by Rachel Epstein, Men’s Health
That FOMO. Samith joined the group and started placing bets on sports he didn’t even watch, like football. Then tennis. Then the random overseas games at 2:00 a.m. He would win some, lose some, but he was basically breaking even. Then he started betting even larger amounts of money trying to get ahead. When he lost, he’d keep betting higher amounts to make back what he lost, and he’d lose that, too. At one point, he was losing $3,000 a week. He was continually transferring money from his savings and paychecks to his debit card. From September to November, he was down $12,000.
Thanksgiving weekend came around, and there were a lot of promotional offers on football, so Samith placed a $200 special bet on every NFL team getting a touchdown and field goal. He won all his money back, but he promised himself he’d take fewer risks. Still, he ended up losing $6,000 by the end of January. That’s when he decided to self-exclude (aka ban himself) from FanDuel for a month. “You have to sit with yourself and ask, Where is this leading toward?” he says. “Is this something that is bringing you happiness, or is it leading toward an addiction?”
A FEW YEARS ago, it would have been unheard of for an NFL announcer to discuss which team the money line was favoring in the game they were covering, or for viewers to watch commercial after commercial from sports-betting apps during NBA games. Since the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, 38 states plus D. C. have legalized sports betting as a quick way to increase tax revenue. No longer the shady pastime our dads did under the table, sports betting has exploded into a $7.5 billion industry (on track to become $182 billion by 2030) that’s become more accessible—and more embedded in our society—than ever.
According to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), we’re experiencing the largest and fastest expansion of gambling in our nation’s history. The American Gaming Association (AGA) reports that the number of Americans open to placing a sports bet has grown by 24 million since 2019. This unprecedented growth is attributed to easy access to mobile sports betting, as well as exposure to sports betting through sports broadcasts, sports-betting advertisements, and celebrity and athlete sportsbook partnerships that normalize—and encourage—betting. In the first quarter of 2023, Americans wagered a record $31.11 billion on sports—a 15 percent increase compared with the same period in 2022.
Five years into the widespread legalization of sports betting, we’re at an inflection point. While the reason behind the bipartisan effort to legalize it is clear (hello, money), it doesn’t come without a cost: As sports betting becomes more and more accessible, the number of people who are likely to develop a gambling addiction will continue to increase. The NCPG estimated that the risk for a gambling addiction rose by 30 percent between 2018 and 2021, particularly among men ages 18 to 24. Men are more likely to have a gambling problem than women, and sports bettors are much higher-intensity gamblers overall, with live in-game betting being associated with greater levels of impulsivity.
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