The Changing Gambling Landscape: Risk, Trends, and Financial Well-Being for Older Adults

Description

As traditional gaming expands into crypto trading and prediction markets, older adults face new financial risks. Join the Oregon Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health & Aging for a 90-minute session on recognizing problem gambling in later life and leveraging financial literacy as a protective shield. Featuring expert insights from Glenn Yamagata (OCPG) and Andrea Dassopoulos (UNLV). 1.5 NASW CEUs!

Learning Objectives

Examine traditional formats (lottery, casinos), emerging markets (crypto, prediction platforms), and gambling-like mechanics in games and finance (loot boxes, blind boxes, gamified trading).

Identify key signs, risk factors, personal and financial harms, and specific vulnerabilities facing older adults.

Apply core financial concepts, including risk evaluation, budgeting, and informed decision-making, to shield against financial and gambling-related harm.

Navigate available help, including peer support, professional counseling, and state services via the Oregon Problem Gambling Helpline and online networks.

Speakers

Glenn Yamagata is the Executive Director of the Oregon Council on Problem Gambling and Vice President of Data Science and Economic Analysis at Problem Gambling Solutions, Inc. Previously, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company and held research positions at The Brookings Institution and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Glenn also serves as a Director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, and holds an M.A. in Statistics and an M.Phil. in Economics from Yale University.

Andrea Dassopoulos is research faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas International Gaming Institute and Research Director for OCPG’s Oregon Gambling Research Center. She is a sociologist whose work focuses on gambling-related harm, emerging gambling and gambling-like products, financial well-being, and the ways social and cultural environments shape gambling behavior and perceptions of risk. She leads applied research and evaluation projects designed to inform prevention, education, policy, and community-based responses to gambling-related harm.