When Dave Nangle, a former veteran Massachusetts legislator, talks about gambling addiction, people should listen.

He knows what he is talking about. He has been through it, including serving prison time because of a gambling addiction.

“My addiction consumed my life,” the 64-year Nangle said. “It led me to betray those that I loved, make deeply regrettable decisions, and ultimately serve time in federal prison.”

The former Lowell legislator served 22 years in the House before he was arrested in 2022 and pled guilty to charges of misuse of campaign funds to pay for his gambling addiction, among other things.

He was sentenced to fifteen months in prison. He served six months and was released to home confinement during the Covid epidemic. He wrecked his family life, lost his job, lost his money and lost his reputation.

Nangle, who has rebuilt his life and now lectures and counsels on gambling addiction, made his remarks before the legislative Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Thursday on Beacon Hill.

The committee had several gambling bills before it, including one allowing casino gambling on cell phones.

While Nangle did return to the State House, it was not in the role his loyal supporters hoped for. They wanted him to run for the state Senate to fill the Lowell senate seat made vacant by the October death of Sen. Edward J. Kennedy. A special primary will be held March 3.

He had a good chance of winning, considering it would have been a three-way primary pitting the still popular and politically experienced Nangle against two Lowell state representatives, Vanna Howard and Rodney Elliot.

But his heart was elsewhere.

“As I said at my sentencing,” he testified, “ I told the judge that once my case was behind me. I would dedicate myself to protecting others, especially young people, from the path I walked for forty years.”

And the best way to do it was to personally help people with addiction, whether it is from gambling, alcoholism or drug abuse.

He did so by first working with The Bridge Club of Greater Lowell, a non-profit serving addicted people, becoming a certified addiction recovery coach (CARC), and working with the Massachusetts Counsel on Gaming and Health, another nonprofit dedicated to helping addicted gamblers, as a peer specialist.

Nangle also represented the anti-gambling group Stop Internet Gambling in Massachusetts which is also opposed to the legalization of cell phone gambling or so called “I Gaming.”

The legislation, in an enhancement of legalized gambling, would allow gamblers, or anyone else interested in chance betting, to gamble by cell phone on all the gambling games offered by a casino.

These include, among other things, games of poker, blackjack, roulette and craps, or dice. It would be like having a brick-and-mortar casino in your pocket and, according to Nangle, “engineered to be addictive.”

Better still, since there are no operating hours as in a casino, you could use it to gamble at the kitchen table twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, which is an open invitation to addiction, especially for young people.

Nor is there any human interaction with cell phone gambling, just algorithms to keep on gambling.

“How can we ban cell phones in schools on Monday and legalize gambling on them by Tuesday?” Nangle asked. “We do not need to turn every cell phone into a casino.”

He said, “There is no Narcan for a gambling addiction. No emergency antidote. When someone overdoses on opioids we can administer Narcan and save a life. But when someone spirals into gambling addiction, there is no such rescue.

“The damage is slow, silent and often irreversible. It’s bankruptcies, lost homes, broken marriages, and children wondering what happened to their college fund.”

Thanks to people like Nangle, the bill will probably be killed.

But don’t bet on it.

Legislation pending on Beacon Hill would bring casino games like roulette to people’s cell phones, something anti-addiction advocates like former Rep. David Nangle are pushing against. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com