08/27/2026
Shame on you, San Francisco Giants — hometown team of many of the founders of Parents Standing Together.
Inking a deal with Kalshi, in a state where sports betting is illegal, is troubling enough. But I was genuinely stunned to read this explanation from SVP Steve Tseng.
Quoted from the San Francisco Chronicle:
"The Giants look at partnerships with prediction-market enterprises carefully, Tseng said, because of obvious concerns about rising levels of gambling addiction along with the dangers of exposing children to sports betting. “We think about a lot and very seriously,” Tseng said. “Then we came to believe that it’s going to happen with or without you, so if we can kind of control it a little bit on our narrative, I think that’s a good thing.”"
I keep coming back to those words.
The Giants acknowledge the “obvious concerns about rising levels of gambling addiction” and “the dangers of exposing children to sports betting.”
And then the conclusion is essentially: It’s going to happen with or without us.
How is that an acceptable justification?
And what exactly does it mean to “control it a little bit on our narrative”? Does this partnership somehow protect kids from being drawn into gambling? Does it help families already dealing with gambling addiction? Does it reduce harm in any meaningful way?
I wish the people making these decisions could spend just one evening at a Parents Standing Together support group.
Come sit with the parents I sit with every week.
Listen to parents whose 20-year-olds have dropped out of college and accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Parents whose children are homeless and living on the street while they struggle with the heartbreaking reality that continually bailing them out may only perpetuate the addiction. Parents whose children have stolen because of their gambling. Parents whose children have ended up on su***de holds in mental health facilities because they could not see a way out.
These aren't hypotheticals. These aren't statistics in a responsible-gambling presentation.
These are families living this reality right now.
And that is why “it’s going to happen with or without you” is so difficult to hear from an organization with the reach, influence, and cultural significance of the San Francisco Giants.
You don't have to participate in something simply because someone else will.
You don't have to help normalize it.
And you certainly don't get to acknowledge the harm to children and families and then use inevitability as the justification for joining in.
So yes, I am appalled.
Organizations are signing deals worth millions of dollars while small nonprofits like Parents Standing Together are working every day, with extraordinarily limited resources, to help families deal with the consequences of this rapidly expanding gambling environment.
If the companies and organizations profiting from this expansion are truly as concerned about gambling addiction and children as they say they are, perhaps they could put some meaningful resources behind the families already living with the harm.
We could certainly use the help.
