Missouri made compulsive-gambling prevention a new state initiative in July, folding it into the Department of Mental Health’s broader prevention work on substance use and suicide. Jennifer DeLett-Snyder, the department’s prevention services coordinator, now oversees all three areas.
A July 26 News-Tribune report said DeLett-Snyder has held the role for nearly three years and works with 10 regional prevention resource centers and contracted agencies. She said her earlier career in community relations has helped her educate people about prevention and give them information they can use.
The new gambling initiative is being framed alongside Missouri’s legalization of sports betting in 2025. The department has already put up sports-betting warning signs during the World Cup, directing people to compulsive-gambling resources.
It is now preparing social-media videos aimed at parents, including material on how to recognise problem gambling and how gambling can show up inside mobile app games.
Missouri law backs that approach. Section 313.842 defines compulsive gambling as a chronic and progressive preoccupation with gambling and the urge to gamble, and says programs may provide treatment, prevention and education services. The statute also says the Department of Mental Health administers compulsive-gambling programmes directly or by contract, while the Missouri Gaming Commission educates the public about problem gambling and runs the voluntary exclusion programme.
State materials say gambling disorder treatment services are delivered through Comprehensive Substance Treatment and Rehabilitation providers and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics. The department also points people to the Missouri Problem Gambling Helpline, 888-BETS-OFF, and says the Gaming Commission’s voluntary exclusion programme lets people stop visiting riverboat casinos.
The public-health case for the new work is laid out in Missouri’s 2022 gambling prevalence study. It found that 64.1% of adults gambled in the past year, 4.1% met criteria for gambling disorder and 20.8% were at risk. Among people with gambling disorder, 27.5% reported suicidal thoughts due to gambling and 27.0% reported a suicide attempt.
The same study said awareness and use of treatment options remained strikingly low and called for urgent action to improve access. A January 2026 behavioural health bulletin noted that gambling can include everything from sports bets and lottery tickets to fantasy sports, stock trading and mystery loot boxes in video games, and that substance use can worsen the financial and social harms.
