Sam DeMello: “At the end of the day, nobody wants to experience gambling harm”

Today we sit down with Sam DeMello, the Founder and CEO of Evive, a platform focused on helping individuals better understand their gambling behavior and the broader impact it has on their lives.

We dig deeper into how Evive helps players understand the broader implications of gambling that go beyond simple financial harm, and how the platform is seeking to enhance responsible gambling in a way that helps consumers develop a healthy relationship with their gambling hobby.

As part of its ambitious goals, Evive seeks to help with access to gambling harm support in the United States and improve the tools available for preventing and recovering from gambling-related harm. Read our full conversation with DaMello below.

Q: Sam, could we start by talking about behavioral tracking and why it’s an important part of helping consumers understand their gambling better and hopefully steer away from harm?

At its core, I think of Evive as a self-awareness tool. By using Evive, our members gain a better understanding of their own behavior and recognize how gambling is showing up in their lives. This enables each of our members to effectively build a healthier relationship with gambling that works for them.

When most people think of gambling harm, they subscribe to the same framework that has been promoted by the gambling industry– that responsible gambling is all about avoiding financial harm. The idea being that if you gamble with what you can afford to lose, that you will avoid gambling harm.

When I first thought of gambling harm as purely a financial infliction, I blinded myself to the impact that my gambling behavior was having on my relationships, my productivity at work, my mental health, my sense of self-worth, my physical health, and my overall well-being. I told myself that as long as I wasn’t going into debt, gambling wasn’t a problem for me.

There are millions of people out there right now who are experiencing harm from gambling, but don’t recognize it, or don’t know what to do about it because they share this view.

We’re building Evive for them.

Q: Do you reckon putting players in control by empowering them to understand how much risk they are taking – or how much they spend on gambling- is helpful, or does it detract from the player’s experience in any way?

I think empowering our users to better understand their overall relationship with gambling enhances the player experience. Part of that is understanding how much they spend or the financial risk they’re taking on, but it’s much bigger than that. It’s about helping them understand the other ways in which gambling is affecting their lives.

I have personally struggled with a gambling addiction, and I have made the decision to stop gambling completely. That is the right decision for me and my family, and I stand by my belief that for anyone experiencing problems from their gambling, the safest thing you can do is to stop.

However, I’m not "anti-gambling" as I have been labeled by some. I see gambling as an activity, and like all activities, it carries risks. There are plenty of positive ways in which gambling can enhance your life. It may give you a common activity to meet new people and bond with your friends. It may engage your strategic thinking skills and keep you sharp. I used to love sitting down at the poker table and interacting with a diverse group of people I wouldn’t typically engage with in my daily life.

However, if you don’t understand the risks, not just to your finances, but to your overall health and wellbeing, you put yourself in danger. At the end of the day, nobody wants to experience gambling harm. By better understanding those risks, you are in a better position to protect yourself, and enjoy the aspects of the activity that enhance your life.

Q: You have recently introduced your dedicated digital health platform to combat gambling harm. What are your main hopes with this solution?

My hope is that Evive can help address the entire lifecycle of gambling harm for the millions of people who are experiencing it across the world. I know firsthand what it’s like to struggle with gambling addiction, how hard it is to get into recovery, and how difficult it can be to maintain that recovery. I also know the toll that my addiction has had on my friends and family. I want to help people with similar experiences get the help they need, but even more, I want to prevent others from having to go through that experience in the first place.

Q: How do you reckon your platform can fit in the existing ecosystem for responsible gambling and do you think you do things differently than other well-meaning tech companies that are working on similar solutions?

Our goal with Evive is to better connect and amplify the entire ecosystem of gambling prevention, harm reduction, and recovery tools, organizations, and resources. Everyone’s relationship with gambling is unique, and the tools and resources you may need to prevent, reduce, or recover from gambling harm may be very different from someone else.

Our goal is to help you better understand your own relationship, help you craft your own goals around how gambling fits into your life, expand your understanding of resources you can draw from, and then provide you with technology to create an individualized treatment plan so you can effectively achieve your goals.

If that plan includes peer support groups such as Gambler’s Anonymous, we’ll help you find meetings. If that plan includes finding a credentialed counselor or therapist, we’ll help you connect with one. If that plan includes finding an application that provides you with tools that we don’t have, we’ll help you access it.

I don’t see us as competing with other tech companies, or the existing system of care, or anyone else that is trying to combat gambling harm. I see Evive as building the platform that can connect those with lived experiences, the treatment community, public health organizations, the gambling industry, and other technology providers to address gambling harm holistically. It is only through the collaboration of these groups that we will be able to end gambling harm.

Q: How would you gauge the success of Evive’s digital health platform in the short and long term?

In the short term, I see success for Evive as enhancing the current system of care for gambling harm in the United States. We know our nation's current efforts to address gambling harm are not keeping pace with the need brought about by the recent widespread legalization of sports and mobile gambling. I would like Evive to serve as the modern version of the national helpline (1-800-GAMBLER). We are trying to reach a broader population than traditional tools, engage more people who need help, connect them with effective resources, and enhance our ability to address gambling harm as a public health issue.

In the long term, I would like to see Evive enable the development of more effective means to prevent, reduce, and recover from gambling harm. Today, the problem isn’t only that we are engaging a tiny fraction of people who need help, it’s also that we haven’t sufficiently developed the tools needed to help our diverse and expanding population. As Evive grows, I’m confident that we will be able to continuously improve our ability to help.

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