Gambling nearly cost Saul Malek, 28, his life, he told students at University High School in Ohio. At just 21 years old, he was $25,000 in debt and contemplating suicide – a near-miss that followed years of problem gambling beginning with a $10 bet he made on a baseball game as a teenager.
Now he travels the country sharing his story in hopes of sparing the staggering number of adolescents who gamble each day from a similar — or worse — fate.
“The three big things are drugs, alcohol, and gambling, that parents might freak out about,” Henry Brown, a University School senior, told NBC News. “And I’d say gambling is probably the most common.”
As online sports betting,…