Photo used with permission from Google Commons

Superbowl 58 had an estimated 350.5 million bets placed in sportsbooks, 228.2 million of which were placed illegally. The American Gaming Association (AGA) represents the legal market and advocates for legalizing sports betting. “We will continue to advocate for policies that promote a safe and accessible marketplace,” the AGA advocacy page states.

Sports gambling, a hot industry on the rise, has become one of the biggest cash cows in American business. Sports betting advertising averaging over 1 million ads aired nationally.

In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the law that banned sports betting in America. This decision led to today, where sports betting advertising is huge, with the gambling industry spending more money than ever, and sports betting has become increasingly normalized. However, critics say that a massive public health crisis could cause serious damage. Is regulated sports gambling a decent future for sports entertainment or have we put millions of people at risk of addiction?

Today, online sports betting is legal in 29 states and Washington, D.C., with more states on the way. With how normalized sports betting is becoming, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that gambling can be harmful. Co-director of the UCLA gambling studies program Dr. Timothy Fong said that gambling is cognitively similar to taking alcohol, tobacco, cocaine or cannabis.

Research says that gambling addiction only gets worse because it is associated with cognitive distortions. A cognitive distortion is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset or perpetuation of psychopathological states; cognitive distortions are thoughts that cause individuals to perceive reality inaccurately. The idea that eventually someone wins big and becomes rich keeps people playing, and the same thing can’t be said about addictive substances. “The cognitive distortion often takes place within people who have lost large amounts of money or other assets due to gambling. Sometimes their pride, ego or sense of despair drives them to gamble more, hoping to regain what they lost,” Dr. Fong said in an article for UCLA Health.

The main promises of legalizing sports betting are that it generates tax revenue and puts an illegal market out of business. The ability to control the markets of gambling without the regulations of the government is a huge incentive for organized crime.

The illegal gambling industry is worth approximately half of the legal gambling industry, pulling together nearly $45 billion in revenue in the United States. Knocking down illegal gambling, especially online gambling, would be a massive help for state governments by crippling organized crime and generating a decent chunk of tax revenue.

However, the epidemic of people who will have crippling gambling addictions in the future is evident. With the legalization of sports betting, it has reached a new audience. The majority of sports bettors are college students or underage teenagers. An NCAA survey on sports betting found that underage gamblers bet between $1 and $50 a day and lose $10 to $300 a day. This is where the problem with sports betting lies: Because of the easy access, teens and young adults can get into gambling easier than ever. That alone is what will cause the next generation of Americans to have crippling gambling addictions.

The simple solution is to require ID verification to have an account on legal gambling websites. Adult content websites in certain states require you to verify an ID, either a driver’s license or another form of identification. Gambling and sports betting websites should require age verification because it would greatly reduce the number of underage gamblers from getting access, just the same as casinos do.