Anthony Pompliano, the monetary guru identified for his early advocacy of Bitcoin, is throwing his weight behind a fledgling podcast that seeks to fight dependancy – and sports activities playing will probably be a key matter of debate, On The Cash has discovered.
Betting on sports activities has turn out to be a $100 billion trade that’s estimated to develop to $250 billion in simply the following 4 years. Mainstream media not often explores its draw back: Dependancy to a vice that destroys lives and results in monetary distress.
Now, “Pomp” is making a strategic funding in a podcast firm devoted to serving to deal with all types of addictions with a particular give attention to playing, the place legalization and ubiquitous promoting are making a nation of degenerates hooked on the attract of simple cash – unaware that the home virtually at all times wins.
Pomp hopes the funding – which isn’t public – will result in a broader social media platform to handle addictions, larger public consciousness, and even a therapy middle.
Pompliano’s “The Pomp Podcast” airs from a studio in Midtown Manhattan and has drawn greater than 50 million downloads. He says he felt motivated as he bought bombarded by all these sportsbook adverts whereas watching soccer on any given Sunday. Main networks had been pumping a vice that ceaselessly results in monetary despair and which may also be a gateway to different addictions.
The ultimate straw was listening to one of many podcasts that work out of his studios known as “Nothing’s Off The Desk,” a twice-weekly present by a 32-year-old recovering drug and playing addict named Louis Ruggiero.
“The purpose of Nothing’s Off The Desk is to assist individuals perceive there’s a manner out of very darkish locations,” Pomp advised On The Cash. “The platform has a giant give attention to sports activities playing as a result of there may be virtually no help for these younger people who find themselves having sports activities adverts shoved down their throat on each TV broadcast, at each sport, or on each social media platform.”
Ruggiero, a minimum of on its face, is the final individual you’d count on to have been felled by dependancy. He’s the son of a New York Metropolis legal professional; his mother is Fox-5’s long-time anchor, Rosanna Scotto. (Full disclosure: Rosanna is a colleague of mine within the Fox household, and a buddy.)
However he fell exhausting for medication, together with opiates and playing, whereas in faculty. He misplaced a enterprise, hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, and practically his household till he bought sober 4 years in the past. He additionally practically landed in jail.
I spoke to Louis and he tells me he hit his so-called all-time low in 2018 when he was compelled to testify towards his greatest buddy on the time who was arrested and later convicted of homicide. Louis was not concerned within the killing, however his pal confessed the homicide to him whereas they had been each hooked on medication, he says.
“My podcast is designed to assist individuals and inform them the place to get assist by listening to actual tales, not simply my very own,” Ruggiero tells me. “With Anthony’s funding, we wish to develop with dwell occasions about addictions, the way it destroys lives and how one can get well. Over the following 18 months if we will make the enterprise work, I plan to open an in-patient and outpatient facility.”
From a pure enterprise standpoint, Pomp likes what he sees (he credit his enterprise associate, Matt Marlinski with making the preliminary introduction). Ruggiero began his podcast a little bit greater than a yr in the past, splitting his time working the door on the Scotto household’s widespread Manhattan eatery, Fresco By Scotto, and doing reveals simply down the block at Pomp’s studios. Ruggiero’s friends have included everybody from sports activities stars to common individuals who have succumbed to dependancy. His clips typically go viral, producing hundreds of thousands of views.
What I believe makes the present work is the uncooked honesty that Ruggiero brings to the desk. He fesses as much as every thing: Binging on Oxy whereas gorging on Haagen Dazs ice cream, stealing to feed his dependancy. The episode together with his dad, Louis Ruggiero, Sr., was significantly poignant in its description of how mother and father cope with youngsters trapped by their vices.
Ruggiero tells me his present is most useful as a result of it informs individuals not simply concerning the draw back to dependancy, however “the flipside that restoration is free.”
He provides: “A part of my message is that two packages that saved my life, Alcoholics Nameless and Gamblers Nameless are free, and there’s a group on the market of individuals like myself that may’t get replaced by AI and have an actual world data of dependancy and methods to overcome it.”
