Sports is a talking point in the small village of Ballston Spa in upstate New York. Everyone from your neighbor to your neighbor’s neighbor supports some kind of sports team. Knicks, Bills, Islanders, no matter. Tucked away in Saratoga County with a population of just over 5,000, the historic village, with its scenery and iconic landmarks can sometimes feel like it's warping you back to its founding in 1771. A time before sports could ruin thousands of lives.

New York State legalized online sports betting back in January 2022 to an explosion of bettors in its first month alone. The online explosion is being led by cell phone use, allowing online bookmakers to push their products right into the hands of bettors, at any given time.

At around 8:30 PM, as the summer sunset fades over Ballston Spa, Steven Delaney is doing yard work. In his free time, sports are no longer an interest for Delaney. He can’t support the New York Jets like he used to. He can’t watch college basketball like he used to. “I have friends who still watch the sports, but I don’t watch sports anymore,” says Delaney. “It’s just going to sink me further.” From huge pay-per-view events to daily fantasy leagues, the New York online gambling market has been the best bet for sports-obsessed bettors and fans, even as young as 17. It’s not so much a bet on better bettors, just worse gamblers.

Delaney, 38, is a recovering sports gambling addict and the host of “Fantasy or Reality?”, his podcast centering on his path to recovery after a history of drug use and recent gambling on daily fantasy sports. Working day to day as a truck driver, long-distance travel can sometimes be an escape. With tons of deliveries to make on the job, the time in between stops while on the open road can be just enough to record clips for his podcast, make a phone call, or to reflect on his road to recovery.

Delaney’s gambling addiction was recent, long after years of drug abuse. It all started with free-to-play daily fantasy sports leagues. These are competitive leagues where individuals can assemble a team of players projected to perform the best each week during the regular season. While these leagues can be relatively low stakes, Delaney says this competition spurred urges to bet big on his fantasy skills.

“The whole reason I started playing was the hopes to win a large enough sum of money so that we could: A, move out of my parents' house, and B, try to stay in Long Island,” said Delaney. “The contest I was playing could be for football where first place got you $1 million or for basketball, you’d win $100,000…I got close on many occasions–sometimes by just a few points.”

Though sports wagering is not legal nationwide, it probably won’t be long until it will be. The proverbial floodgates opened in 2018 when the Supreme Court cut down a 1992 federal law that limited sports betting primarily to Nevada.

States where it's legal now, like New York, Pennsylvania, and recently Kansas, now open brick-and-mortar sportsbooks as well as sports betting apps through every smartphone imaginable. Along with that, advertising is through the roof. Emily Stewart of Vox was told by the co-president of Caesars Digital about the different profiles of customers who frequent their casinos and sports betting services.

With the rise of FanDuel and DraftKings and similar sports betting apps in New York, all that accessible data and information is vital for companies to identify you and keep you hooked on the ever-looming possibility of a big payout next time Conor McGregor returns to fight in the UFC or if North Carolina goes the distance during March Madness.

“They want to create addicts,” said Delaney. “The majority of their money is coming from addicts. A casual bettor is going to bet $20 a week, but an addicted gambler is going to bet thousands. Tens of thousands.”

Some will argue that there is no such thing as a casual bettor. Betting companies have millions of ways to entice current, future, or relapsed bettors into taking the plunge again. Whether it be getting your favorite basketball player doing commercials for Caesars Sportsbook or watching them insure your thousand dollar bets, if you don’t want to wager your money, these companies will market those who aren’t as fools for not playing when the iron is hot.

It’s always been about money, not the competition. The game, high stakes gambling, can often reward those who take the biggest leap of faith. Those with higher incomes who are more sports-obsessed will always feel they know how well the Brooklyn Nets will play this season more than you. They are willing to bet on it. $1,000 to them can be like $20 to you. It’s what separates those who can gamble responsibly and those who can’t. Your team is losing & your life is being destroyed in one tap on your phone, one click of your keyboard, one bet at a time.

“At the end, I knew that everything was crashing down around me. I didn’t know how to stop it,” said Delaney. Delaney started betting in his early thirties, starting out with free-to-play games among friends before turning into thousand-dollar bets in advance, weeks before games would even start by 2019.

The adrenaline rush of winning double, triple, or quadruple the amount of money as your team takes the field kept him hooked. The idea of losing money without the game even starting yet kept him sleepless.

For Delaney, this never-ending, looming uncertainty is what broke him.

“It was a constant cycle of never-ending stress. You’re living in both peaks and valleys,” said Delaney. “I would come home and I’d look at my wife, I’d look at my kids…I’d go take a shower and I’d basically just be staring at myself in the mirror, not knowing who I was and I would be breaking down crying…I didn’t understand how powerful this addiction was.”

Delaney decided to seek help after his wife caught him betting. It was his friends and family that kept him focused on recovery, whether it was sports betting, drinking or hard narcotics.

Delaney has gone a full year since his last sports bet. He has been debt-free for over a year, clean of drugs for over 13 years, and hasn’t drank alcohol since July 2009. It was in the same week that he stopped betting and where his recovery process led him to podcasting.

“I went to my first GA meeting that Friday in person, but before that, that’s when I found the podcasting world,” said Delaney. “It was a huge part of my recovery and it’s the reason why I mention [gambling addiction resources] at the end of my podcast because it has been so vital.”

“Fantasy or Reality?” has been active since October 2021, with Delaney allowing listeners to share their stories and struggles of problem gambling in a safe space, as well as Delaney explaining what has worked for him and why and how life has improved drastically since. However, even he acknowledges that the recovery process is a journey, not a destination.

“You can be comfortable, but never cured,” said Delaney. “Eventually, it becomes about helping the next person…so like through my podcast and through my meetings, I’m now helping the next person that comes in that’s having a difficult time.”

The highs of chasing a ginormous payout when you bet big on sports can sometimes be enough to get past the lows of losing. For problem gamblers, there is only the perpetual state in between that you find yourself in. With New York legalizing online gambling, you can only bet on one thing: addiction and a long road ahead to recover.