Nachum Segal | Interview with Uri Edell

Description

Nachum Segal speaks with Uri Edell, a married father of four from Bergenfield, NJ, originally from Toronto, who opens up about his journey through a devastating gambling addiction that quietly consumed his adult life. Uri describes how it started innocently – a legal sports bet at a convenience store in high school that he won – and how that first high became the hook. For years it looked “casual”: trips to casinos, occasional bets. Everything changed once online betting apps and casino platforms went live and moved the casino into the palm of his hand 24/7. What began as sports betting spiraled into millions of dollars wagered on anything and everything – English soccer, Russian darts, Chinese ping-pong, online slots, and thousands of casino games. He explains why gambling is a “silent addiction”: no slurred speech, no smell, no obvious signs – just lies, secrecy, and an obsession that never turns off. He calls it an epidemic in general society and in the Orthodox community in particular, with kids opening accounts under their parents’ names and racking up staggering debts while no one realizes what’s happening. Uri shares how the addiction wrecked his work, warped his relationship with money (“everything became Monopoly money”), and hollowed out his life as a husband, father, and Jew – even when he wasn’t actively gambling, he was thinking about the next bet. The turning point came when he simply could not keep up with his own lies anymore and finally came clean to his wife, parents, and family – the thing he feared most, and the thing that saved him.