He was arrested at the age of 11
When Malek decided to share his story, he initially focused on high school students – but now he’s increasingly being booked into middle schools.
Kurt Freudenberg was just 11 when he started gambling, trading valuable “skins” – cosmetic enhancements used in video games – for digital currency that he could use to place bets on gambling sites. Within weeks, the sixth grader was betting thousands of dollars a day on online blackjack and roulette.
Freudenberg, now 23, said: “It felt like a big rush, now that he’s 23 years old.
In high school, Freudenberg grew into sports betting on NBA and NFL games and overseas casinos that only accepted cryptocurrency, winning as much as $5,000 on a single bet — only to return to more gambling. “If I had a bad day I gambled, if I had a good day I gambled,” he said. “Gambling was my best friend.” The only difference: In high school, his classmates all did it, too.
Freudenberg’s parents did not know what was happening until he went to college. At that time he was gambling in his bedroom for 15 hours a day. He stopped bathing, brushing or going to class.
“We thought he was going to say it was drugs,” said his mother, Kim Freudenberg. But he said, ‘I gamble.’
Gambling addiction clinics and support groups across the US have had an influx of young men and women seeking treatment, providers and people in recovery say.
“When I started, most of the clients in the treatment program were probably 40, 50, 60 years old. Lottery, casino players, that kind of thing. And a few years ago, it just got really young,” said Elizabeth Thielen, executive director at Nicasa Behavioral Health Services, a treatment center in Illinois. “I had one parent who called and their child went through almost their entire college bag.”
Underage betting
In most states, bettors must be 21 years old to gamble in a brick and mortar casino.
But the explosion of online gambling has made it easier than ever for children to gamble – often without parental consent.
Online sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings are regulated by states like gambling companies, so they must follow a minimum age. In most states you must be 21 to gamble, although some will allow betting at 18. Betting apps require users to provide a name, address and Social Security number. These details need to match the bank account where any winnings will be paid.
Underage bettors say there are many applications. Older siblings and friends can create accounts for themselves or act as bookers, and the personal information needed to create accounts is usually easy to access.
“I have a few friends who use, like, their parents’ or grandparents’ Social Security numbers,” Henry Brown, a University student, told NBC News after hearing Malek’s speech. Some of them had their parents’ permission.
With massive ad campaigns and close relationships with sports leagues, broadcasters and prominent athletes, gambling has become so common that parents are betting with their children as a responsible activity. (NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, has a sponsorship deal with DraftKings.)
“I’ve had many conversations with fathers who openly gamble with their children throughout the game,” said Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Family and Children’s Association, a mental health and addiction counseling center in New York.
Both FanDuel and DraftKings say they have a zero-tolerance policy for small users and monitor accounts for suspicious activity. Accounts used by small bettors will be closed and may be reported to government regulators, the companies said.
“This is a form of entertainment aimed at adults, and those are the people we want as our customers – not a 17-year-old kid using his dad’s credit card,” Lori Kalani, head of gaming for DraftKings, said.
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During that time, the industry quickly grew into sites that allowed younger users to bet. Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, currently unregulated like gambling companies, have an age of 18; both FanDuel and DraftKings have recently expanded into prediction markets. Apps like Fliff, which call themselves “online sweepstakes” and not gambling sites, allow players 18 and older to use virtual currency to win real money prizes.
Kalshi pointed to optional features like Face ID that can help prevent children and others from accessing user accounts. “Kids and children are not for Kalshi – making sure that all sellers are adult account holders is our priority,” the app explains in a message when users sign up for an account. Fliff said it follows all state and federal laws to ensure that games are responsible and that most users choose to play for free.
But whether it’s the app or the rules, kids seem to find a way to get in. Offshore crypto casinos like Rainbet do not require age verification at all. They are heavily promoted by celebrities and social media influencers who often do eye-catching things as part of their gambling ads. (Polymarket and Rainbet did not respond to requests for comment.)
After the morning meeting, Malek met a group of students who talked to him about all the pranks they were seeing on social media.
“Guys think it’s silly, but at least it gets you in the mind – so it works that way,” the student said.
Sport and recreation
In middle school, Saul Malek told Ohio students, fantasy baseball became his gateway drug and an easy way to connect with friends. Then in high school, he started playing daily league games on DraftKings, a precursor to online sports gambling that became legal after a landmark 2018 Supreme Court decision. When Malek started betting on sports, he thought he had a talent – and that he should use it by gambling more.
“I told myself what I hear many young men in schools tell me: ‘Hey, I’ve been following sports since I was born, I’ve been a sports fan since I was born, and I know which teams are the best,'” Malek told the boys. “It’s like, you know, I’m stupid if I don’t step up a little bit, because I know this very well.”
That is why the officials of the University School had invited Malek to come first and talk to their students. Not because there is an epidemic of gambling addiction in the student body – but because sports already play a big role in school and, by extension, so does gambling.
“It’s become inescapable when you’re watching a game,” said Krystopher Perry, director of the University School’s high school campus. “Are we going to stop all the boys from gambling? No. But we need to teach them about risk.”
As with other addictions, not every gambler ends up with a life-changing gambling problem. But the instant gratification of online betting makes it even easier for young people to become addicted. Sportsbooks have made it possible to bet not only on the outcome of games, but also on sports betting related to certain events, such as whether LeBron James will score more than 10 points in the fourth quarter.
The constant ups and downs of sports betting can eventually fuel an addiction, and young men are especially vulnerable, Reynolds said.
“When you’re talking about a lack of impulse control among teenage boys, and you’re combining it with this idea of, ‘Hey, I know a little bit about sports, and I can get past the sports books’ – you have a disaster,” he said.
Some recovering addicts who started gambling in high school say that money doesn’t really feel like it, because they didn’t need to support themselves.
“When I started, I had no responsibilities,” said the 21-year-old New Jerseyan, who started using Fliff to pick who would win NFL games as a high school senior, then quickly got into online casino games. “You don’t care if your bank account is zero.”
The 21-year-old, who asked not to be named because of the scandal surrounding his addiction, then began throwing away all his earnings from his part-time job installing electronic equipment into gambling while still living at home. He said that he eventually started stealing from his parents to fund his habit, telling himself that he would pay it back when he won a lot.
“It’s a dreamland,” he said. “I can make money with thin air.”
Parents may be among the last to find out about their child’s gambling problem. And their initial tendency to deal with the issue can end up making it worse, say people in recovery and their families.
When Malek was in the throes of addiction, a bookie came to his parents’ house in Houston and demanded $2,000, he told readers.
“Guys, actually – I hurt again. I got hurt again. Please help me. I need money now,” Malek recalled pleadingly, promising to stop forever.
His parents told the accountant that their son would pay him – and they helped Malek pay the money he had borrowed to do it. But the betting continued. It wasn’t until after his girlfriend dumped him and was about to kill himself that he was ready to accept help.
Malek turned to Gamblers Anonymous. His sponsor told his parents what they had to do: Under no circumstances would they bail him out again. Because it would be even worse if their son continues to be addicted to gambling.
“The end of this is suicide. It ends in prison,” explained the sponsor.
A 2019 survey of Minnesota middle school and high school students by state officials found that students with gambling problems were more likely to report suicide attempts than other students. New research has shown the risk tends to increase when people with a gambling problem are in their 20s. Over the course of a lifetime, nearly one in eight people with gambling problems will attempt suicide, according to a 2024 study.
But public education is lagging far behind in the crisis, say providers and advocates.
“We never had those conversations because I didn’t even know we were supposed to have them,” said Kim Freudenberg, a mother from San Francisco. She joined a local Gam-Anon group for loved ones of people with gambling addictions and recently started a non-profit organization to support parents of children struggling with gambling problems.
Kurt Freudenberg ended up receiving treatment in a rehab facility. Now he’s back in college, studying psychology, and has been sober for two years. Looking back, he wishes someone had raised the dangers of gambling – at school or elsewhere.
