The history behind sports betting is long and complicated. However, the key component is that in 1931 the state of Nevada legalized gambling and in their casinos you could also gamble on sports. The first sportsbook wouldn’t be introduced until 1975 though. Nevada would remain the only state with legal sports gambling until May of 2018 when the Supreme Court threw out the Amateur Sports Protection Act.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, 38 states, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have legalized sports gambling. Following the legalization in several states the NFL began to take an interest. Their first marketing agreement with three seperate sportsbooks would begin in April of 2021.
The gambling industry was already doing very well but the rise in sportsbook revenue have shaped media coverage in extreme ways. Even the world-wide leaders of sports, ESPN, just recently opened up their own sportsbook called ESPN Bet and have been promoting it.
Sam answers questions about the predatory (not pritority) nature of the gambling industry and why fans continue to gamble.
As mentioned above, there has been a massive increase in sports gambling and this is due to the amount of sportsbooks. You could go to the app store on your phone this second and find hundreds of sportsbook waiting for you to make an account and deposit some of your money.
Another issue is the presence gambling has been given on national broadcasts. When you turn on any TNT broadcast with Kenny, Shaq, Charles, and Ernie they will undoubtedly mention something to do with gambling. This season Charles Barkley has been giving his picks on games that people should bet on, and he has not done great through the years.
A viewer can be watching a broadcast and in the middle of the game a FanDuel logo pops up and the broadcasters start talking about who was on track to hit their overs/unders. This has created an influence on the people watching that gambling is a genuine part of the sports would that they should participate in.
This is concerning for some people who may struggle with addiction issues in their lives. As Sam Hittle also mentioned above he does it to “make money” and also to make the games more interesting. He feels as if he needs to have some allegiance to either team competing for the game to be exciting and watchable for him.
For a college student without a job this can be a dangerous activity to get involved in. Luckily some apps, like the one Hittle uses, allow the user to set a weekly/daily limit on how much they are able to deposit. However, this is not required and is often quite rare that an app really does include this feature.
Mary Lee answers where she has seen the rise in gambling and how the apps have increased activity.
This is where the link Lee mentioned between alcohol really comes into play. The idea of something being readily available and easy to obtain is where the apps have affected gambling the most. To obtain alcohol, often but not always, there is a place that sells alcohol within 5 miles, in some towns even less of a distance. Now gambling is even easier, you don’t even have to leave the house to throw some money on the big game.
Gambling addiction has risen to an all time high in America. There is certainly a reason and you would be very hard press to try and prove this is a causation rather than correlation situation. Gambling addiction is a chronic mental health disorder just like alcoholism, and as mentioned above you can find alcohol all over the place. It’s been that way for quite some time and will continue to be, but gambling was never this easy.
Concern has often been placed on the verification of age. Making an account on a sportsbook is extremely quick, and as Mary mentioned, very easy to fake. Underage gamblers can simply gamble anonymously through an online casino (which yes can be shady) or the most common nowadays is using someone else’s information to create a sportsbook account.
The government has not attempted to regulate this as they rake in millions, some cases even billions, of dollars in tax revenue from the sportsbooks. For any further information on gambling statistics in the state of Indiana you can head here, where all the information is available to the public.
To access the gambling hotline in case of need, dial 1-800-GAMBLER
