It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's radio.
Gus up the duck boats. Let me tell you this is a much better team than you might expect, folks, gus up the duck boats. My name is Dan Ray, the eternal Optimist. Here spring springs tomorrow. Bro. When is the official start of spring? Do you have a time on that? I think it's I think tonight's the last night of spring. See if you can find me an official time on that, because maybe if it happens during our show, I want to introduce it to everybody and
welcome spring. Thank god, winter is finally over, although we might get some snow this weekend. Good evening everyone. My name is Dan Ray, im the host of Nightside. We get down in business now. Rob Brooks is back in the control room. He's checking out exactly when spring arrives Thursday tomorrow morning, five oh one am. So I'm gonna basically take you to midnight and you run your own after that and five hours in one minute tomorrow morning, you will have spring. You'll wake up and you'll just
feel different. Tomorrow morning. Everything will be perfect. Everything will be perfect. Winter's overspring is here. Okay, good got that taken care of. We have some really good guests coming up in the eight o'clock hour. No phone calls in the eight o'clock hour. Already mentioned. Rob is back in the control room at the Big Broadcast Center. He's all set to make sure everything goes perfectly. I'm all set
to talk to four guests. We will talk at nine o'clock tonight about the termination of Massachusetts State Police Trooper Detective Michael Proctor. He was the lead investigator of the Karen Reid case and he messed up, and as a consequence, he has been terminated by the Massachusetts State Police for
a number of things. We'll get into all of those, but it all involved his investigation of Karen Reid and some texts that he sent and some things that were in writing on his phone, and we'll get into all of that. At ten o'clock tonight, we will have the opportunity and the privilege of talking with Israeli Consul General to New England, Benny SHARONI. We're going to talk about what is going on in the Middle East and specifically
between Israel and Gaza. And then if we get to it, and I hope we do, I'm going to be pretty critical of the Trump administration. And I may be off base, but I think I'm on solid footing a wrongful deportation out of Texas, which I'm still working on. I want to make sure we have this right. But I'll talk about that. If not tonight, we'll talk about it tomorrow night. First off, we're going to welcome Ellen Alden. Ellen deals with managing long COVID. She was a victim of it herself.
She was recommended to us by one of our producers. If you will down to the cape, my good friend Larry and I want to welcome Ellen Alden, the founder of Less Stress Studios. Ellen, welcome to Night Side.
Thank you very much.
So how long did you deal or are you still dealing with long COVID.
Well, I've got COVID the initial infection in twenty twenty one, so it was almost three years before I really started to feel you know, better, and you know, recovery. It's hard to say just because there are really no biometrics for it. But I know I can work, I know I can travel, I know I can do the things that I like to do.
Again, Okay, so were you in effect because long COVID is a real thing, and it affects a lot of people. Seriously. We talked last week about it with Julie Sullivan from the from Brigham Mass General, Brighams or Brigham Mass General. They keep changing the names of that particular group. Julie runs the recovery from Long Covid. There. You're doing this
a little differently on the cape. Tell us about because of your experience you then took I guess the experience that you had learned kind of learned as you went along, and you now have found a studio called less stress studio. And I assume applying some of the lessons you learned to help others men and women who want to somehow get out from underneath the shadow of Long COVID.
Yes, when I couldn't find any.
About that, things happened. Don't worry about those. No no, no, no no no no no no no, no, you go right ahead. Sorry for the interruption.
That's very good.
I was saying, you know, when I couldn't find answers in the medical you know, I tried it at I went down to Mount Sinai in a lot of different places. You know, there just aren't any right now. Treatments or cures, although they're working on them.
You know.
So I had to do things that I could do for myself, you know, and luckily I was. I have I'm certified in mindfulness based stress reduction. So I implemented some breathing techniques, you know, I meditated every day, some this thing called bagel toning. So I really calmed my own nervous system down, because it affects every system in
our autonomic nervous system. But being able to control that control, you know, the thoughts that were coming in the uncertainty, not to say that, you know, my metal health didn't get affected, because when you're stuck with something and you're in bed, and you know, your life changes so drastically because I also the brain fog and you think, oh, people are just probably a little you know, a little foggy,
but it turns out it's really debilitating. Like I couldn't read for a while, and I couldn't write, and I was a writer, So it was, you know, affected so much of my life.
So would we say long covid Okay, I know you've just described long COVID. Does long COVID come in a variety of forms? Or is long COVID the same for everyone who is impacted by it, or are there different manifestations of long COVID in different people?
Yeah, there's you know, I work at the doing some stuff for Brigham too with Julie, and there are five one hundred people or so in that program. Everybody has a different case. It's almost like the virus goes in and it finds the vulnerabilities of the people and will affect them. So I guess there are two hundred and twenty two different symptoms that people can have. So it's really but you know, they're but they're debilitating. I couldn't
get out of it. I couldn't exercise, I couldn't, you know, Like I said, reader, write for a while.
And I assume that when you when you think, you said, what one hundred and two hundred and how many symptoms are.
There of COVID J and twenty two.
Yeah, so if you take all sorts of permutations, mathematical permutations of that, if if someone had symptom one sixteen and twenty three, their experience might be different from the person who had system one hundred and six, one hundred and twelve and two of two. So it's It's almost astronomical the number of potential types of long COVID that might exist if you have all the symptoms or just some of the symptoms. So what do you do at less stress studios? Do people come to you and say
help me? I assume that's what's going on.
Right, Yeah, and it's called stressless studios, not that it's that big a deal, but if anyone was trying to look it up, that's what it stressed.
Now, Okay, fine, I see it both ways on my promotional sheet here, so no problem, that's we got to write stress less studios. Go ahead.
Yeah.
And so when people want to work with me and kind of do the things that I did to that worked for me to get out of you know, long COVID, which you know was the coming of nervous system and also the brain training called in the processing therapy, then yeah, they call me up. I work remotely. I'm actually in Manchester by the sea and on the cape, although I do know Larry, no problem and yeah no and so yeah so he so, so that's what they do. They I do workshops with people on those particular things I
just talked about. And I also see people as a coach working one on one.
Okay, so you do group things, you do one on one. Obviously you're not doing this for your health, as I assume cost involved. Let me ask you the tough question. Is this sort of a therapy that you have developed or do you have medical degrees into a training to back it up? Or is this just this is what worked for me. If you want me to share it with you, I'll share it with you. Tell me which I just want to make sure my audience understands.
Oh. Absolutely, So I use the you know, the different they're mostly the Eastern techniques from my mindfulness based stress reduction program which I took at Brown University. It's a very hard program. And then the breath you know coaching. I just became a breath coach. And then also the pain reprocessing therapy. I am certified in that. So that's why I can teach that I want.
Yeah, no, I want people to know and you know exactly what they're getting into. Now. The best way that people can reach you if they feel that your training might be helpful and they don't have to go to Manchestered by the Sea. This is all done you said remotely, So you're talking about Zoom one on ones or group zoom calls.
Correct, yes, that is all on zoom call calls. And also I have a free support group as well, but yeah, they can just catch it. And it's not for everybody. It's definitely an alternative. But what I liked is in how I originally started, is something that you can do for yourself even while you're being treated by the medical system, just because you know, it's hard to manage all of this and so the better.
And it's probably hard for people to get into the car and drive into a doctor's office, So the fact that you can do it remotely, that's great. Let's have the website. How can people most easily get in touch with you?
Okay, well it is stress dash Less dash studio dot.
Com, stress dash less dash Studios, Puerile.
Dot com studio No just no s just singular.
Okay, so stress dash less or I guess dash could also be a hyphen studio dot com stress less studio dot com with a couple of hyphens in there between stress and less between less a studio. You could have probably just put it all together there and it wouldn't cause me any.
Sorry, that was ful. You did a great job with it though I'm trying.
I'm trying. Ellen. Thanks very much for what you do, and we want to thank Larry for directing her you to us. We really do appreciate it. And I understand what the last name Alden. You might have had some four bears who came over in the Mayflower? Is that true?
Yes, my husband did. Twelfth great grandfather.
What well, congratulations on that. Okay, we should talk to him some night about the genealogy. Thank you, Ellen. Ellen stress less studio dot com with a couple of hyphens in there. Everyone, You'll find it. You'll find it. Thanks Ellen. We get back. We're going to talk with a Washington Post technical writer. Here's something that's really creepy, Alexa. Alexa is getting creepier because Alexa will now tell Amazon everything you say and you don't even know Alexa's listening. This
is out of the Washington Post. Back on nights side, This of course, is a Wednesday night. We're halfway through the week. My name's Dan Ray. We're not halfway through the show yet. We have wats to do tonight. We'll get you to midnight. You can listen to us on the new iHeart app Real simple pull down the iHeart app, put it on your phone or whatever device you have. Make us your primary preset WBZ, and we are only a fingertip away from wherever you are in the world.
Simple as that. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. I'll be right back right after this.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
All right, welcome back. We are going to talk with a guest who has been with us before, Shira Overday, Washington Post tech writer Shira. Welcome back to Nightside. How are you.
I'm well, and it's Shira Shira.
Okay, I was focused on the last name. I figured I had the first name nailed, Shira, but Overday I got I got the tough one. But this though, Yeah, all right, okay, my last name is spelled r Ea, so you can imagine the way that my name is pronounced. I'm very second imagine. Sure, yes, thanks. So, look, I've never used Alexa, I've never used Siri. There probably are some people in my audience who have never used alexra a Siri, and maybe there may be other devices out
there beyond Alexa and Siri. Explain to my audience how Alexa or Siri works, and then let's talk about the problem that you've taught, that you've written about in the Washington Post.
Sure, well, all of the voice activated assistance as they're called, are changing a bit now with artificial intelligence, but the way they worked for many years is you summon the voice assistant with some sort of word like you say, you say the word Siri, or you say the word hey Alexa, and then there's a snippet of voice of your voice that is sent to the cloud of that company, and it kind of processes whatever you've asked it to do, check the weather, play tailor Swiss songs, and then it
triggers that action. That's the very basic way. It doesn't It looks a little bit like a phone tree, like when you call customer service line, right, and then there's this kind of escalating series of annoying, annoying, canned messages. So Alex and Siri work a little bit like that that they're kind of programmed to answer a certain set of questions.
Just a technical question that crossed my mind, and I don't want to be too technical here, but if I had a lecture or Siri could have ask them not to play Taylor Swift songs. Is that possible as well? Just kidding, that's a great question.
Play music but not hitless Swift. I'm not sure. O.
So what now has happened is and I've heard this before, but I think you've done some research on this. It sounds like theoretically these devices, which were there to make things simpler for us, may be actually complicating things for us because they have been able to monitor our conversations that were not necessarily for them to overhear.
Correct, that is sometimes correct. So there's two things that are happening. One is that you were right. Occasionally these voice as systems, including siy and and Alexa from Amazon, occasionally they have been found to sort of activate and essentially record snippets of audio when the person did not intend to activate them. There's not in the active mode
of activation. That's kind of a known problem. I will say that in the past there's been some research that found that happens relatively infrequently, so that maybe gives you people in your audience some comfort. The other thing is.
That so there's no suggestion here, just so I to say, there's really no suggestion here that it's not something that you freak people out. It's not as if Big Brother has been listening and writing down.
I am not in a position to tell people what to freak out about or not to freak out about. But yes, I mean, look, the point of these voice activated assistance is that they have microphones that are always listening for you to say the trigger work right. So that may make people uncomfortable. And again, depending on how whether you feel cool with this or not, there are some small set of cases where they may turn on the voice assistance, may record you without you intending to
be recorded, basically accidental activations. So again, whether that freaks you out or not, that's.
A person right right.
So what we're saying is this is not Big Brother watching you. We have This is not another chapter of nineteen eighty four or all this Huxley or anything like that. It just shows that sometimes when we have these great conveniences, that there's there's not subside benefits, the subside detriments. I guess I would characterize it.
Yes, for sure, for sure, with every with every convenience, there comes a cost, and the cost of these voice assistants is yes, sometimes they inadvertently record you without your knowledge. And then the other, you know, larger, larger issue is that by it is standard that is written into Alexa, which is kind of the most aggressive of the voice assistance. Everything you say, all the things that are recorded from your home, from you asking for Taylor Swift songs or to.
Remind you Tailor Swift songs right.
Or not, yes, forgiving, that is all retained in Amazon's cloud computer system forever. That is the standard approach that Amazon has.
Taken well, which gets to the point of then can your voice, which you would like to think you own, which we talked about a couple of nights ago, then can be expertsropriated by some organization that could then use your voice either for bad purposes or you might hear your voice being used unknowingly on a commercial someday five or ten years from now, and you say, my god,
I never did that commercial. But they were the snippets of your voice, and if they felt it was the perfect voice they needed a friendly female voice, or an unfriendly female voice, or a friendly male voice whatever. So, yeah, boy, this is a lot to think about. Share I hear you.
Yeah, Look, I mean I think it's fun to think that that Amazon is not going to like sell your voice to some sort of con artist, right, who's gonna tend to be your grandchild. But I think the risk here, and then this is a standard risk for all these technology companies, is that they collect as much data as they possibly can, because nothing stops them from doing so. Right, and whenever there is large amounts of data, it is a honeypot for someone. It could be stolen by hackers.
It could be you know, either requested with a valid legal warrant or maybe not by a government authority. It could be used in ways that you cannot imagine. It is also standard at these companies that they sometimes have human beings listen to those recordings in order to see if you know, transcription and things like that are accurate. That is something else that when that's been reported on, people freak out about that, and then I get.
That, well, that's okay. I think people should freak out about more things, because look, I think it's fair to say that there's stuff going on in this world that we normally say, well, the government will protectives, the government will make sure that that's and in fact, the government can't stop those six o'clock phone calls when people calling you asking you to sign up for solar panels or or increase your your you know what if you fix
your plumbing. I mean it's like those those those those auto dialed calls when you say hello, and it takes fifteen seconds for the person from where somewhere in the Philippines to say, oh, well, good evening, Hello, how are you? And the government can't stop those either, so.
Anyway, well, I think the reality is again, the more data these companies collect, the more information there exists on the Internet for people to steal or purchase or trade in order to tailor scams right that that seem sophisticated and that make us fall for them, or to you know, persuade us to buy stuff. I mean, you know, again,
I agree with you. People should be more freaked out, and that is the thing that they should freak out about, is again this mass collection of our personal data, including bits of our voices without really I mean like we have no possible way to anticipate how that might be used or misused today or in the future.
You bet you, you bet you sare it overday? Thank you very much. As always, we will talk again. I very much appreciate your time with us tonight, very informing. Thanks, thanks, my pleasure. Thank you. All Right, we're a little bit late here for the eight thirty news. That's fine, that's coming right up. We're gonna hold on that. We come back on and talk about process meets don't just affect your heart, they may worsen your cognition too, that's good news.
And then we'll talk about gambling, March's National Problem Gambling Awareness Month. Of course it is. You've heard of March madness. You thought it was about basketball. It's about basketball and gambling. We'll be back on Nightside with two very two more very interesting guests.
It's night Side, Boston's news radio.
All right, welcome back. We join now by our guest, you had O'Connor. Uh. He is a Washington Post health columnist, a new Hut. Welcome to Night's Side. How are you.
I'm doing great? Thanks, it's Anahad. Great to be here.
Anahad okay, I got it. I've never seen that name before. I'm sorry that I mispronounced it. It's Anahad Anahad okay.
Yeah, yeah, no problem, a problem, it's not there's not many of us out there, I guess not.
Is that a family name. I see O'Connor at the end, I was, what is that happened to be Gaelic by any chance of know?
Ah, that's a good guess. It's well, it's actually from Sanskrit and it means celestial. It means celestial music. And my my, the short story behind it is that my parents were hippies and so they gave my siblings and I names from Sanskrit. But O'Connor is the Irish part.
No, clearly that one I'm very familiar with. I'm a I'm My family is from County Cork. So my parents weren't hippies. They were a little they were World War two generation, so hippies had. So we're talking about processed meats, okay, which, of course processed meats could be what anything, cold cuts, hot dogs give us the scope of I'm sure there are other things that fit under the umbrella or the
category processed meats that I haven't mentioned. What else are we talking about when we talk about processed meats?
Yeah, so they're usually the really highly processed, cured salted meats, so hot dogs, sausages, bacon, salami, you know, daily meats, those kinds of like preserved meats typically.
Okay, and so these are known to affect your heart. I don't really want to ask, because I had a ham sandwich tonight, But how did they affect your heart? What do they do to your heart? And then we'll get to what they do to your cognition.
Yeah, So, health authorities have long discouraged people from consuming a lot of processed and red meats because they know that these foods contain a lot of saturated fat and that can raise your LDL cholesterol, which is the kind associated with heart disease. Typically, the higher your LDL cholesterol, the higher your risk of heart disease and heart attacks and strokes. So that's primarily the reason doctors and health authorities have discouraged people from eating processed and red meats.
But now, in this news research, they looked at whether there was a relationship between how much processed and red meat people ate and their risk of developing cognitive issues as they got older, such as dementia, Alzheimer's, memory decline, and loss. And they found that the more process meats people ate, the higher their likelihood of developing these cognitive issues as they got older.
Okay, so I assumed that This is consumption that starts when kids are bringing boloney sandwiches to school, or maybe they don't bring boloney sandwiches to school were like we did. But uh, I assume it starts when when people when when you know, infants start to eat real food. Is there any I mean are they saying there's no safe level? Like you know I I, for example, I use myself oftentimes as a guinea pig on this show. I'm a
big Boar's Head fan. I think that boys and Telly meats are really good, and now I like Boy's head turkey, and I occasionally get a couple of slices of thinly sliced ham maple honey ham to throw into a salad.
I'm not somebody who's who's eating a lot of subs every day, But how how concerned should I be about the fact that over my lifetime I've probably eaten a lot of sandwiches, a lot of a lot of hot dogs at baseball games, and uh, you know the typical diet that many Americans look back in the rear view mirror and say that's the way I'm lived for thirty years or forty years or fifty years or more.
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And so, I mean, the first thing to know about the study is that it was quite large. It looked at like almost one hundred and fifty thousand people followed for over four years, and it was observational in nature. So they didn't take
they didn't do a randomized control trial. They took people and split them into groups and said, Okay, this group, you're gonna eat salami and you know, ham sandwiches every day, and this group, you're not gonna eat any processed meats. They follow people and ask them about their diets, and you know, found that they're the more of these processed meats people ate, the higher they're likelihood of developing cognitive
issues as they got older. But that doesn't mean that everyone got cognitive issues or that if you you know, if you eat some processed meat, you know that you're definitely going to get mentioned Alzheimer's or cognitive issues. You know, and there are so many other parts of your diet that also play a role as well, how much sugar
you're consuming, how many ultra processed foods you're consuming. So the key takeaway was just that you know, there are reasons to believe that processed meats could play a role in your likelihood of developing you know, dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, because we know they can increase your saturated fat or sorry, they can increase your LDL cholesterol levels because of their saturated fat and a higher LDL itself. You know, it
seems like it could potentially, you know, be causal. Also, these process meats tend to have high levels of sodium and preservatives such as nitrates and nitrites that can potentially increase your blood pressure. And we know that if you have higher blood pressure, that can lead to more vascular issues, and that's you know, obviously can play a role in your brain health. You know, these preservatives can also increase
oxidative stress and inflammation. So you know, doesn't mean that you can't eat any processed meat ever, just that if you're eating, if you're eating, you know, if you're eating ham sandwiches every single day, then that certainly is not everything in moderation.
But they say that, but if this isn't everything in moderation, I think I'm okay. If this is the surge of general telling us in nineteen sixty four, throw the cigarettes away. I mean, this is not quite at that level, but it's something people should.
Definitely not okay. And the other thing to know is that, you know, if you're someone who likes processed meats like myself, I like, you know, I had a turkey sandwich today. But you can go to the grocery store and buy, you know, deli meats that say night write and night trate free, which are those potentially harmful preservatives. You can buy the deli meats that don't have a lot of sodium added to them. So one that I like, for example, is applegates. They use they don't use the nitrites and
nitrate preservatives. You can buy one that sold in most grocery stores and I think it's made by Wegmans. It's called just Turkey, where it's literally just the sliced turkey without a bunch of additives. So if you are going to eat the process meats, then try to get the ones that have fewer additives, you know, just the turkey meat without the additives, or the you know, sliced roasted chicken without the additives. You know, so you can choose the ones that are have.
Got to be a smart What you're saying is you've got to be a smart consumer. With the warning that you've issued, it's never too late to get back on track. I think everybody tomorrow could take some of this advice. Uh A new thank you very much. I really appreciate it. A new on O'Connor Washington Post Health column. Get it right, get the first name right that time.
A new hut cloth on a hut.
But that's not that's okay. I gotta get because you know I'll have you back. I want to work on it between now and then. Anaha, thank you very much. I appreciate it very much.
My pleas are great to talk to you. Have a good evening, Great you too, you as well?
All right, when we come back, March's National Problem Gambling Awareness Month. Isn't it funny that March is also March Madness? With the Sweet sixteen NCAA. You're going to talk with Marlene Warner. She's the CEO of the Massachusett Council on Gaming and Health. Coming back on Nightside right after this.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
I'm here to tell you March is National Problem Gambling Awareness Month. It's also the month of March madness. Maybe it's appropriate with me is Marlene Warner. She's the CEO of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health. Marlene, I didn't even realize we had a Council on Gaming and Health. Tell us about is that a state agency or is that a private agency?
We're a private, nonprofit organization. Previously, we were named up until twenty twenty where the Massachusetts Council and compulsive gambling and actually we've been in the commonwealth since nineteen eighty three.
Yeah, well the compulsive gambling one. Did it compulso become a bad word? And did we changed as a result of that?
Yeah, compulsive is certainly a little bit stigmatizing or a lot stigmatizing. I think the other thing is that we recognize that we can help people prior to them getting to the point of addiction or disorder, which would be the more appropriate terms to use now. So really identifying that folks are in need of services and support from the moment they make the decision to gambling, all the way through long term recovery.
Yeah, I know, I get it, and you know it's always I look at a lot of that stuff as euphemisms, but if it works better this way. The Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health, we have just legalized sports betting in Massachusetts in the last year or so.
Correct, Yes, it's been especially we're coming upon two years of legalized sports wagering.
Okay, fine, Now again you use the word wagering, which I guess is a softer word in betting. When when I was a little kid, I mean when I was ten or twelve, used to get those those cards from the bookies. You've had to pick three games on NFL Sunday and you bet a bucket. If you got all three games right on the spread, you got five bucks back. I never turned out to be a big gambler or anything like that. I'm actually the I knew that the
thing was all that the house always won. Okay, So, and I don't like to go into situations where where my chances of losing money are worse than my chances of winning money. But a lot of people have this problem. My question is, do you think we made a mistake. This is a tough question because I'm noticing that the lottery revenues are coming down, and I have to assume there's a relationship that as the football and sports betting goes up, that has to impact the Massachusetts State lottery.
Correct or No, So I you know.
I really can't comment on that piece. I guess what I would say is that our Massachusets State Lottery continues to be the most profitable lottery per capita in the world. So you know, we still are doing just fine in the Commonwealth in terms of lottery sales. You know, I certainly you know it would be a good question for the treasure for the lottery director.
Oh yeah, well, treasure treasurer Uh Goldberg is a great friend. And I heard the numbers last week, and I assume that, like anything else, if you open up more you know, whatever options for people who who are who are gamblers, that they the mass Lottery, which is a wonderful lottery by the way, it's everyone knows it's all on luck. So you you buy a ticket on impulse, but you're hopefully you're not spending a lot of money the kids
shoes shoe money. However, I think it's different when you bet in football in sports, and I'll tell you why, and you're probably going to disagree with me. I think most people realize Yeah, they buy a lottery ticket. It's pure luck. So there's no onus on losing My numbers didn't come up big deal. But there's a lot of people who bet football games, basketball games, bet they're spread beer, convinced that they know more than the bookies do about wh who's injured and all of that. And I would
bet that compulsive gambling. There's more compulsive gamblers who are involved in sports betting than there are in the lottery.
Can you comment on that, Yes, I can comment on that.
So I think one of the things that's really interesting about Massachusetts is that we have a pretty robust research agenda here in the Commonwealth, and that was part of the twenty eleven Expand of Gaming Act that brought casinos to Massachusetts under Governor daval Patrick and he and the legislatory at the foresight to make sure that there were significant dollars set aside to study a lot of this.
Of things that we know is that the biggest predictor of someone having a gambling problem is that they are a regular lottery player. But that doesn't mean that their unhealthy play is coming from lottery play. Only. We typically see that they play the lottery and other things. We did not see with the introduction of casino gambling here at least thus far over the last ten years, any
significant increases in terms of gambling problems. We're still obviously, like, like we said, not even two years into sports wagering. You know, anecdotally, people will certainly say, and there's some early research results here in mass choos to say that there are some more significant problems happening as relates to
sports wagerings. But I think the segments of the population are really different when we talk about that, and whether they also are you know, at baseline also lottery players, I think is another thing that we're trying to determine. You know, all this research is happening through you, matt Amherst.
Well, I could do I could do the research for you right now. I can tell you that. And I don't want to be a wise guy when I say this, but I guarantee you that the lottery players skew older, and the and the sports betting players skew younger, and they will go to casino's probably somewhere in the middle, right or wrong.
I think it depends. I think you know, again, these are all nuanced pieces I don't.
I'm talking about I'm talking about you're paying research to you, Mass. I'm telling you right now that a lottery players because because I go into variety source and I see who's playing the lottery, young people aren't playing the lottery. That's part of the problem the lottery has, the dev Goldberg is trying to address. And the people who are betting on football games and on college basketball games, they're not people in their sixties and seventies. The more people in
their twenties and thirties. And you know, you can spend a lot of money if you you Mass are doing research. But that's what the research in my opinion, and that's just from observations. I mean, talk probably talk to a couple of bookies and be able to figure it out. So what can we do here? What is the solution to this dilemma that you have sketched out for us?
I think the solution is to do a couple of things. One is, before you introduce new forms of gambling or even expand upon the ones that we currently have, is to continue to offer a lot of safety nets. And so safety nets look different in different forms of gambling, and regulatory efforts and certainly in general public awareness. I mean, we have been around since nineteen eighty three, and yet a lot of folks still don't realize that you can
have a gambling problem. So just constantly promoting the existence of the issue and some of the signs and symptoms, but also just making sure people know to call one eight hundred gambler so that they can get the help and resources they need that we do have here in
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The other thing I guess I would say is that there are many opportunities to make products safer safer, excuse me, and also how they are advertised and how they are promoted safer, and I think there's a lot of a lot of room for opportunity there, whether that be with the operators, whether that be the state through the lottery, or through the individual companies which are licensees of the commonwealth, or through the regulatory actions.
I would just add one final comment, and I don't know if you can agree with me or not, but it is my belief that once you let the genie out of the bottle, it's tough to put the genie back in the bottle.
Yeah, we certainly see that, seeing that in a lot of states and folks just continue to expand but don't actually correct some of the problems that they've kind of created and solved.
You know, our tribe, give us the website where people can seek some help if they if they're able to realize they need some help, where can they go?
Yeah, so they can. They can go to game sencema dot com if they want some help in terms of keeping their game states. And then if they definitely need treatment twelve step programs, they can go to Gambling Helplinema dot org, which is a website put out by dph.
Okay, sounds great, Thanks very much, appreciate your time, Thank you much, and happy March Madness. Thanks very much. March National Problem Gambling Awareness Month. That's all we're going to see for the next two or three weeks for sure. And if you're a gambler, it's it's tough to resist. We've got to coming back on night's I'm going to talk about the termination of Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Procter.