The gambling industry is going gangbusters.
Sportsbooks will make a record-breaking $3.1 billion on Americans’ March Madness bets by the tournament’s conclusion on Saturday, the American Gaming Association (AGA) predicts, comfortably outpacing last year’s $2.7 billion.
March Madness profits, and the estimated $1.39 billion Americans bet on February’s Superbowl, put 2025 on pace to become the gambling industry’s most lucrative year yet.
Bill Miller, CEO and President of AGA, waxed eloquent on legal gambling’s benefits in a press release announcing Americans spent more than $71 billion on gambling in 2024.
“Every dollar of gaming revenue fuels jobs, investment and economic growth — reinforcing why the legal industry’s expansion is so important,” Miller wrote.
Les Bernal, the National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, says these economic benefits are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
“Betting interests like to say that the money [they make] will go to some state interest like education, but this is a revenue source that makes money from people who are addicted to gambling,” Bernal tells the Daily Citizen.
Commercial gambling operations enable addicts, but they don’t clean up the financial or social consequences of gambling addiction. That, says Bernal, falls to taxpayers:
The “half of 1%” Bernal references comes from a Wall Street Journal article finding PointsBet, an online sports book, made 70% of its profits between 2019 and 2020 from just 0.5% of its customers — gambling addicts.
This business model is industry wide. Online sportsbooks and gambling games use computer algorithms to identify compulsive gamblers and deploy “VIP-customer representatives” to keep them coming back for more.
VIP reps prevent out of control gamblers from quitting by offering well-timed rewards and vouchers for free bets.
“If you show a likelihood of chasing your losses — and, by that, I mean you gamble to recoup the money you lost gambling — you are the number one target demographic for the gambling industry,” Bernal emphasizes. “Because you won’t stop and you’re inevitably going to keep losing.”
Legal, online sports betting makes college campuses breeding grounds for gambling addiction. A 2023 survey of 3,527 college students by the NCAA found more than a fourth of students (27.5%) had placed an online sports bet. A startling 6% of respondents — 212 students — had lost $500 or more on sports betting in a single day.
Evan Ozmat counsels students at the University of Albany, where he is earning his PhD in psychology. In December 2023, he told Time magazine:
Ozmat compares the students’ experiences to drug or alcohol fueled binges:
Sportsbooks enable gambling binges by creating a seamless betting experience; the faster users can place a bet, the less time they spend considering the wisdom of another wager.
More broadly, the gambling industry markets to kids — future customers — using sports.
Sports betting has become inextricably entwined with American athletics — from TV ads, to stadium names, to sports broadcasters analyzing odds on air. Sportsbooks bombard kids with the idea that true sports fans gamble from the time they buy their first baseball cap to the day they place their first bet.
Consequently, kids begin sports gambling early and often, with no concept of the danger they’re in.
Ironically, sports betting actually worsens competition, and fans’ experience, by introducing incentives for athletes to perform poorly. Among the college basketball teams competing in March Madness, three are under federal investigation in connection with an NBA gambling ring. Players from three other colleges are being investigated for betting on themselves in fantasy games.
The remainder of March Madness will be filled with invitations to gamble. Bernal says parents can protect their kids in three ways.
The first is to simply forgo gambling yourself. Do not engage in behavior you don’t want your kids to emulate.
The second is adding gambling to the list of dangerous and addictive habits you warn your kids against, like vaping, drugs and watching pornography.
The third is to support online gambling and online gambling advertising reform at the ballot box. Bernal emphasizes:
Additional Articles and Resources
Online Sports Betting Hooking Young Men on Gambling, Research Suggests
Online Super Bowl Betting Breaks Records
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