This story is a collaboration between Capitol News Illinois and Illinois Answers Project. Editor’s note:
Some individuals in this story are identified only by first name and last initial at their request to allow them to speak openly about their addiction without fear of reprisal for actions taken when gambling.
At his worst, Jimmy M. was a rough-and-tumble bar fighter. But he can also be a major mama’s boy. He’s got an easy, warm Little Italy charm that lent itself well to manipulating people just long enough to finance his gambling. Like most gamblers, he grapples with an ego that can make him feel invincible. He’s a softy, a quick crier, a man of big emotions.
And now, though only 45, he’s considered one of the tough-love “elders” in Chicago’s Gamblers Anonymous rooms, an image he says he’s tried to reform with a gentler tone in recent years.
Gamblers Anonymous, or GA, is a 12-step program founded in the 1950s, following in the footsteps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And for many, talking with other people addicted to gambling at GA helps them keep from stumbling back into their addiction.
It can also serve as a much-needed source of light, especially for those early in their recovery.
“A lot of people are looking for hope … they feel helpless,” said recovering gambler Dave K., a resident of Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. “I see people coming in the room who are suicidal, who are on the verge of divorce or getting divorced, about to be evicted. You see that happen to a lot of people and then it’s amazing to see, if people stick with the program for a year, two years, just how different a person they are, and how different their lives are.”
Becoming the resource
In 2021, Jimmy began looking for additional gambling recovery resources to supplement his GA attendance.
“Whenever I would even type in the word gambling, you would see all these podcasts come up about the other side of it, which is how to win in gambling,” Jimmy said. The few podcasts he found devoted to prevention released episodes only sporadically.
So, he decided he’d do it himself. In February 2025, Jimmy launched the podcast, “Gambling Recovery: Taking Back Your Life” with Sam Sherman, an internationally-certified gambling counselor who edits the podcast in his free time.
On the show, which airs every other week, Jimmy interviews compulsive gamblers in recovery, gamblers’ family members, addiction counselors, journalists and lawmakers including Massachusetts state Sen. John F. Keenan. The target audience is anyone in recovery or looking to better understand gambling addiction.
The podcast, which generates over 2,000 monthly downloads, is in many ways a project by and for the Chicagoland GA community, featuring interviews with many local compulsive gamblers. Before the podcast began, Jimmy only expected friends, family, and GA community members to listen. He now has listeners in 90 countries and receives messages from strangers thanking him.
Some of those messages are from people contemplating self-harm or suicide, reaching out to say the podcast had made them hopeful.
Jaime L., a local GA member who requested to be identified using an alias due to outstanding legal concerns, spends much of the day in her car driving to work. When gambling, she would duck into a gas station or liquor store to purchase Lottery scratch offs and spend hours scratching tickets in her car.
She found Jimmy’s podcast early on in her recovery and says it saved her life. Now, whenever temptation strikes while she’s driving, Jaime now hits play on Jimmy’s podcast instead. Unlike gambling, Jaime said there’s no chance for bad odds when she tunes in to the show.
“You’re not playing Russian roulette with the podcast; you’re playing Wheel of Fortune,” she said.
GA deserts
For all its good, most members recognize GA as only one piece in a larger puzzle of recovery resources.
The 3 to 5 minutes of speaking time allotted to each member per meeting, called “therapies,” is not always enough to address their individual challenges.
Many GA members supplement group meetings with individual counseling, though gambling-certified therapists in the state are limited, and insurance does not cover most treatment without the compulsive gambler having an alcohol or drug use disorder, too.
While an AA meeting may be found nearly every hour of the day somewhere in Chicago, there is at most one GA meeting a day within city limits, except on Wednesdays when there are two. Major swaths of the city don’t have GA meetings nearby, especially in poor South and West side neighborhoods.
Part of the problem is a lack of awareness about gambling addiction, much less the existence of GA as a resource to treat it, according to counselors in the communities where it’s missing.
“Gambling is sort of a social norm with a certain segment of the Black community, and it’s not viewed as an addiction. It’s viewed as a way to make money, perhaps hit a jackpot and really, enhance one’s financial standing,” said Kenneth Smith, a certified alcohol and drug counselor who has worked in several South Side neighborhoods. “It’s at crisis level with some people as far as being an addiction, but it’s not viewed that way by the people who play it on a regular basis.”
Often, some of the poorest areas spend the most on gambling.
For example, The Chicago Reporter found nearly two decades ago that players in the South Side’s 60619 zip code area spent more on lottery tickets than any other ZIP code in the state, purchasing more than $23 million worth of tickets.
The population in the 60619 area, which includes much of the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Chatham, Avalon Park, Burnside and Calumet Park, declined by over 15% between 2000 and 2020, but ticket sales have not slowed.
According to Illinois Lottery data, players there purchased the most tickets of any ZIP code in the state last year, totaling over $35 million in sales for a population where one in four people live below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census data.
In some communities, gambling is part of the culture, and tackling gambling addiction can face off against a stigma that’s hard to overcome.
For example, in Chicago’s Chinatown where mahjong reigns — a tile-based game originating in China — going to the casino provides a place for older residents to socialize and carries the promise of providing for their family, according to Mimi Tsang, who oversees substance use and gambling prevention programs at the Midwest Asian Health Association.
“It also kind of goes into the hustle culture of, ‘I need to make money in order for my family to survive back home, or for me to bring them here, so then they can have a better life,’” Tsang said.
Casinos have targeted the city’s Asian population with expressway billboards in written Chinese characters and by chartering more than 10,000 bus shuttles a year between Chinatown and Bally’s Casino and another 2,000 between Chinatown and Wind Creek Casino in East Hazel Crest.
But there are no GA meetings in Chinatown.
Meetings outside the Chicagoland area are even harder to come by. Beyond the small clusters of meetings around major cities, compulsive gamblers in much of the state are lucky if they have one meeting a week within an hour’s drive.
Zoom meetings offer a virtual outlet, but many GA members say it doesn’t fully replicate meeting in person.
Though compulsive gamblers almost universally agree that recovery is a lifelong and difficult road, gambling addiction counselors say effective treatment is possible with the right tools, and GA members swear by the program’s tenets and the role of community support.
“After doing this for so long … I don’t feel like I’m ever 100% in the safe zone,” Jimmy said. But, he added, “it does get easier over time.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, help is available. Contact the Illinois helpline by calling 1-800-GAMBLER or texting “GAMB” to 833234.
COVER IMAGE: Jimmy M., a compulsive gambler in recovery, hosts a podcast where he interviews other compulsive gamblers, their family members, addiction counselors and lawmakers. (Credit: Victor Hilitski for Illinois Answers Project)
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