Prediction Market Addiction Therapy in Chicago
Therapy for adults whose trading on Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood and other event-contract platforms has stopped feeling like a choice. In person in Logan Square, Chicago, and online throughout Illinois and Minnesota.
Nobody tells you you're placing a bet. You're buying a contract, taking a position, putting a number on what you think will happen. The app looks like a brokerage. The news covers it as finance. And for a lot of the people who contact me, that framing is exactly why it took so long to say out loud: I can't stop opening this.
You don't need to settle whether prediction markets are legally gambling to get help with what they're doing to you. That question matters to regulators. In therapy, what matters is the pattern.
Schedule a Free 15-Minute Consultation
If you're still working out whether this is a problem, my guide to whether prediction markets are gambling covers how the platforms work, where the law stands, and the warning signs in detail.
Is This What's Happening?
Prediction-market problems tend to look like this:
- You check prices throughout the day, including at work, in bed, and in the middle of conversations.
- Your positions have gotten bigger because small ones stopped feeling like anything.
- After a loss, the next trade is about getting back to even, not about whether it's a good trade.
- You've set limits and broken them, more than once.
- You've moved money from savings, credit, or accounts meant for something else.
- Someone close to you doesn't know how much is in there, or how much is gone.
- You quit a sportsbook and found yourself trading game contracts instead.
The free gambling addiction test on this site is a fuller screen. It was written about gambling, not event contracts, but its questions are about patterns rather than products, so most of them translate directly. It's anonymous, and nothing you answer leaves your device.
What Therapy Looks Like for Prediction Markets Specifically
The general shape of how I work (mapping the cycle, cognitive behavioral therapy for the thinking, acceptance and commitment therapy for the urges) is on my gambling addiction therapy page. Five things are particular to prediction markets.
We work on being right. Prediction markets reward something that feels like intelligence rather than luck. You read the polls, the injury report, the Fed minutes, and you put money behind your judgment. A win isn't just money; it's proof you understood something other people missed. That makes losses feel like a challenge to your competence, and that is what drives the next, bigger position. A lot of our work is separating your sense of yourself as a sharp, informed person from the need to have it confirmed by a contract settling at $1.
We plan around the news, because you can't delete it. You can remove an app. You can't remove the world. When every headline, debate, press conference and game is also a market, ordinary news becomes a trigger. We look at how you consume news, when it turns into checking prices, and what a realistic news diet looks like for you, rather than pretending you can stop knowing what's going on.
We plan for the calendar. Prediction markets have scheduled high-risk days: election nights, Fed announcements, playoff runs, debates, big economic releases. Most relapses don't come out of nowhere. They come on days you could have seen coming. We map yours in advance and decide what you'll do on them before you're in them.
We close the loopholes in recovery. If you've stopped sports betting before, a prediction-market app can feel like a different thing: different language, charts instead of odds, a regulator's name in the fine print. Often it's the same Sunday afternoon with a new vocabulary. We look at what the activity does for you (excitement, escape, competition, the fantasy of one big recovery) because if that function stays in place, it moves to the next product easily.
We build barriers that actually hold. Self-exclusion on prediction markets is a patchwork. Excluding yourself on an exchange may not block the same contracts through a broker, and excluding with open positions can lock you into trades you can't exit. We work out, for your accounts specifically, which routes are still open and close them in the right order. My guide to prediction-market self-exclusion has the platform-by-platform steps, and the 24-Hour Betting Shutdown Plan covers the first day. In Minnesota, the state's ban is on hold in federal court for registered exchanges and there's no statewide list to join, so self-exclusion in Minnesota runs app by app.
One thing worth naming plainly: a large, sudden loss is a genuinely dangerous moment, and thoughts of hurting yourself after one are more common than people expect. If that's where you are, please call or text 988. It's a reason to reach out sooner, not to wait until you have it under control.
What the First Sessions Look Like
First, the real numbers. Not to shame you; because nobody can make a plan around a figure they're avoiding. We look at deposits, withdrawals, and where the money came from, at whatever pace you can manage.
Then the pattern. What gets you to open the app, what keeps you in it, what happens after a loss and after a win. Most people find their trading has a few predictable shapes once they're written down.
Then a plan you choose. For some people that's stopping prediction markets completely. For others it's strict limits with real barriers behind them. I won't decide that for you in the first session, and I'll be straight with you if the middle path isn't holding.
If you also trade stocks, options or crypto, we'll look at that too. For many people the accounts run on the same pattern, and treating one while ignoring the other doesn't work. My page on stock and options trading addiction therapy covers that side.
Who I Work With
I'm Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC, an addiction therapist in Chicago. Gambling, sports betting and high-risk trading are the core of my practice, and prediction markets sit right where those meet.
I work with adults trading event contracts on sports, elections, economic data, crypto prices and anything else these platforms list, often alongside sports betting or speculative trading. I also work with partners and family members who've found out about the losses, or suspect something but can't tell what they're looking at because the app looks like an investment account.
How It Works
Start with a free 15-minute consultation. You can tell me what's been happening, ask anything, and see whether I'm the right fit. You don't need to have it organized first, and you don't need to have decided anything.
In person or online. I see clients in person in Logan Square, Chicago, and online throughout Illinois and Minnesota.
It's confidential. Therapy is confidential, subject to the limited exceptions required by law. If privacy is what's making you hesitate (because of your job, your license, or how much you've hidden), you can ask me about it before you book anything.
Cost and Coverage
I'm in-network with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, Oscar, and Oxford, through Headway. If you're using out-of-network benefits, I can provide superbills. You can check your coverage and book online with Headway.
Illinois residents may also qualify for state-funded gambling disorder treatment through IDHS’s Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery, regardless of insurance status. In July 2026, Illinois added gambling disorder to the state's Substance Use Disorder Act, which expanded what state-funded services can cover. It did not make gambling treatment Medicaid-eligible, so it's worth asking about specifically rather than assuming.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is "prediction-market addiction" a real diagnosis?
Not as its own diagnosis. Gambling disorder is the only behavioral addiction recognized in the DSM-5-TR, and problematic prediction-market use is assessed under those criteria where the presentation fits. In practice, what gets assessed is what it's costing you: your finances, work, sleep, relationships and mental health.
These platforms are federally regulated. Doesn't that mean it isn't gambling?
Regulation tells you who oversees the product, not what it's doing to you. Whether event contracts count as gambling is being fought out between federal regulators and states, including Illinois, and it isn't settled. Your trading doesn't have to wait for a court ruling to be a problem.
I'm on the Illinois Self-Exclusion List. Doesn't that cover this?
Don't assume it does. The state program covers Illinois-licensed gambling, and prediction-market platforms operate outside that licensing system. Exclusion on these platforms is run by the operators themselves, platform by platform. My self-exclusion guide walks through each one.
What if I've actually made money?
Then take that seriously, and notice that it doesn't answer the question. Skill and compulsion aren't opposites. The useful test isn't whether you can win; it's whether you can follow your own limits and whether you can stop for a stretch of time you chose in advance. A big comeback is often what keeps the pattern going.
Can my partner come to sessions?
Yes, if it's useful. The disclosure conversation is often harder with trading than with betting, because the account looks like legitimate adult finance and the losses can stay hidden for a long time. I can help you work out what to say and how, and bring your partner in when it makes sense.
Need Support Right Now?
Free, confidential support is available 24/7.
Illinois gambling helpline: 1-800-GAMBLER. You can also text GAMB to 833234.
National Problem Gambling Helpline: call or text 1-800-MY-RESET, or chat at 1800myreset.org.
If you're in a mental health crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988. If you're in immediate danger, call 911.
Ready to Talk?
You don't need to have lost everything, and you don't need to have decided whether to quit.
Start with a free 15-minute conversation.
Schedule a Free 15-Minute Consultation
Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC · Chicago Addiction Therapy · Logan Square, Chicago · Serving Illinois and Minnesota