As the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off in the Super Bowl Sunday evening, we might as well admit that gambling has become as much a part of sports in America as tailgating, trash talk and sky-high stacks of pizza boxes, beer cans and cheesy nachos.
Gone are the days when sports gambling carried a certain taint as a backroom, underworld, slightly sketchy vice that earned a mixture of judgment or even scorn. Forty-one percent of Super Bowl viewers are expected to place bets on tonight’s game. Last year, the sports betting industry raked in an estimated $14 billion in revenue.
Gone are the days when sports gambling carried a certain taint as a backroom, underworld, slightly sketchy vice.
A 2024 survey conducted by St. Bonaventure/Siena Research found that almost 40% of men and 20% of women between 18 and 49 have at least one sports betting account. Fifty-nine percent bet at least once a week, and 24% bet three times a week. That same 2024 study found that 40% of bettors wagered more than they should.
It’s no wonder why. Placing a bet on a sporting event in America has never been easier. You don’t have to leave the house to place a wager. You don’t even necessarily have to roll out of bed. Now that gambling is legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia, in many cases, all you have to do is reach for a phone at any hour of the day.
The finding that rankled those who study addiction was the note that almost 1 in 5 people who place bets with an online sportsbook had lost money they needed or had told a lie to someone about the extent of their gambling. That is red-flag behavior, and the fact that so many of the people with problems were young creates concern about slippage into deeper levels of dependence in coming years.
When America is glued to the game on Sunday, perhaps we need to be paying attention to our Super Bowl circles to see who’s displaying signs of this growing American addiction.
As for me, I have decided to be proactive. As I learned about the reach and the seductive allure of sports gambling, I sat my sports- obsessed adult children and my nieces and nephews down for “the talk,” in this case warning them about a new industry that could pull them or their friends into perilous territory if they are not vigilant about setting limits and sticking to them.
The software that lurks inside the sportsbook infrastructure creates a level of engagement that is increasingly enticing, or what technologists call sticky. Things like digital wallets, streaming inside the app for live sporting events and the ability to place multiple bets at the same time with just a few keystrokes have changed the game for sports betting.
Gambling has always relied on some form of sub rosa enticement. Casinos don’t have windows so players don’t notice the passage of time as the sun rises and the streets clear out. Bathrooms, bars and endless buffets are often deliberately placed to draw gamblers deeper into the temple and away from the exits.
The apps don’t want to let users out, either. Just like other social media platforms, the apps know how and when to send push notifications, and they provide enticements for new users and friendly tips and tutorials that might seem helpful and fun but are designed to increase the frequency and amount of bets.
The apps can detect what someone is watching or get a sense of spending patterns. It can keep tabs on who checks their account first thing in the morning or compulsively in the middle of the night.
Michael Lewis’ fantastic podcast, ‘Against the Rules,’ looks at ‘how states got addicted to legalized gambling.’
Michael Lewis’ fantastic podcast, “Against the Rules,” looks at “how states got addicted to legalized gambling.” One of the more chilling episodes explores how the algorithms can quickly identify more skilled gamblers and distinguish them from those who tend to repeatedly place bad bets.
The sad sacks who lose early and often through online betting get rewarded with VIP status to keep them engaged with a potentially addictive product served up on a demonstrably addictive device. They are preyed upon by an advertising industry that plays on consumers’ need to feel better about the road that lies ahead.
In his podcast, Lewis suggests casually asking the person who manages your financial portfolio if they have VIP status with a sportsbook. If they do, he says run. They are bad at making bets and the algorithm knows that.
The same magnetic pull that keeps us scrolling through social media and shopping at night on websites is present in the kudzu-like spread of online gaming. So much vulnerability in an industry that has grown like wildfire, and yet legalized sports betting charges forward without the kind of prohibitions and guardrails that warn consumers about the risks of smoking, alcohol or drug abuse. That should change.
But don’t expect any kind of regulation or oversight in this area coming out of Washington anytime soon. The states that benefit from proceeds of sports gambling are not likely to pull back the bet they have made on the industry, even though the windfall has not been as great as expected. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott indicated days ago that he has warmed to the idea of sports betting in his state.
Americans spent more than $120 billion on sports betting in 2023. All that money is coming from somewhere. Credit cards. Loans. Diverting household spending and savings.
Americans spent more than $120 billion on sports betting in 2024. All that money is coming from somewhere.
A national study conducted by researchers at UCLA and the University of Southern California found that overall consumer financial health is beginning to deteriorate in states that have legalized sports gambling, with lower credit scores and growing signs of excessive debt, including a substantial increase in bankruptcy rates.
Researchers at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University found that for every dollar spent on sports gambling, households put $2 less in retirement savings. The researchers also found that increased spending on sports gambling was often accompanied by more ancillary outlays on lottery tickets, cable television and other forms of entertainment spending that increased credit card debt and overdraw notices from the bank. Sadly, the results were most acute in households that could least afford it.
In this new world where sports gambling is normalized, it’s on us, all of us, to watch for the signs of gambling addiction among the people we know and love and work and worship with. The intensity. The casual fibs about money and time frittered away that turn into outright lies about losses and debt. The inability to put down a phone or enjoy a game or a match without furiously making a wager on not just the score, but the spread, the weather, the number of fumbles or the first quarterback to throw a 50-yard pass. The repeated asks for money in increasing amounts.
Most people who engage in online gambling will not fall into problematic behavior, but the normalization of sports betting, the ubiquitous access and increasingly intuitive algorithms that assess a player’s skill and feed the dopamine response like candy, and the fact that so many Americans are habitually betting on sports while they are still quite young reasonably means that a hobby could turn into a monster.
And for far too many people, it already has.
