A recovering problem gambler guides a support group for young adults under 35 confronting gambling addiction. He asked that his face be hidden to protect his identity. (Kevin Richardson/Staff)
Over the course of a dozen years, the gambler had progressed from video games simulating betting, to online roulette and blackjack, to a particularly volatile form of stock trading called options trading.
The Johns Hopkins University graduate seemed not to grasp the destructive nature of his habit. Like hundreds of thousands of other Marylanders, as casino and online gambling boomed, he felt almost imperceptibly pulled into betting, like a rip current carrying him out…