Topline:
We talked to Imelda Padilla about what's next for Los Angeles City Council District 6 in the San Fernando Valley.
Why now: The latest results show Padilla in front with 56% of the vote to 44% for Marisa Alcaraz. The results are not yet final, with more votes still to count. That said, the margin appears too wide to close and Padilla declared victory yesterday.
What we talk about: That infamous tape, the homelessness crisis and more.
Imelda Padilla declared victory on Friday over Marisa Alcaraz in the special election for Los Angeles City Council District 6 in the San Fernando Valley.
The latest results show Padilla in front with 56% of the vote to 44% for Alcaraz. The results are not yet final, with more votes still to count. That said, the margin appears too wide to close.
The 35-year-old Padilla is a community organizer and onetime field deputy to former Council Member Nury Martinez. This special election was called because Martinez resigned her council seat in October after she was heard making racist remarks on a leaked secret audio recording.
LAist's Sharon McNary spoke to Padilla about her victory, and her plans for Council District 6.
Q: You worked for Nury Martinez — what did you think of what she said and what will you do to repair the racial wounds that were inflicted?
Padilla: When the audio was leaked, I had a lot of different emotions. A lot of members in my community had different emotions about it, too. Now that I’m through the campaign, I would talk about how we need to sit down town hall style or focus group style, and really figure out a way to, as a community, feel comfortable enough to talk about it, and plan out how it never happens again.
Q: City Hall has seen multiple council members indicted and convicted of public corruption. What will you do to address City Hall corruption?
Padilla: I think there's definitely an opportunity on the policy side. I know there's a committee that focuses on government operations and how we can be better at what we do. I'm curious to know if maybe there's some room to figure out how to cut things out or reduce corruption. But I know from a personal level, I'm going to always refer to a story my father told me about his own experience when he was 8 years old, and how it's just not healthy to be one who wants to live above their needs.
Q: Homelessness is the top concern among L.A. residents right now. The latest homeless count found the number of unhoused people grew by 10% in the city. What do you plan to do to address the crisis in your district?
Padilla: One of the first things I want to start working on is getting together with Mayor Bass and focus on hosting an Inside Safe, maybe even two, in my district. There's definitely spaces and opportunities, especially with a lot of the motels, on places like San Fernando Road and Sepulveda Boulevard.
I'm very ready and excited to figure out creative ways of how we can also bring in our partners from the county to really hone in on the service side of what some of these homeless individuals are going through.
Q: Outside groups spent more than $700,000 dollars on your campaign. The city firefighters union, The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and business groups like the American Beverage Association spent money on your behalf. How will you maintain your independence from these groups?
Padilla: You just have to have an open door policy for everyone, not just the people that support you, but also those that you have to not, and be intentional about reaching out to all of LA stakeholders. These people just happened to believe in my ability to get here, and they were right.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Frank Stoltze contributed to this report.
Topline:
Glendale Community College now offers coursework in documentary filmmaking and the chance to hone this skillset abroad. For recent high school graduates and non-traditional students, this represents a chance to break into an industry that can often feel impenetrable.
More opportunities: Under department chair Geri Ulrey, students enrolled in the college’s Film, Television and Media Arts department are increasingly getting opportunities that aren’t typically afforded to those at community colleges — including free trips to the Sundance Film Festival.
Why it matters: Los Angeles is home to renowned film schools like USC, UCLA, and the American Film Institute. But their cost of attendance can be an obstacle for some students. Community colleges offer affordable alternatives.
What's next: This summer, students in Glendale’s study abroad program will learn about documentary production and underwater filmmaking techniques in Baja California. Ulrey says she aims to take students there every summer and is currently developing another documentary filmmaking course in Japan.
Read on … to learn more about the program from current students and recent grads.
Joel Ruano was raised by his grandparents in Lamont, a community made up of about 14,000 people, a few miles from Bakersfield.
Growing up, college was not in Ruano’s plans. And though he loved watching movies, he never envisioned a career in filmmaking.
After earning his diploma, Ruano worked at carrot factories. Then, he operated heavy machinery at a distribution center before landing a job at an electric vehicle company. For years, he believed his future lay at the industrial warehouses that surround his old neighborhood.
But when the company went bankrupt in 2023, Ruano decided he wanted a change. Encouraged by his loved ones, he enrolled in Glendale Community College’s film, television and media arts department, which now offers coursework in documentary filmmaking and the chance to study abroad.
For students like Ruano, these opportunities have been transformative.
Los Angeles is home to renowned film schools like USC, UCLA and the American Film Institute. But their cost of attendance can be an obstacle for some students. Community colleges offer affordable alternatives.
“This is my career path now,” Ruano told LAist. “I just love holding the camera and seeing through the monitor and getting the first taste of what the audience is going to see. And I get to control that vision.”
At Glendale, department chair Geri Ulrey makes it a point to keep in touch with students after they graduate. She also hosts alumni mixers and pings former students when she has something to share that may be of interest.
That’s how Ben Do found his way back to Glendale. He earned his associate’s degree at the height of the COVID pandemic, so most of it was done on Zoom. As a result, Do graduated with no in-person film experience, something he always lamented.
Ulrey messaged him years later, inviting him to consider the school’s new documentary film production courses.
Soon, Do became part of Planet Story Lab, a course that provides mentorship from professionals and the chance to do fieldwork.
Do also appreciates the chance to hear directly from people in the field, who are often guest speakers. This includes documentary director Laura Nix.
“Just hearing how she approaches talking to people about the process of what a documentary is” has been helpful, Do said. “People think it's a very educational thing and very straightforward, but there's a lot more creative and emotional liberties that come with it as well.”
Redd Davis came of age in Burbank, with the Warner Bros. Studios looming in the background. Celebrities were a common sight. Still, even though Davis knew a career in film was possible, they were scared to take the leap. Their uncle is a screenwriter, and Davis knew how hard it was for him to break into the field.
“My grandma came here from Mexico when she was 13,” they said. “She had to build a life for herself and be able to support my mom.”
The way Davis saw it, they’d been given a “really rare opportunity to make a stable life.”
“And I was really nervous to mess with that,” they said.
Davis was determined to earn a living, but they were not sure how. After high school, they enrolled at Glendale and, as a treat, signed up for a course called “Beyond Hollywood: Race, Gender and Sex in Movies,” taught by Ulrey. Davis figured there was no harm in exploring film just a little, just for fun.
But the course drew them in.
“It felt almost like an English literature class,” they recalled. “It was a lot of conversation and writing and just dissecting ideas. I became very interested in anything that [Ulrey] was teaching, so I just kept taking classes with her."
Still, when Ulrey mentioned documentary filmmaking, Davis wasn’t very interested.
“I thought that I just wanted to do narrative work,” they said.
But David trusted Ulrey. So when she brought up the opportunity to learn documentary production in Mexico — including underwater filming techniques — Davis thought it best not to forgo the opportunity.
And so, last summer, Davis became part of a camera crew at Bahía de los Ángeles, a coastal region in Baja California, with a population of almost 800.
After prepping on campus for two weeks, a small group of Glendale students set out to the field station in Mexico, accompanied by Ulrey and cinematographer Jerry Henry. Students majoring in biology, geology and oceanology also joined them.
As soon as Davis stepped off the bus, the heat in Bahía de los Ángeles was overwhelming.
“We didn't sleep in rooms,” they said. “We pulled out cots and would lay down at the beach. We would literally sleep under the stars.”
Come morning, the film students would gather their gear, confer with Ulrey or Henry, plan out their day, then spend the bulk of the day filming.
On occasion, the students got to go on boat rides, hiking or swimming in the sea.
Davis had read about Mexico in their mom’s journals, but this was their first time in the country. “It was special,” they told LAist, a chance to create connections and memories of their own.
The trip also enabled Davis to cultivate a professional relationship with Henry, who’s provided opportunities for them to work on set as a production assistant. These experiences have helped Davis see that filmmaking involves a wide array of work, including — but not limited to — being an actor, writer or director. As an example, Davis noted that people who work in greenery departments devote themselves to providing plants for film sets.
Davis still doesn't know what they want to do once they graduate, but they are navigating the uncertainty with joy and confidence. “I feel more freedom to be unsure,” they said.
The trip to Baja, Davis added, “really shattered any doubt or hesitance I had left” about a future in filmmaking.
In the past, a voice inside would always ask: “How are you going to be able to afford a car, and then an apartment? Your groceries and your utilities?”
After Baja, Davis determined to figure it out. "I'm completely in love with this," they said.
Glendale’s study abroad program costs $950, in addition to traditional enrollment fees. However, students taking classes in the Film, Television and Media Arts department are eligible for the Golden Globe Foundation Documentary Scholarship, which typically provides $500 to help cover those expenses.
For 36-year-old David Shuck, the documentary filmmaking courses have enabled him to recoup and hone something he loves.
As an undergrad at Bowdoin College in Maine, he studied abroad at the Czech National Film Academy; but, at the time, “there was no practical film production offered at my college,” Shuck said. “I was pretty much all self-taught.”
Time passed. And life took Shuck in different directions. Still, the love of film remained.
To refresh his skills, learn new techniques and meet like-minded people, Shuck also enrolled at Glendale.
For one recent project, he created a documentary about his wife, who’s an immigration attorney.
“I wanted to be able to communicate the Kafka-esque nightmare of bureaucracy ... that [undocumented] people have to navigate once they've been abducted,” Shuck said.
The shooting took Shuck about about six weeks. During this time, he followed his wife to and from the Adelanto Immigrant Detention Center in the Mojave Desert, repeatedly. Shuck filmed her working later hours and captured her frustration. After one particularly hard day, he documented her treating herself to an ice cream sandwich and a few episodes of Malcolm in the Middle.
In his documentary class, Shuck learned that it's "more compelling to see what people are doing in the moment rather than rehashing what’s been done already.” Ultimately, he turned 13 hours of footage into a 15-minute video.
“It would be really nice to be able to earn a living doing this. But I am just excited at the prospect of being able to make the next project and being able to make it sustainably through the community college system,” he said.
He’s told Ulrey and his other professors: "I'm going to kick around until you kick me out of here."
Currently, Ruano is part of a team of students working on a documentary about future firefighters in the L.A. area.
This work has enabled him to get hands-on training in every part of filmmaking, including pre-production, shooting and post-production, he said.
At Glendale, Ruano has learned that “being organized is very, very crucial.” He’s also learned that “having great communication” is key to creating something with a group of people.
Most importantly, he’s learned he’s capable of academic success.
“Coming back to school was very stressful for me,” he said, remembering the challenges he faced in high school. “This was sort of my moment to redeem myself.”
In June, Ruano became a first-generation college graduate. Come fall, he will continue to pursue filmmaking at Cal State Northridge — one of the many universities where he was admitted.
In the short term, Ruano is set on earning his bachelor’s degree and then maybe going into a master's program.
In the long term, he wants to find a way to bring art and filmmaking to Lamont, where he grew up.
“I'm only one of thousands of people who have really great stories to tell,” he said.
Topline:
Ten years ago, the CalState University system launched a program to address food insecurity and provide housing support after research found nearly 1 in 4 Cal State students was going hungry. But CSU leaders say needs still persist and they are looking to provide more holistic support for students.
How we got here: A study released by the California State University in 2016 found that 24% of the system’s 460,000 students could be going hungry. The report also found that as many as 12% of students suffer “housing displacement,” such as homelessness. This generated evidence that helped policymakers and higher ed administrators act and invest in and launch the Basic Needs Initiative.
Why it matters: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated needs: In 2019, food pantries were serving over 35,000 students annually; in the last year, that number was around 77,000.
What happens now: In the next iteration of the Basic Needs Initiative, CSU leaders want to provide more holistic support for students by engaging other university departments, academic faculty and community organizations.
Ten years ago, the California State University system launched a program to address food insecurity and provide housing support after research found around 1 in 4 students was going hungry.
Since its inception, through the Basic Needs Initiative, food pantries have served more than 77,000 students annually and referred over 5,000 students for housing resources. However, gaps have widened and student needs have expanded.
In the next 10 years, Dilcie Perez, vice chancellor for strategic enrollment management and student success at California State University, said the focus of the Basic Needs Initiative is “getting beyond basic.”
“ What that says to me is holistic support to students where we are sharing the responsibility of understanding what might be a barrier or hindrance to students and proactively putting those in place,” she said.
Rashida Crutchfield, a professor and executive director at the Center for Equitable Higher Education at Cal State Long Beach, led the research in 2016. The study found that 24% of the CSU system’s 460,000 students could be going hungry. The report also found that as many as 12% of students suffer “housing displacement,” such as homelessness.
Crutchfield said having quantifiable data helped shift the narrative from a part-time job being the solution to fix the “starving student” perception to showing the problem was much bigger. And it “ generated evidence that helped policymakers and higher ed administrators act and invest,” Crutchfield said.
The research, Crutchfield said, showed that the cost of higher education includes higher costs for food and housing, as well as things like childcare, transportation and computer services.
Following the research, CSU launched the Basic Needs Initiative and went from 11 campuses having programs for food insecure students to all campuses now having Basic Needs staff.
But the needs of students keep rising, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating their plight: In 2019, food pantries were serving more than 35,000 students annually. In the last year, that number was around 77,000. In 2019, CSU campuses assisted around 3,400 students with CalFresh applications; in the last academic year, campuses assisted around 16,000 students, according to data shared with LAist from CSU.
Speaking to a network of coordinators from CSU’s network of schools, Perez said the Basic Needs Initiative needs to go beyond being reactive to more proactive.
The CSU system, she said, is losing between 25,000 to 29,000 students a year in their second or third year, with a significant number of them identifying as Latino.
“ Friends, we have a leak in the system that we have to close because we are doing a social injustice to our students,” she said. “When we invite you in, say we want you here, we believe in you, and then all of a sudden they go away without any acknowledgement, no one contacts them, no one comes with a plan to bring them back.”
The institutions, she said, were not set up to serve students who benefit from Basic Needs programs. For example, students are being withdrawn, dropped or failed from a class because they have a financial hold on their account — even though some of them rely on financial aid.
In its next iteration, Perez said the Basic Needs Initiative will go beyond just strengthening student support services to address what is happening in the classroom, bringing together other university departments and community organizations.
“Many of the answers lie in our local communities,” she said. “And so it's making those intentional connections for transportation, childcare, housing.”
Topline:
The chef-owner of the new downtown L.A. Italian restaurant Da Prato had been burned before by the volatile industry. This time, she took matters into her own hands and partnered with a landlord to let her try out her concept for three months in a vacant space, and then choose to go permanent or close up shop with a clean break.
Why it matters: Typical restaurant lease structures can take months to negotiate and lock tenants in years-long terms, oftentimes with a lot of financial burden. This unique agreement has given Elisa Da Prato the agency to make a decision to keep going or end things without going into more debt.
Why now: With a slew of vacant storefronts in downtown L.A., landlords getting flexible with lease structures to draw in more businesses could bring vitality back to the neighborhood.
When chef Elisa Da Prato arrived in Los Angeles from Italy last December, she only planned to visit family for three weeks and then return home to the charming town of Lucca in Tuscany. But after hosting a successful Silver Lake pop-up dinner, Da Prato was introduced to a landlord who offered her a unique opportunity: she could test her culinary concept in a vacant space for three months and then decide to close up shop or go permanent.
Since May, her Tuscan-inspired restaurant Da Prato has been operating out of a 3,000-square-foot condo in downtown L.A. with an initial agreement to stay open until the end of July. (She recently made the decision to extend the lease until the end of the year.)
“I’m not an independently wealthy person and this is not a vanity Instagram project,” Da Prato said. “This is just me doing the best I can to invest in and make a wager on myself, and hopefully come out of it with a nice salary and do some beautiful work.”
Running a restaurant in L.A. has been challenging over the last few years due to inflation and rising labor costs, the pandemic, entertainment-industry strikes, devastating fires and ICE raids. Chefs like Da Prato have been looking to find flexible and creative ways to run a restaurant that go outside the pop-up model and traditional lease structure. And if California Assembly Bill AB 1679 — which would allow certain pop-up businesses to operate in vacant storefronts for 120 days — becomes law, the landscape of running a business could change for the better for budding entrepreneurs.
Prior to opening in downtown L.A., Da Prato dealt with two closures: Elisa in Barga, Tuscany, due to the pandemic, and the well-regarded Etrusca in Brooklyn, which investors shuttered after just five months. So this new no-strings-attached lease structure in L.A. was particularly alluring for her self-funded project.
Da Prato entered a partnership with her landlord David Mirharooni of Brickstar Capital, a family-owned real estate investment company whose other clients include Danny Boy’s Pizza and Mastro’s Steakhouse. Mirharooni also helps Da Prato with backend support, like insurance and accounting, and assists with construction. While Mirharooni hasn’t done a lease structure like this before, everything aligned because he had a vacant space he needed to fill and he wanted to do a favor for Da Prato, who was a friend of a friend.
“We're not here just to make revenue for three months,” Mirharooni said of the 40-seat restaurant that’s open four nights a week. “We really see promise with chef Elisa and are hoping that this pop-up is successful enough to be able to convince her to stay in the L.A. market …. because ultimately, if it becomes a long-term deal, it's not only good for us as landlords but it's great for downtown L.A, which is not the easiest place to run a restaurant today.”
Da Prato is a playground for the chef’s hyper-seasonal and regional dishes that are inspired by ancient Roman cooking and the flavors she grew up eating while spending summers at her grandparents’ home in Tuscany. Her farmers market produce translates into experimental dishes like beef tartare on a bed of sliced plums, and lemon slices coated with honeycomb and dusted with rose petals. Edible flowers make an appearance on many dishes, a nod to her mother’s style of cooking. There is beef and porcini ragú pasta, grilled lamb punched up with colatura, a fish sauce, and Italian wines to round out the rustic menu.
While Mirharooni would love Da Prato to stay permanently, she thinks at most she’ll remain in L.A. until the end of this year.
“I don't think that a restaurant is an actual sustainable model, like a lifetime project,” Da Prato said. “For me, it's been, how do we offer something really special to the community that is still profitable for me as a small business owner?”
Eddie Navarrette, the chief consultant of FE Design & Consulting, a company that helps independent owners open restaurants and bars, said of Da Prato’s lease structure: “It’s extremely unique for me, but very welcomed.”
Traditionally, lease terms are for three, five or 10 years — and the agreement can take months to put together, Navarrette said. Oftentimes, landlords require personal guarantees, adding pressure for the owner.
Pop-ups exist in a gray area because no real infrastructure for them exists. Enter California Bill AB 1679, which Navarrette’s advocacy organization Independent Hospitality Coalition is sponsoring. If AB 1679 becomes law, it will help create a framework for the language and codes to operate pop-ups. The bill, co-authored by Assembly members Mark Gonzalez and Buffy Wicks, would require cities and counties to create permits to allow temporary low-risk businesses — like ones serving coffee or tea — to operate in vacant storefronts for 120 days.
Navarrette said lease structures like Da Prato’s “can be conducive in creating a more vibrant restaurant culture by giving restaurants more flexibility and leniency in their commitments, as opposed to making it such a burden to take on a business for such a long period.”
Da Prato is now focused on embracing the temporality of owning a business and controlling when it closes.
“It’s so tough seeing this beautiful thing that you create get blown away,” she said. “So this time, I'm like, then let's just make it a sand mandala that gets blown away.”
Location: 108 W. Second St., DTLA
Hours: Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays 6-8:30 p.m.; Sundays 5-7 p.m.
Topline:
Prediction markets like Kalshi are growing popular among young people, even though sports betting is illegal in California. L.A. therapists say they're seeing college and high school students with gambling problems because of it.
What is a prediction market? Prediction markets allow users to buy and sell contracts with each other, instead of placing bets against a house. That allows platforms to operate under federal rules for financial exchanges, rather than state gambling laws.
What are gambling addiction therapists seeing? Since prediction markets have grown in popularity, therapists say they’re seeing more young people with gambling problems.
Why are young people getting pulled in? Some therapists say prediction markets are targeting young people with aggressive social media advertising. Those ads make the platforms seem less dangerous than they are for young users.
How is outreach changing? Experts say they’re making resources about prediction markets for high school students and college fraternities. Therapists encourage anyone who thinks they need help to call 1-800-GAMBLER or contact a professional.
Read on ... to learn more about how prediction markets are affecting L.A.'s young people.
With a week left in the World Cup, fans may have noticed ads with soccer stars telling them they could win tickets to the final using their sports knowledge.
Those ads are for Kalshi, a prediction market that accounts for 90% of the U.S. market share. Right now, $1.1 billion worth of contracts are trading on who will win the World Cup. And it’s not just sports — Kalshi contracts can get as fine-grained as the exact margin of victory between Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman in the L.A. mayoral primary.
Jack Such, a spokesperson for the company, told LAist that the platform’s trading volume has skyrocketed over the past three months.
“It's just been going up and up and up,” he said.
Sports betting is illegal in California, but prediction markets like Kalshi aren’t. That’s because users buy and sell contracts among themselves, instead of placing bets against a house. The distinction allows platforms to operate under federal rules for financial exchanges, rather than state gambling laws.
Although other states have taken prediction markets to court, saying they should be held to state regulation, California hasn’t initiated legal action of its own.
Some L.A. gambling addiction clinicians say that they’re already seeing the consequences of what they call unregulated betting, especially among young people.
Dan Field, a licensed social worker and the clinical director of Westside Gambling Treatment in L.A., said he’s seeing “a lot more young sports bettors who are just going straight to Kalshi … and getting sucked in very easily.”
One of Field’s patients moved to California hoping the state’s sports betting laws would help him manage his recovery from gambling addiction.
“For almost two years, he was largely gambling free, and when Kalshi hit, he picked up right where he left off,” Field told LAist.
Dr. Timothy Fong, an addiction psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies program, said that as prediction markets have taken off, his program has “definitely seen an increase in the number of folks coming into treatment.”
He told LAist that for many now seeking help, online prediction markets were their first experience with gambling behavior. They’d never set foot in a brick-and-mortar casino, and began using prediction markets because of their interest in sports and investing, not betting.
Yisroel Solomon, 32, said he began sports betting when he was 22 when he was living in New York. After he relocated to California, he told LAist that he started using prediction markets because they were the primary legal option.
But Solomon said prediction markets have the capacity to suck users in far beyond what traditional sports books, or even other apps, can do.
Because prices update almost instantaneously, in response to real-time information, "that gives an extra sense of dopamine, extra fear of missing out, extra sense of chasing,” he told LAist.
Field, the clinical director, noted that the constant price checking that comes with using prediction markets is “incredibly attention-grabbing and addictive.”
Jacob Hofflich, a San Diego resident and sophomore at the University of Michigan, began using Kalshi when he turned 18. He said the platform's visual design makes it hard to look away. Flashing green and red lines, and a running log of which bets are being placed, make the app appear “like the stock market,” he told LAist.
“It’s enticing you to get in on the action,” he explained.
“There’s always new opportunities to bet. [With] sportsbooks, you’re confined to just sports… But with futures markets, the market’s open 24/7,” Solomon said.
Both Solomon and Hofflich say they have stopped gambling, with Hofflich adding that he has been working with Field.
If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, here are some resources that might help.
Find a therapist at the UCLA addiction psychiatry clinic or Westside Gambling Treatment.
To spot problem gambling, here's a resource on noticing the signs.
Prediction markets are available to users as young as 18 because the platforms don’t have to follow the minimum gambling age set by the state.
Kalshi is growing access to the 18- to 20-year-old demographic through aggressive advertising, according to some experts.
“I've seen some of the ads, and there are scenarios where people are partying with friends in a bar in a college environment and betting,” Field said. He explained that this kind of advertising can help normalize using prediction markets and make the platforms seem less dangerous than they are to young people.
Such, the Kalshi spokesperson, said the company isn’t responsible for initiating young people into gambling.
“The idea that Kalshi is somehow the entity that is changing the availability from 21 to 18 is not true,” he said.
Such did not respond to a request for comment regarding the company’s advertising practices.
Deborah Buhaj, a gambling addiction therapist based in L.A., said that recently, she's had parents reaching out to her who “suddenly don’t recognize their 22-year-old” after they started using Kalshi.
Some users are starting even younger.
Fong, the co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies, told LAist that he has patients under 18, who get around prediction markets ID checks by using their parents’ credentials. He said he’s working with a 14-year-old whose mother created a Kalshi account for him thinking it was a video game.
Fong emphasized that although the platforms might appear harmless, allowing minors to use them is “no different than giving them access to where the gun is or where prescription drugs are or where the cannabis is.”
Kalshi did not immediately respond to requests for comment on additional features to prevent minors from using the platform.
Here are some of the platform's policies:
Keeping minors off the platform is a top priority, according to Kalshi's website. Users can contact them here if they have more questions.
According to a recent UCLA Gambling Studies Program survey on gambling culture in Greek Life organizations at the university, 13% of respondents said they’d placed a bet on a prediction market site.
Over 90% of all respondents said they’d needed help with living expenses as a result of their gambling losses.
Fong told LAist that one of his patients rushed a fraternity his freshman year of college where members quickly taught him to use prediction markets. For the first few months, he made money, but things took a dramatic turn.
“A year and a half later … he ended up spending over $150,000 of his own college money,” Fong said.
Louie Latosquin, a senior at UCLA and president of the university's Interfraternity Council, said he notices UCLA’s gambling culture is mostly focused on card games like poker, baccarat and blackjack. He explained that prediction markets are more common in groups where “people already gamble pretty intensely.” Latosquin also helped conduct the Greek Life survey.
L.A. clinicians say they’ve adjusted their outreach to deal with the popularity of prediction markets.
Stop Betting Sports, an organization that offers free resources and webinars for gambling addiction, has created material geared towards high school students.
Fong also encouraged anyone curious about gambling and prediction markets to speak with a licensed professional before they start.
“It is certainly worth meeting with a professional therapist to explore and make sure things don't get out of hand,” he said.
Fong also does outreach work at fraternities at UCLA. Recently, they’ve had special sessions about digital platforms.
Latosquin said they encourage students to think about more “economically reinforcing” places they can spend their money, like education, self-improvement and professional development.
