In February, we published the first article on what has become a major trend: problem gambling organizations being taken over by the gambling industry. Everywhere you look, problem gambling hotlines, websites, and organizations have been usurped by the gambling industry, which uses them to spread biased information about gambling and to ward off greater regulation.

When you look for research on gambling addiction, however, you mostly find independent studies published by reputable journals. That’s about to change, too. Increasingly, research on gambling addiction is being provided by the industry itself, leading to gigantic conflicts of interest.

Case in point is the website RG.org. On the surface, it appears to be a rather plain-looking sports news site. The content includes a vast number of news summaries for every major sport, including gambling. In fact, gambling is the only “sport” they cover that does not involve a physical contest.

The gambling news on the site consists of a couple of stories each day filed by journalists working for RG. They follow legislation aimed at curbing gambling as well as attempts to legalize gambling. Their bias is evidenced in headlines like, “Oklahoma Sports Betting Effort Fails,” when the opponents of Oklahoma sports betting won.

On April 20, RG published “sponsored content” from the anonymous RG Media Desk, entitled, “Emotion Vs. Data: Why Sports Bettors Make Costly Mistakes.” First off, you can make a case that any sports betting is a costly mistake, leading families to lose, on average, over $1,100 per year.

RG Media Desk then lays out eight cognitive biases that impact the way people bet, such as the tendency to overweight recent team performances rather than follow the averages. That’s followed by eight tips on how to “bet more analytically.” Not one of those tips is to stop betting and walk away, knowing that the worst thing that could happen is winning.

When you win, you get a dopamine surge that makes you want to win again. It’s then possible to follow the spiral, spending ever more time studying up on sports and gambling, while steadily losing a significant percentage of your stake every year. The more you play, on average, the more you lose.

The irritating thing is that you can learn all about this at RG.org. They have a section called “Independent Research” and a subsection called “Gambling Addiction Research.” There, you will find “The Neurobiology of Gambling Addiction” written by freelance writer Ilia Shulepov. It’s the sort of quick survey you’d expect from a student paper on the subject. It never mentions that you might want to avoid this disorder by not gambling.

At first blush, it seems improbable that this website could be maintained without revenue. Where’s the money coming from? Not from gambling, but from affinity marketing. RG.org sends a ton of gamblers to online gambling syndicates every day, and the site earns a piece of the action based on how often and how much people wager.

The website is the brainchild of affiliate marketer Paruyr Shahbazyan, the founder of RG.org and, before that, Bookmaker Ratings. Shahbazyan realized that if he posted honest reviews of bookmakers, gambling syndicates, casinos, and prediction markets, inevitably, everyone who gambles regularly would come across his website.

RG.com rates and reviews the 10 best sports books on a monthly basis. All the reviews contain links to the sites and discounts or coupons for free bets and other incentives. But building a website full of sports news and statistics, then adding a review and referral business, wasn’t lucrative enough for Shahbazyan.

Now RG.com is luring problem gamblers with biased research on gambling addiction (“sponsored content”) and “responsible gambling” resources. Responsible gambling is an oxymoron. The problem is not that people are gambling poorly, it’s that they are gambling at all. When gambling losses exceed the cost per hour of going to the movies or a concert or a ball game, they’re no longer entertainment, they’re a problem.

This is perhaps the first awakening I’ve had that the people pushing gambling addiction research on the web might have ulterior motives. We live in a world where the gambling syndicates are free to destroy lives while also sucking up all the funding for research into gambling addiction and the funding for aiding problem gamblers.

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published May 1, 2026.

Sources:

“The Neurobiology of Gambling Addiction,” RG.org, April 20, 2026.

“Emotion Vs. Data: Why Sports Bettors Make Costly Mistakes,” RG.org, April 20, 2026.

“How Sports Betting Affiliate Marketer Makes $2 Million Per Year,” Inc. Magazine, November 9, 2016.

“How this entrepreneur makes $ 2 million per annum from his sports betting affiliate business!,” NewBusiness, April 8, 2018.

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