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Caleb Silverman

Caleb Silverman

Founder of Betttr, an app that helps people quit gambling via blockers, self-exclusion and community support; guest on gambling-recovery podcasts.

Oct 29, 2026

13:52
Is it, is that in your, is that in your checkered past of it? Is it something that you've, you've struggled with or how did you come to this?
14:00
So my story is – it's a good question.
14:03
My story is personal, but it isn't personal to me.
14:08
So I was actually a professional poker player when I quit to start this app, which sounds probably a little wild.
14:17
But one of my very close relatives, I have an uncle who – was he was a gambling addict and he's been in and out of recovery for about 30 or so years.
14:31
And, um, I was playing professional poker and I didn't have an issue, but it was, it was something that I kind of fell into and I had a romantic idea about how to compete or whatever.
14:43
And the first thing that I started realizing was the industry wasn't what I thought it was.

13 MINS LATER

27:34
But it's – yeah, I mean, in theory, that bypasses all protections, all – is that as, as somebody that's providing an app to try and support people, um, are you feeling frustrated with, um, with prediction markets kind of booming? Have you seen that you, you presumably you've seen the figures for the revenue it's gone tenfold in 12 months.
EricHOST
14:58
I was like, I want to contribute something.
15:01
I want to create things that solve real problems for people.
15:05
And that is for whatever...
15:10
I was born Jewish, but for whatever philosophical kind of favoritism I've selected, I have found my way in this kind of existential human maximalism, which means...
15:25
I all the really good values from Christianity and like they're out of date now and Judaism and they're out of date now and Islam and all that stuff like there's a lot of good ideas there and also from modern culture right like American society and there's a lot of bad things but my job as a human is to.
15:42
in this world, go out and experience and create and provide love and beauty and to help people make the world a better place.
15:50
As an existentialist, you've got to decide what meaning is to you.

31 MINS LATER

EricHOST
47:00
It's not going to happen.

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