New Jersey eyes decriminalizing underage gambling and using fines for compulsive betting treatment

Press of Atlantic City

By Wayne Parry

TRENTON — Sam Antar was 18 the first time he gambled with friends in an Atlantic City casino — even though the legal gambling age was 21.

No one stopped him.

“Nobody bothered us,” he said. “They just wanted our money.

Antar would go on to develop a severe gambling problem that led to him committing crimes to feed that addiction, landing him in jail multiple times.

Rob Sackowitz started gambling at age 13; by 16, he was attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings.

“From 18 to 35, I went through hell,” he said. “I was arrested nine times, had two DWIs, I was getting kicked out of a family business and had a wife that was leaving.”

In retrospect, both men say, their lives might have taken a much different turn had they been caught at an early age and forced to undergo court-ordered treatment.

“I could have maybe avoided all of it,” Antar said. “Maybe if I got in trouble, I could have said to myself, ‘Hey, I need to do the right thing here and not throw my life away when my life was just getting started.’”

“Pain becomes a great motivator,” Sackowitz added. “As a teenager, you almost feel like you’re invincible.”

New Jersey is rethinking how it deals with underage gambling, moving toward making such activity a civil offense rather than a crime, with fines going to fund programs for compulsive gamblers.

A package of bills moving through the state Legislature aims to change the emphasis from punishment to rehabilitation, while providing additional money for badly needed treatment programs.

“Sixty to 80% of high school students report having gambled for money within the past year,” said Assemblywoman Claire Swift, R-Atlantic, a sponsor of one of the bills.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said at least 39 people ages 18 to 20 were charged with underage gambling between 2017 and 2021. The statistics do not include those younger than 18.

One of the bills would decriminalize gambling by someone under the age of 21; current law classifies the crime as a disorderly persons offense.

It would instead impose a civil fine of up to $500 for the first offense, $1,000 for the second offense and up to $2,000 for subsequent offenses. The fines would be used for prevention, education and treatment programs for compulsive gambling, such as those provided by the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey.

A second bill would require someone convicted of underage gambling to participate in a compulsive gambling prevention, education and treatment program.

Lack of regulation means no gambler exclusion lists, no anti-addiction programs and no rules that govern acceptable payouts.

A judge would have the option to suspend a fine in these cases.

And a third would require each high school district in the state to incorporate instruction on the potential risks of compulsive gambling into its health and physical education curriculum.

Arnie Wexler, the former head of New Jersey’s compulsive gambling council, now works with people who have gambling problems. He said the percentage of teens seeking help — or their parents seeking it for them — is constantly increasing.

“These kids are 15, 16, 17, and they’re in so deep,” Wexler said.

Through his program, Right Choice Recovery, Sackowitz counseled one 17-year-old from New Jersey who used his mother’s Social Security number to open a PayPal account that he used to fund online gambling, where he quickly lost $100,000.

“He was making 3,000 to 4,000 bets a day: roulette, blackjack, betting ball games,” Sackowitz said. “That’s an incredible amount of action for one person in one day.”

Luis Del Orbe, acting executive director of the state’s compulsive gambling council, said the organization conditionally supports the decriminalization bill.

“Gambling has been normalized in our society, and the youth are bound to experiment,” he said. “Apart from a fine, which most likely the parents would be paying, we do want to see that youth who engage in underage gambling also receive education about problem gambling harms.”

Antar is the nephew of Eddie Antar, who founded the Crazy Eddie chain of electronics stores in the 1970s and 1980s, known for their television ads screaming about prices that were “insaaaane!” Eddie Antar defrauded investors out of more than $74 million, and died in 2016.

In 2013, Sam Antar was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for taking $225,000 in a fraudulent investment scheme. He was convicted and jailed in 2022 on theft by deception charges involving nearly $350,000.

In 2023, he admitted committing federal securities fraud for bilking investors, including friends stemming from that same case, served four months in jail and was ordered to pay restitution.

He tried suing Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in 2022, alleging the casino and its parent company knew he had a gambling addiction but allowed him to bet anyway.

In the lawsuit, Antar, who had homes in New York and Long Branch, said he gambled $30 million over 100,000 in-person and online bets during nine months in 2019. He said he is not certain exactly how much he lost in total, but his lawyer says it was “at least in the six figures.”

A judge dismissed that suit, ruling that the casinos have no obligation to stop compulsive gamblers from betting. Antar is trying to have the case reinstated on appeal.

He now lives in Florida and says he works to counsel young people with gambling problems.

He strongly supports teaching students about the dangers of gambling as part of their school curriculum.

It took Sackowitz seven years to pay off the $750,000 he owed to bookies, loan sharks, friends and acquaintances.

He called the bills being considered “an excellent idea for minors.”

“Your life is not over because you can’t bet anymore,” he said.