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The sports gambling epidemic has hit Gen-z and it’s only getting worse.
“I’m not gonna lie, it gets me really excited to be 21”
That’s not in reference to alcohol. Not about any sort of drugs or tabacco. That’s what Ethan Makle, an 18-year-old senior at Bethesda Chevy-Chase high school, said in reference to being able to gamble on sports on legal sports books such as FanDuel or DraftKings.
Makle is just one of many in Gen-Z who have taken up the new hobby ever since it became legal, and coming with it is many …. [Add some more in this intro part, more quote more anything]
The Big Boom
What started the domino effect was the 2018 Supreme Court case Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. The court ruled in favor of sports gambling and it struck down the federal ban on states having the power to authorize sports gambling.
For a long time sports had many issues with gambling. From the 1919 Black Sox to Pete Rose being banned from the Hall of Fame for gambling on his own teams to Tim Donaghy rigging NBA games, sports gambling had been very opposed by the leagues.
“[Look at] basically all of cinema, sport would be portrayed as something innocent, like the Garden of Eden, and then gambling would come in, and it would be [depicted] like the serpent,” said Daniel Durbin the director of the USC Annenberg Institute of Sports Media and Society. “As more and more states reduce their regulations on gambling to allow more gambling then this just opened the door to more opportunities for sports gambling. In [Gen-Z’s] lifetime, it’s gone from being an absolute anathema that should not be allowed anywhere near sport to more or less a widley accepted part of sports activity.”
Sports books have been legalized and active in 25 states and Washington D.C. But in every single state except Washington you can wager money on sports in some fashion. Apps like PrizePicks and Underdog allow those 18 and over to risk money on what they classify as “daily fantasy sports.”
Another popular app that moves around the loopholes that is growing in popularity — 120,000 5-star reviews on the Apple app store — is Fliff. It is uniqe to the other apps in that when making an account on Fliff you aren’t prompted to verify your age until your try to withdraw funds. You can bet and “deposit” money — Fliff revolves around virtual currency instead of “real” money — freely and being underage at that.
The number of these apps has grown, and so has the user base since the 2018 Supreme Court case. In 2017, the total amount of money wagered on sports was $4.9 billion, according to a JAMA Internal Medicine study published Feb. 17. In 2023 that number ballooned to $121.1 billion.
“There’s always somebody dumb enough to bet something, and you have a new territory where you don’t have the level of regulation, where you don’t have the rebel level of community and where you don’t have the level of a feeling of corporate responsibility for other people,” Durbin said. “So you have this place now where your sense of responsibility to others is pretty much nil, and they and you have gambling, which is a huge money making proposition … If you open the door to it, of course, it’s going to flood in.”
It’s taken a hold on the sports community. When people watch sports they’re flooded with advertisements about gambling on sports, and many people do just that — especially young people.
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In a survey in 2023 by the NCAA on 18-22 year olds, 58% of them “have participated in at least one sports betting activity” and 67% of those that live on their Univeristy’s campus bet on sports and tend to bet at a “higher frequency.”
Dan Field, a clinical supervisor with the UCLA gambling studies program and clinical director of West Side gambling treatment, speciallizes in gambling addiction therapy. Field notes how dangerous sports gambling is, especially for those who are so young while their brain is still developing.
“It’s kind of like if someone had a really, really great experience with alcohol or cocaine as an adolescent — like a really heightened experience — that big spike in dopamine and remembering that experience can then make them want to drink or use coke in the future,” Field said. “Similarly, if people are part of a big gambling win, whether it’s a three game parlay or a crypto coin that they chose, that can create a lasting imprint on the brain that makes someone want to return to that feeling or that potential to earn a lot of money.”
That lasting impact is what many of these sports gambling companies are banking for; to create lifelong customers. To get them to chase what it’s like to win and that dopamine hit that comes with it.
“I enjoy it and it’s a fun thing to do with my friends, but I don’t do it just for the money, I just do it for like, the feeling I get from it,” said Oskar O’Geen, a freshman at the University of California Davis.
The House ALWAYS wins
Many people gamble on sports but everyone starts in a different way. For [Annecdote from person about how they started]
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Sports gambling is seen by many as a fun pastime and different way to engage with sports. But at its core, it’s still a vast money maker for those offering the bets.
There was a record $13.71 Billion generated in U.S. sports betting revenue in 2024, the American Gaming Association reported Feb 20. This was an increase of 25.4% from 2023, and the numbers are only projected to increase for these companies.
Americans are only continuing to increase their sports gambling, and these companies are taking advantage of that.
“[These apps] are looking back and saying, ‘how do we push the limit based on what the government allows us to do, based on what our consumers feel is inappropriate,’” said David Carter, an adjunct professor of sports business at USC as well as the founder of the consultant organization The Sports Business Group. “There’s no reason to think they’re not going to continue to uncover ways to to entice the gambling audience with greater greater opportunities, slicing up the bets, even more so the profits.”
On certain apps such as PrizePicks and Underdog, you can only place parlays on the app, the least profitable form of sports betting. As Washington Post contributor Danny Funt points out, on a typical bet, if one team is going to win the game, a sports book will make $5 for every $100 wagered. For parlays customers are getting crushed and will lose $30 for every $100 wagered.
But the enticement to win big is too much for some people to resist.
“I talk to people my age and people [in Gen-Z], and they only bet parlays, especially like 10-leg parlays that are basically just buying a lottery ticket,” Funt said. The odds that you’re gonna pick 10 things and they’re all gonna be successful is astronomical odds … parlays are just lighting your money on fire.”
Funt has been writing about and following the rise of gambling in sports and is currently writing a book about sports betting legalization. He’s been following some of these companies for years, and has seen some of the new tactics these apps uses to make it even easier to gamble.
“If you’re not a ‘traditional’ sports bettor, you’re like, ‘I don’t want to go up to a counter and say a bet and get it wrong and then, this guy who’s taking bets, this gets mad at me,’ so that has been a barrier to entry for people, and they’re trying to do away with that,” Funt said. “On PrizePicks or Underdog ofteninstead of saying this combination is +300 — like traditional gambling verbiage — they’ll say 3x your money so that it’s as universal as possible.”
Funt even noted a unique marketing tactic Underdog would use to entice people to bet.
“I saw an Underdog they added the swipe right swipe, left thing as if it’s a dating app, Funt said. “You can just be like, ‘Oh, I’ll swipe right to add, swipe left to not add’, and go through a bunch of different players. You can imagine how it just makes it as frictionless as possible and it disguises how bad the odds are.”
The decision behind implementing the “Superstar Swipe” interface is to promote a switch of fandoms from teams more toward players, Senior Director of sports betting and business development for Underdog Matt Garrigan said in an interview with EGaming Review in August, 2024.
“At the core of the Underdog Sportsbook thesis is giving customers a unique and friendly way to engage with our products, and constantly iterate and innovate to build formats they will love to play,” Garrigan said. “Superstar Swipe is an example of that commitment to our customers.”
The sports gambling apps want to make it as easy as possible for their customers to bet; removing the barrier to entry as much as possible.
“The influx of promotional materials and marketing and advertising has made it seem something that’s fun and recreational,” Field said. “All of these [marketing] elements are combining to create a space where people feel more normal when they’re betting and more supported by friends and because there’s a false sense that this could be a skill based pursuit, that it might be a viable way of making money.”
Many college students are falling into that same trap. A poll done by Intelligent.com found that one in six college students reported using financial aid or student loan money to place their bets.
It also found that just under a third of those surveyed said they will run up their credit card or even spend less on necessities such as food to fund their gambling.
A poll done by Intelligent.com found that one in six college students reported using financial aid or student loan money to place their bets. It also found that just under a third of those surveyed said they will run up their credit card or even spend less on necessities such as food to fund their gambling.
You get a free bet, you get a free bet
Everyone who gambles on sports starts in a different way. For Chian Schott, a senior studying Neuroscience at the Univeristy of Colorado Boulder, it was all about that “free money.”
“I knew a lot of people that were doing it, and when I turned 21, everyone sent me their referral code to join,” Schott said. “There’s a whole bunch of different apps that’ll give you, like, basically free money to just sign up.”
What Schott is referring to is the “risk-free,” or bonus bets that many apps like FanDuel and DraftKings use to entice new signups and get people started betting. Typically, for most apps you send a referral code to a friend and, after they place their first bet or make their first deposit, you each get a certain amount of “free bets” to place. Sometimes these intro promotion bonuses range anywhere from $50 all the way up to $1,000.
“‘Risk free’ means there is no risk. There is risk, undeniably there is risk, Funt said. “The thing is they don’t function the same as money, so that’s misleading. But you don’t get the bonus money, you only get the payout. So in that case, if I bet $100 [on a $100 to win $100.05 bet] I might, I might make five cents off that. So that’s deceptive. I would say calling anything free that you have to pay for or risk losing money to get is not free.”