Minnesota State Senator John Marty was furious with the nonprofit National Council on Problem Gambling, so much so that he couldn’t wait until morning to fire off an angry email. “I am deeply disappointed to see this!” he wrote to an NCPG staffer one night in April 2025, after a Senate colleague shared the draft of an op-ed by Keith Whyte, NCPG’s longtime executive director and one of America’s most prominent advocates for mitigating gambling harm, endorsing an industry-backed bill that would legalize sports betting in Minnesota.Marty, a Democrat and staunch critic of the gambling business, was dismayed: NCPG traditionally remains neutral on gambling expansion, but that hadn’t stopped Whyte from speaking forcefully over the years about dangers associated with the online betting boom. After a 2018 Supreme Court decision, Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, opened the floodgates by declaring a 1992 federal ban on sports gambling unconstitutional, Whyte warned Congress, “This Frankenstein’s monster of advertising, access, and action is unprecedented.” Returning to Capitol Hill six years later—by which point Americans were legally wagering about $150 billion every year—Whyte declared: “The evidence is overwhelming that expanded sports betting has led to increased harm on a national scale.”Yet a few months after delivering that impassioned testimony, Whyte was pushing to legalize sports betting in Minnesota, one of about a dozen holdout states, arguing that people there were wagering with black-market bookies, and a “legal, regulated marketplace is far safer than unregulated platforms that lack basic safeguards.” The Gopher State had previously rejected several sports-wagering proposals, but Whyte’s endorsement—which argued that this bill included the strongest consumer protections in the country—was viewed by some state senators as a game changer.Marty hadn’t noticed the bio at the bottom of Whyte’s op-ed describing his NCPG tenure in the past tense. The NCPG staffer he emailed provided further clarity. “[Whyte] is a paid lobbyist of the Sports Betting Alliance now, so they are paying him for this opinion,” the person wrote. “To say it is frustrating to us is an understatement. Not only because he has changed course from his 26 years at NCPG, but because it leads to mix-ups like this.” (Marty shared their exchange on the condition that The New Republic not identify the staffer.)The Sports Betting Alliance lobbies on behalf of five top sports gambling operators: FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Fanatics Sportsbook, and bet365. After Marty told his colleagues about Whyte’s new affiliation, he said support for the bill collapsed. Minnesota still hasn’t authorized bookmaking, though this past April, Whyte wrote another op-ed, in The Minnesota Star Tribune, urging the state to reconsider.Marty called Whyte’s turn to lobbying, and his efforts to disguise those shifting loyalties, “disturbing,” though he added, “maybe the guy just changed his mind on all this.”Whyte insists that’s not the case, telling me, “I’ve got 30 years of being pretty consistent on these issues, and that’s, I think, what people value.”He describes himself as a “strategic adviser” to SBA, and the organization said he does not provide lobbying services. Yet there’s no doubt Whyte has been dispatched to influence lawmakers nationwide on behalf of the gambling industry: In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., he’s written op-eds and testified in favor of expanding legal sports betting and online casino gambling, while opposing efforts to curtail those industries or raise their taxes.The tobacco industry was notorious for co-opting trusted health experts to vouch for the safety of smoking. Today’s gambling giants are deploying a similar strategy, and Whyte is perhaps the most egregious example, considering he’s leveraging his reputation as NCPG’s longtime leader to advance the interests of sports betting corporations. Some former colleagues feel betrayed. Americans have legally wagered more than $650 billion since that Supreme Court decision, and nearly half of bettors say they’ve felt ashamed after losing a bet. Evidence is piling up of legalization causing more bankruptcies, lower credit scores, and surges in gambling addiction, putting the industry on the defensive more than ever. Recruiting former critics like Whyte is a powerful tool for sustaining the betting business’s meteoric growth.Asked why he’d endorsed Minnesota’s sports betting bill while failing to disclose his ties to SBA, Whyte demurred, “I don’t think I was involved in any of that.” I then sent him the Minnesota op-ed to jog his memory, and he conceded he should have disclosed working for SBA. Later, I asked why he’d supported that bill, proposed by state Senator Nick Frentz, as opposed to one from Marty, which included significantly more aggressive consumer protections, such as banning wagering at stadiums, prohibiting misleading “risk-free” promotions, and requiring sportsbooks to intervene if customers exhibit potential signs of addiction—all issues Whyte has expressed concern about in the past.Whyte said he considered Frentz’s bill more “pragmatic.” But, he added, “Part of the issue was, of course, the industry was behind Frentz’s bill, and that’s the group that I’m working with—the online sportsbook operators.”The nonprofit that became NCPG was co-founded in 1972 by Dr. Robert Custer, a psychiatrist whose pioneering research led to the official recognition of gambling as potentially addictive. The Washington, D.C.–based organization was run by volunteers until 1998, when it received a grant to hire its first full-time staffer, an executive director. Whyte, then in his late twenties and serving as director of research for the gambling industry’s new trade group, the American Gaming Association, got the job. “It was not uncontroversial to hire someone who had industry connections,” Whyte told me in 2024 for my book Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. “But the folks on the board realized that working with the industry was something that the National Council was going to need to do.”Whyte helped expand NCPG from an annual budget of about $100,000 to more than $5 million by 2024, supporting a staff of 13. About 20 percent of that funding comes from gambling companies, and roughly $2 million comes from the NFL, which, of course, is now heavily invested in gambling. Whyte allowed any company to become an NCPG member as long as it paid dues, regardless of whether it took steps to mitigate gambling harm.Some people noticed a gradual shift at NCPG, including Dave Yeager, who developed a gambling addiction while serving in the military and is now in recovery, helping people across the country with gambling problems. He recently served on NCPG’s board. Though he admires Whyte personally, Yeager told me, “It felt like we started catering to the industry far more than we were catering to serving people who struggle with gambling addiction.”Still, when called upon to discuss the risks of gambling during his tenure at NCPG, Whyte was inexhaustible, giving, by his estimation, about 2,000 media interviews over his time. The executive directorship was hardly glamorous; his office could have passed for that of an assistant professor.His approach, at NCPG and in his consulting, highlights a profound divide among gambling health advocates. Whyte believes sportsbooks can reduce gambling harm by encouraging customers to bet responsibly. Critics of that model say preaching “responsibility” lets gambling operators off the hook for making their products increasingly addictive, while promoting the cruel stigma that gamblers with a mental health disorder really have a character defect.One of those critics is Harry Levant, a recovering gambling addict who serves as director of gambling policy for the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University.“I believe at both the state and federal level in the rank and file there are some wonderful, caring people who desperately want to effectuate change and protect people,” he said. “I believe they are trapped in a system called ‘the responsible gaming model’ that is scientifically flawed, ethically dangerous, and ethically compromised. And I think the single biggest proponent of this model for years was Keith Whyte.”Whyte’s peers in the advocacy world are split about whether he’s sold out. Some said he deserves the benefit of the doubt—that he’s partnering with the industry to advance the same safeguards he supported at NCPG. Others said it’s exactly because he’s so trusted that his lobbying is uniquely damaging, lending legitimacy to discredited industry talking points. His critics said the Sports Betting Alliance’s deal with Whyte reflects a broader industry strategy to neutralize health experts and counter mounting fears of a gambling-fueled public health crisis.Many still wonder why Whyte left NCPG in the first place. The organization released a curt statement in January 2025, thanking him for his service, and he posted cryptically on LinkedIn that “it is time for a new challenge.” NCPG and Whyte declined to address his departure for this story, but multiple people told me the organization’s board of directors voted unanimously to dismiss him, frustrated that NCPG wasn’t growing to meet the moment and concerned that Whyte had become too dominant a presence, unwilling to relinquish more control and visibility to NCPG’s state affiliates.In his final year on the job, public tax filings show, Whyte made $158,224. After he was fired, the SBA offered him a significant raise: $20,000 a month, according to a former colleague who said Whyte shared that figure with them. (Whyte declined to comment.)Whyte told me he’s proud to have consistently occupied the “center lane.” The slogan of his consultancy is “Promoting responsible gambling to help prevent gambling addiction.” One of his first clients was the Sports Betting Alliance. Whether he believed in their approach or not, he might have had a hard time declining such a significant payday; public records show he and his wife filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2011, having accumulated about $145,000 in unsecured debt, much of it on credit cards. Their repayment plan was completed in December 2016. “Financial decisions from more than a decade ago have no bearing on my current work,” Whyte told me.Last September, he announced he was also consulting for FanDuel. Asked to describe what changes he’s encouraged, Whyte said customers should have to opt out of setting personal deposit limits, as opposed to having to opt in to that tool, and that for “VIPs”—gamblers who receive extravagant perks in exchange for losing staggering amounts of money—deposit limits should be mandatory. He said FanDuel tells him it’s “moving to” making those changes; but asked for comment, the company declined to make that commitment, saying, “Keith brings a valuable perspective and a strong track record in advancing player protection, and we’re fortunate to work with him on a range of responsible gaming initiatives.”He also makes $275 an hour consulting for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, offering advice on how best to regulate sportsbook advertising, VIP programs, and wagering limits imposed on winning bettors. His contract, obtained through a public records request, includes an elaborate rundown of his credentials but makes no mention of his consulting for the betting industry.A commission spokesperson said Whyte disclosed his work for SBA and FanDuel, and that the commission’s lawyers determined it “did not need to be included in his contract,” adding, “the Commission does not consider his working with sports wagering operators as a conflict.” A Massachusetts law barring the regulator from employing people who have worked recently for a licensee, the spokesperson clarified, “applies to casino gaming and not sports wagering.”Whyte is hardly the first person from a gambling nonprofit to accept industry money. “Maybe people feel that they can contribute to change within as opposed to outside,” said Jeff Wasserman, a Delaware-based lawyer who is in recovery for gambling addiction and previously served on NCPG’s board. “I understand it. Does that make me happy about it? No. It’s disappointing.”He said he takes issue with Whyte trumpeting his NCPG credentials while doing SBA’s bidding. “When you use your past experience to promote something that is contrary to a lot of the principles that you once hopefully had, and certainly advocated for, yeah, that’s pretty scummy.”As betting firms rake in money, they’re upping the pressure on states to legalize new forms of gambling—and deploying people like Whyte to sweeten the pitch. Last year, Virginia’s General Assembly was considering whether to legalize online casino gambling, giving people the chance to risk money on games such as roulette, slots, and blackjack played on their phones. Only about half a dozen states have legalized online casinos, which generate roughly four times as much revenue as sportsbooks and are widely believed to be considerably more addictive. (As a former FanDuel employee once told me, “Online casino is probably, ethically, the worst product they have.”)Brianne Doura-Schawohl, who was once among Whyte’s top lieutenants at NCPG and now lobbies to curtail online gambling on behalf of a variety of groups, testified, as did David Rebuck, New Jersey’s former top gambling regulator; Whyte; and Michelle McGann MacGregor, SBA’s senior policy adviser.At one point, state Senator Bryce Reeves, a Republican, said the legislature had been misled in the past by experts who “didn’t want to disclose certain things about who was paying their bills.” Addressing MacGregor, he asked about Whyte and Rebuck. “I hope you’ll be honest with me … are they compensated by the Sports Alliance or anybody you’re associated with?”“No, absolutely not,” she replied.Asked to explain that response, SBA said Whyte wasn’t testifying that day on its behalf. Whyte echoed that defense, saying, “I wasn’t being paid to represent them at that hearing.”When I shared this with Reeves, he said MacGregor’s denial amounted to “false testimony.”That August day, Whyte had offered a mixed assessment of whether Virginia should legalize online casinos. But this March, he published a full-throated endorsement in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, writing that Virginia’s proposal, if enacted, “would become the gold standard of consumer protections for the United States.” (That bill stalled in the legislature.)Even more audacious was an op-ed he published in April in The Daily Sentinel, a newspaper in Grand Junction, Colorado, one of several states considering bills that would dramatically rein in online betting—in Colorado’s case, by curtailing advertising, promotions, push notifications, certain types of bets, and capping customers to five deposits per day.“Restricting legal, licensed operators isn’t the right strategy,” Whyte wrote, arguing that “the primary responsibility rests with the individual to make informed choices about their gambling.” He criticized the “common misconception” of using increasing calls to problem-gambling help lines as evidence of rising gambling problems.All of this contradicts statements Whyte made in recent years. In 2021, he warned of “a race to the bottom leaving families burdened with gambling-related addiction,” and as evidence of that harm cited “a rise in calls to gambling help lines.”In 2024, he told me that “advertising is such a big thing” contributing to gambling problems. But when asked for this story about the risks of excessive advertising, he said, “I don’t give it as much weight, and I never have.”Over the years, he’s been adamant that sportsbooks can’t be trusted to self-police, and that states must impose tighter guardrails. But one of SBA’s “core objectives,” as its president, Joe Maloney, articulated in March, is to “defend against market restrictions in legalized jurisdictions.”I asked Whyte how advancing that mission is compatible with his values.“In my work with SBA, they have supported good RG [responsible gaming] regulations,” he said.That will be tested this year, as Congress considers a proposal to allocate one-third of revenue collected by the long-standing federal excise tax on sports betting—25 cents for every $100 wagered—toward gambling addiction research, prevention, and treatment.At NCPG, Whyte was a staunch supporter of an earlier version of that bill, which the gambling industry fought to defeat. At the time, Whyte told me it was a damning reflection on sportsbooks that they’re so opposed to government funding of gambling research.“They want to count the revenue,” he had said. “They do not want to count the bodies.” By NCPG supporting federal funding for research, Whyte added, “We’re on the right side of history.”When we spoke recently, he pledged to support this latest bill. In a statement, Maloney said, “The federal excise tax should be repealed, not repurposed.”I asked Whyte if SBA’s opposition to federally funded research might make him reconsider working for the group.Almost whispering, he replied, “It would.”