Noah Williford

Staff Writer

Sports betting in the last few years has turned into a cash cow of an industry. Since the failed attempt to federally ban the activity in 2018, 220 billion dollars have been bet across America. It is now legal in thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia, twenty-nine of which allow betting online. The allure is tempting; after all, most say you only need to win 54% of your bets to make profit, right?

What is not seen in the golden ideal of sports betting is the harsh reality of the consequences of loss and addiction. For the 220 billion dollars hedged, or bet, since 2018, Americans have lost 245 billion, with an estimated 60-80% of betters losing money on every bet. Underage betters have it no better, with the NCAA finding that most lose between $50 and $300 a day.

“You have to win at least 54% percent of the time against the spread to come out ahead,” Gregory Fisher, statistics teacher at Career Center, said.

The spread, a staple of modern sports betting, is not simply a bet on who will win or who will lose, but how much the winner will win by. Spread betting is designed to make it so people win bet on either side of the spread (“over” or “under”) with generally equal chances of winning. Using this system, bookies, or the organization through which bets are made, guarantee a profit by assigning players 10 to 11 odds (also known as -110), meaning that for every $11 bet, $10 is won.

“Assuming everything is lined equally, usually about 10% is what the house takes… if you put ten here and put ten there you’re gonna win, but you would only 19 bucks,” Fisher said.

This bet 110% only to get 100% back is a staple of sports betting in the modern day and a large contributor to the high loss rate of gambling.

The allure of huge success and the fast-paced nature of sports betting combined with the ease of access to online platforms has made gambling more accessible than ever, something a concerningly large number of students have taken advantage of. Gambling addiction has become a rising problem amongst teens and young adults, with 4-8% of youths showing signs of addiction, compared to just 1% of adults, according to the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors. Gambling addiction also has the highest link to suicide among addictions, according to ESPN. With the increase in attention to betting spreads and predictions in professional sports, the dangers of addiction and the consequences of gambling are ever clearer.

In recent years, psychologists have given extra study to the effects of gambling on undeveloped minds. The results point towards gambling being a rabbit hole to fall down, starting with small beginnings and ending with detrimental consequences. According to Mass.gov, children exposed to even harmless betting by age 12 are four times more likely to develop gambling problems later in life. High school students are the most likely to be exposed to betting, with the majority of betters being exposed between ages 14 and 18 according to BMC Psychiatry.

In most of the psychiatric world, the effects of online gambling addictions for teens are fairly new, but our understanding of other kinds of addiction can give us better insight into what the effects may be.

“With an underdeveloped brain, you don’t have the executive functioning to recognize problematic behavior and then think about long-term consequences of certain behavior,” Kevin Hamilton, psychology teacher at RJR, said.

“The teenage brain, which is not fully developed until their 20s, will really not be able to weigh the cost and benefits of some dangerous, risky, problematic behavior,” Hamilton said. “For addiction what that is is getting into behaviors that have higher risk of addiction for teenagers. They’re gonna be more susceptible to developing addictions earlier on.”

The easy access to betting in the modern day has only salted the wound. Access to channels of gambling is easy, costs absolutely nothing and all can be done from home on a smart device, something Hamilton sees as a huge concern in the conversation on underage betting.

“I do know that a lot of the sports gambling happening now is happening through personal devices like cell phones,” Hamilton said. “For people who already have pretty high level comfort with their smartphones and use them a lot, they already get a lot of enjoyment out of using their smartphone and having that easy access. All of the aspects of gambling through the phone intensify.”

Platforms like DraftKings, PrizePicks and ESPNBet all meet people where they’re comfortable and willing to let their guard down. The thought becomes, “if all placing a bet takes is little bit of typing, what’s the harm in placing them regularly?” This activity spirals fast, leading from innocent activities to genuine psychological consequences.

“What keeps you coming back even despite those losses is it feels good engaging in gameplay,” Hamilton said. “You have this excitement. Some of the structures involved in the brain with addiction, you have the limbic system like the amygdala, and the hippocampus is involved.”

Problems with focus, memory, and learning with trouble with decision-making and judgment are all staple negative effects of gambling on the brain. These issues affect the actual structures of the brain, but even more, issues develop elsewhere, affecting the brain chemistry.

“They’ve really identified a couple of neurotransmitters like dopamine especially, as the key one where somebody engaging in something like gambling triggers dopamine responses,” Hamilton said. “They’re gonna have this dopamine release at simply an anticipation of possibly winning and every time they engage in some type of gambling they’re excited about the possibility of getting a reward, even waiting and seeing engages dopamine and then when they win it’s reinforcing that. The more they engage in that behavior the more the brain chemistry just gets more and more and more ingrained. They want that feeling more”

Through addiction, the brain’s dopamine receptors become less and less responsive to the same stimuli normally used to initiate a response. This leads to effects on mood, impulse control, and social existence, all of which cause long-term effects on the brain.

Although scary, addiction is something that can be avoided. Self-control, proper prevention and awareness of consequences all help to maintain mental health.

“If someone wants to get help, they’ve broken through denial and that’s actually a good thing, recognizing they might a problem and just talking about it,” Hamilton said. “Just admitting it to another person can be a very therapeutic process. If you’re trying to stop, talk to people about it. If you can’t stop and you’ve seen problems, you’re seeing negative effects, that’s when we need to start talking to someone who has a professional training.”

In the years since the failed ban on sports betting, gambling has established itself as a modern-day vice, just like substance abuse. Both follow similar paths of addiction, beginning with small exposure and ending with potentially dire consequences financially, mentally, psychologically and emotionally. Gambling guarantees no winners, nor does it have any sympathy for losers. In a world where the ability to fall into the trap of addiction comes at the touch of a button, one must carefully consider all sides of their choices and what repercussions lie on the other side of them.

Aid in the struggle with addiction and gambling isn’t as far as many would assume. Just as easily accessible as betting itself, mental health help too can be reached at the touch of a cell phone. If you or a loved one seek help, contact the Problem Gambling Hotline at 1-800-662-4357 or the National Council on Problem Gambling or Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at their respective websites.