Investor Anthony Pompliano backs podcast on addiction recovery that highlights sports gambling

Anthony Pompliano is making a strategic investment in a podcast company focused on addiction recovery with a special emphasis on sports gambling, New York Post reported. The sports-betting industry is currently a $100 billion industry estimated to grow to $250 billion within the next four years.

Pompliano’s own podcast, “The Pomp Podcast,” is produced from a studio in Midtown Manhattan and has accumulated more than 50 million downloads.

Louis Ruggiero, 32, a recovering drug and gambling addict, hosts “Nothing’s Off The Table,” which airs twice weekly. Ruggiero is the son of Fox-5 anchor Rosanna Scotto and New York City attorney Louis Ruggiero Sr. He began hosting the show a little more than a year ago while working the door at the Scotto family restaurant Fresco By Scotto in Manhattan.

Ruggiero lost a business and millions of dollars due to addiction before achieving sobriety four years ago. In 2018 he was forced to testify against his best friend in a murder case after the friend confessed the crime to him while both were addicted to drugs. The friend was later convicted.

“The goal of Nothing’s Off The Table is to help people understand there is a way out of very dark places,” Pompliano told the New York Post. ” Ruggiero’s guests have included sports stars and average people who have experienced addiction. He said the show is designed to tell listeners where to get help by hearing real stories.

“With Anthony’s investment, we want to expand with live events about addictions, how it destroys lives and how you can recover,” Ruggiero said. Ruggiero plans to open an inpatient and outpatient addiction-treatment facility within the next 18 months if the business succeeds.