh with the creation uh of these prediction market platforms. Uh, because with with sports betting, there's still this understanding, right? Even if it's normalized and socialized, and we can get into that more in the next um in the next topic, but even if that's all the case, at the end of the day, there's still this understanding, this is gambling. Whereas with prediction markets, it really is sold as something else, right? Like the forecasting, the information, the almost like this collective intelligence, right? And that I think that that identity shift, like it really does change how people experience what may be in the underlying sense, the exact same behavior, okay? Uh, and and I think that is so interesting because if you, okay, if you if you take like a we'll use the language of prediction markets, okay? If you if you take a position on a binary resolution outcome in a prediction market, you might be thinking, hey, I'm making a smart call. Like, I'm making a smart trade here. I mean, but the again, same underlying behavior, but completely different identity.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

I agree. Like I always tell people, even if you gamble, almost like any form of gambling, they always say, well, someone's got to win. Yeah, 1% wins, 99% lose. And I actually saw a different statistic. I don't know if this actually, I'd have to verify. Someone was talking about that out of, let's say, the 2 million accounts that Call Shee has, only like 780 of them are actually profitable accounts, which means less than one, if you put in 780 into 2 mil, that's less than 1% of actual consistent winning accounts on the platform, which is to me no different than sports betting, slots, poker, whatever it is. There's always gonna be, you know, the 90, I always say 99%, but even if you went to 95% losers, and that's how you get into, you know, do you have any opinion on the amount of actual winning accounts on any of the prediction markets?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

That wouldn't surprise me at all, what you just said. Uh, I don't know the exact numbers, and uh, but what I do know is it's directionally correct. And meaning like the the extent of it in the direction of, hey, there's really not many, uh, there's really not many winning accounts. I mean, we've known that across all forms of gambling. And why would that be any different when you look at prediction market platforms? Look at their valuations. Just if anyone's listening to this, okay, like someone could be listening to this uh this year, they could be listening to this next year. Whenever they're listening to this, just go online and type in CAUSHI. What is the valuation of CALSHI? What was it a year ago? Type in what's the valuation of polymarket? What was it a year ago? And the only way you can explain those valuations and how incredible they are is by what you just said. Look at the number of winning accounts and look at how small they really are. And then that tells you the game that's being played at the end of the day.

Young Men And The New Normal

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Right, because they're gonna back winners. So they're gonna be able to raise money based on the fact that they know that they'll get their money back plus you know, plus plus the incentive. Well, let's go into question two. Question two. You deal with a lot of uh young males, and a lot of people like to focus nowadays between the 18 and 24 year old males. But now, because of all the statistics out there that 51% of all 16-year-olds, males, 16-year-olds have placed to bet, they really we really need to be looking at males between the age of 12 and 25, middle school, high school, college, on how they're either viewing or how they interpret gambling, how they're getting in trouble. Uh, they may not be in like the old terms a pathological gambler like me, but they're for sure a problem gambler because they're getting into a lot of negative situations, whether it's credit, credit cards, payday loans, getting money from their parents, trusts, whatever it is. What are you seeing with this young population on how it's gonna really impact where the US, because I know it's gonna affect the rest of the world, but let's just focus on the US and where that's kind of headed with this population.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Let me say first uh that when it comes to prediction markets, sports books, okay, all the forms of gambling, we have to understand, and and this is a message that I think needs to needs to be reinforced uh to the fullest extent that we can. That the math is not neutral. Like over time, the structure of all these systems is designed so that the losses accumulate. And that doesn't mean you can't win in the short term, okay? Because you absolutely can. And that's the hook. And that's why people continue to be engaged when they focus on those experiences over the other experiences. But over time, we have to understand this fact, which is almost universal, with the exceptions of the winning accounts that you identified earlier, okay? The structure plays out. Okay. It's not because like anyone's doing anything wrong in particular when it comes to their own strategy of gambling or this and that, but it's because of how the thing's been designed and built. It's not some sort of a bug, like it's a feature of how these systems work. And I'm emphasizing this because so much of what happens when we get caught in the cycles of whether it's addiction or call it whatever, uh, whatever we may want, okay? Uh problem gambling. Um, so much of that is the losing carries so much weight that is not perceived in the same way in the moments where the problem is taking place, in the moments where we feel in the urge of wanting to gamble. Okay. So that to me, I think, is a really important uh thing to just reinforce again now that we have this opportunity, right? The system, yes, built into the System, it does allow enough winning to convince you that winning is sustainable when it really isn't. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

So I want to well, that's why they always give you free money. Yeah. You know, deposit five dollars, we'll put in fifty, we'll put in two hundred, whatever it is, is to me, is is no different when the heroin dealer says the first bag of heroin's free because it's all designed to hook you. It's all designed to get that little taste of heroin, the little taste of winning. I just won free$200. I can I can do this again. I can go on a run. I know almost almost every compulsive gambler I ever met in recovery has the same story. I won my first bet at age 12,$5 bet back in 78 when$5 was a lot of money. Betted on the cotton bowl, UT against Notre Dame. I won that bet. And it changes your mind, especially at a young age, saying that I'm actually good at this. And you know, there's nothing like when you people can get hooked onto that free money. It's just like a free drug. You get high.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Again, it's all a part of the design of the system, right? So we have essentially now like a behavioral ecosystem that is really, when you think about it, it's shaping how an entire generation now is relating to risk, okay, or to reward, or to identity, or even to intimacy, okay? I know that's something that we, that we had discussed uh before uh uh the episode today. Like it even when it comes to intimacy. So and I think gambling, like, yeah, it's only like one part of that. And when we but when we think about like young men in particular, okay, the reality is because of the normalization, the socialization, young men don't look like problem gamblers. You used the word pathological gambling before, okay. That used to be more diagnostic terms under previous um classifications, but still, like uh uh problem gamble, whether you call it problem pathological, it just doesn't a lot has changed in recent years how this whole thing is framed and how it's all experienced now. So it's almost to me like gambling is fitting in quite perfectly and neatly into what we may call like the architecture of normal male life, right? You you've got like sports betting, you know, with with the group chats, you know, you've got poker nights, you've got fantasy leagues, you've got the casino trips, right? Like for a friend's birthday, and and this stuff like doesn't really raise like red red flags or anything uh just on the face of it. Um, but I think that it can all like really lead to something else. And I think what makes it like so hard to catch, especially early, is the wins, they're the that they're the experiences that get shared. Whereas the losses are the experiences that stay private uh when when when when young men are gambling. And so when we think about like the the the social context of the gambling, it actually is providing, I believe, like a sort of cover, like a sort of cover because it's so uh it's so hard to differentiate, you know, what gambling is problematic, what gambling is just gambling, or what gambling is not even gambling, like in the case of prediction markets.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

So uh I I think that it's a very right, but I also think it's changed now the addiction cycle. Because, you know, way back when it was always the winning phase, the losing phase, the desperation phase. And now because everything is contracted, people are now looking for help much sooner. You know, for me it took 20 years. I think now you're seeing people two years is enough because it's so fast. People don't realize how fast gambling has evolved. The same reason is people don't realize back in the days is they used to have one or two deck shoots in Vegas. And now it's a six, seven-day shoot. I mean, it's based on odds. But it speeds up the game. You don't have a dealer there doing enough to do a reshuffle. It everything is based on speed. And what I like to uh, you know, as before we go into question three, you know, you were talking here about pathological. I always like to refer to one of the best books that I read in recovery was from really the godfather of gambling recovery, Dr. Custard, When Luck Runs Out. And, you know, when he talked about bringing in, you know, trying to get pathological gambling into the DSM in 1980, you know, trying to do all that information, you know, people really have to start doing more homework. I always tell people, you know, I talk to a lot of alcoholics too. You got to understand the history of alcoholism, understand the history of recovery, psychology to deal with this thing because it's not as simple as I'm no longer gonna gamble or drink again. But uh any any words before we go on to question three?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, on listen on the topic of doing your homework. I did some homework for our episode today, just so I I want to make sure that the listeners had some idea, okay, about the the scope of what's really going on here. So uh I'll just share some some of my homework results, okay? So basically, when we look at the numbers now, okay, and these numbers are gonna change, okay? Uh probably pretty quickly, to your point. Everything is changing so quickly in this landscape. And folks like us who are on the other side trying to help and support people, we simply can't keep up with what's going on on the other side. So, what we're seeing is something like 10% of men aged in that 18 to 30 uh range, they're showing signs of gambling problems already. That's that's more than three times what we what we're seeing in the general population rate, okay? What was it, nearly half of men or about that, uh, from 18 to 49, 50, like that they have at least one sports book online account, okay? Uh, and then and then it's starting a lot earlier than I think people even realize. To your point, Hugo, you know, that there was a survey that I saw 65% of adults participated in some form of gambling before the age of 21, okay? And one, and I'm pretty sure like in that early adult range, like one third of them had placed a sports bet before turning 21. And also, to your point, that doesn't even include the adolescents who we know. We're seeing so many more instances of the adolescents uh who are getting into this through also the convergence of gaming and gambling, uh, who are showing early signs of problem gambling behavior. And the parents are just, what do I do? What's happened? How in the world did we get to this point? And that's just the world we're living in now. It's a really, it's a really interesting picture when you think about contrasted to your earliest gambling experiences and what the world was like back then to what we're dealing with now. Things have changed so dramatically, Hugo.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah, but even people are actually cheering because there's been a drop in this country about alcohol consumption between the high school, the 20-year-old. I go, but the drop in alcohol, and then but it's been replaced by the rise in gambling and the rise in weed. You're not eliminating people like all of a sudden they're no longer escaping their feelings or escaping their reality. They're just changing out moving from alcohol to a little bit to weed, but much more so into the gambling. And you're still there's still got the depression and the anxiety that's actually even gone up.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

No, and and I think there's a nuance there as well, because for people who are including young men who are experiencing gambling problems, the binge drinking and alcohol is still very high. So when you look at the comorbidity there, it is definitely still problematic, even though, as a general trend, yeah, we may be seeing some of those shifts as well that you mentioned.

Early Recovery Steps And Incumental

SPEAKER_01 30:48

All right. So let's just jump in because I like we like to talk about solutions here. Question three. You know, you have this app, you know, designed to help people to understand gambling, to stop gambling, to get into recovery, to live a better life. Talk some about incumental, but also talk about anything else that a young person, let's say even as young as middle school, high school, but also someone in college or in their 20s, what can they do early on that can be effective to curtail or stop their gambling?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Uh thank you for mentioning the app, Hugo. Um, it's something that we just launched a couple of months ago. Uh, and we're very excited about it because when I was practicing before as a psychologist in a clinical setting, it became very clear to me from my clients and from their experiences of the addiction and also of the recovery journeys that they had, it became clear to me what they needed that didn't exist. Um, and that's they're the ones that actually really guided me to go on this journey of creating incumental. Uh and it's very exciting for me because as I mentioned earlier, that we see what's happening on the gambling industry and systems side where this is just spiraling and it's just, it's just so everything is happening so quickly. On the other side of things, it's not happening so quickly. You know, there's much more, there's, there's friction is completely removed from the gambling side. But the friction on the recovery side, whether that's friction internally at a psychological level, whether that's friction just from the way the support system has been set up uh and the and the way it currently exists, that's still there to a large extent, even though, yeah, over time, especially with folks like us building platforms and apps and just trying to trying to help people however we can, kind of outside of that system. We're doing what we can, but ultimately, like we're there's there's still more friction on our side of things. But I mean before I even go much more into uh what we offer in the app, I think it's important to identify, like in terms of steps, right? I think there's a really key first step, and I'm sure it resonates with you and for any of the listeners who uh you know who've experienced gambling problems. And that first step is honesty. And honesty is so important, it's so powerful, it's honesty with yourself, it's honesty with other people. Even in fact, uh, you know, dishonesty and mistrust, all these things are symptoms of the gambling itself. So for us to be able to overcome it, it really does start with honesty. You know, uh, I think historically, you know, we've heard this narrative of, oh, just maybe if you just had more discipline or self-control or willpower or this and that. That's not what we're dealing with here, okay? We're dealing with something when you look at the way the the behavioral ecosystem that that I referred to earlier, including gambling, but also including pornography and gaming and social media. I mean, this thing has been designed to essentially engineer these outcomes, you know, and and it's and it's also been designed to train the brain a particular way. So in order to really take that first step, I believe it's it's being honest. Uh and it's it's as easy as just talking to the difference just to talking to one person, doesn't matter who it is, can make it's incredible because gambling and these other addictions, they thrive in isolation. They love keeping you lonely, okay? And this is like uh this is the first step, I believe, to coming out of that and to counteracting that in a recovery journey.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Right. And I want to add one thing. Uh I say all addiction makes a person lonely. But gambling will make a person the most loneliness out of all addicts because of the money and the losses and the bank accounts or all the other obligations out there has to become even more secretive because at some point the drug use and the alcohol becomes visible. The gambling creates more barriers to the loneliness. And what I like about when you talk about honesty, and I think the key thing, people have to really be honest with themselves on what are the odds. To me, I always say first thing is you got to understand 99% of all gamblers lose. Stop talking about the one woman in Arkansas who won$1.8 billion in Powerball on Christmas Eve. Yes, she was the one winner, but everybody else loses. And that to me is that honesty, you've got to understand you're not flipping a coin like in sports, because that's how I used to think. Well, you're technically flipping a, you know, it's one way or the other. It's either Pittsburgh or it's Houston's gonna win the football game. No, it's a mathematical equation like we talked about earlier. You know, over time you're gonna lose because the math is always gonna be for the house, the sports book, the prediction market. Any other tips besides getting honest?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Absolutely. So I would say first tip is honesty. Second tip is we we talked about friction earlier, right? How there's it feels like there's not much friction when it comes to the design of gambling systems. And it's so easy to just get on the app and to place bets or to make trades and all of this. And and they've taken out every way they can think of that that would make your experience uh more friction driven. So for us, I think that an important second step is how do you add some more friction in there? You know, how do you actually do that? And then, and by the way, adding friction isn't a solution per se, but it's a step, right? It's something that can be helpful because it means it can give you the time and the space to do more of that deeper work that can help you overcome the urges of wanting to gamble. So some of the friction may be the leading apps. You're like, oh, that doesn't work. Okay, how about Gamban? Gamban is something that uh it Gamban is a software that can actually block uh gambling websites and gambling apps. So Gamban, also Bet Blocker. Yeah, there's a couple of them out there, correct. So I mean, these sorts of steps, right? Like uh whether it's the blocking, whether it's, and again, I see the important role that it plays, but I re uh including self-exclusion, okay? Uh I see the important role that it plays uh while I also recognize like, yes, we need that friction between yourself and that next bet. But uh ultimately what we need is to give us that space and that distance so that we can work on understanding the urge. And that's where incumental, I think, plays a very important role because in our in our app, what we try to do is to use to use our language, we try to break the urges, okay? We try to we try to disrupt them kind of in the moments that they're happening through some of our guided recovery sessions that are on-demand short uh form that correspond to urge cycles, okay? So we try to do this in a very realistic, in-the-moment, real-time way. And ultimately, in the short term, the results can be very effective for folks, especially because how many therapy, okay? I used to be a therapist. I used to, you know, the one-hour sessions uh and all of that. But that's one hour a week, right? Uh and you think about other like uh a gambler's anonymous, and I champion all of these approaches. I'm I'm a big advocate of recovery optionality. I'm a big advocate of recovery personalization, okay? Like different things work for different people. Some people swear by gamblers anonymous, some people say it doesn't work for them. I'm good with whatever works for you at the end of the day. But what's been missing, and and these approaches can all be very helpful, but what's been missing and the gap that's been there that we're trying to fill is that in the moment support uh for people and that in in the long run, you can actually integrate our app with any of these other solutions, any of these other recovery options that work for you, have it be a part of your journey and help you in those moments that you may need it, but also help you build your recovery experiences over time. That's something that we really focus on in our app and in our platform, Hugo.

Resources And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Okay, excellent. Well, we've now delved into some really interesting, in-depth topics that I think people are always pushing. I'm always trying to push this envelope in this journey of recovery, especially now with the the new found toy called prediction markets, which everyone's trying to understand, as well as apps. I think that is part, especially now with AI, with all the other stuff that's being thrown out there. Um that people really, because ultimately what I try to get people to do is just to try to live the better life. And even though gambling and alcohol has been normalized, I always say, but you don't need it. Especially because it doesn't actually improve. The the commercials are never reality. But with that, you will see everything in the show notes. You will see the could how to connect with uh Dr. Michael Zang, how to download the app and any other information, you know, connect on LinkedIn on ways to uh connect and move this conversation forward so you can live in freedom. With that, we will conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery.