Christopher Vichathep only occasionally bets on sports but it only took one incident for a regular night to transform into an evening he never expected.
Vichathep, a sophomore nutrition major at the University of Memphis, was walking to his car after a long day at work when a mysterious guy approached him and asked if he wanted to have a "couple of beers" and hangout at his house.
"It turns out that the guy was someone I chilled with in high school," Vichathep said. "(After confirming with a friend it was him) I decided to go hang out with him."
Once they arrived at the house, Vichathep heard some screaming in the garage and wanted to see what was going on.
"I went in and I saw two dudes in a circle fighting each other with everyone else crowded around them," Vichathep said. "Then the guy said, 'For $50, you can get in the circle yourself.'"
Four fights later, Vichathep ended the night with $200 in his pocket.
Vichathep said that this was a rare gambling situation for him because he actually got to bet on himself instead of someone else, making it more appealing to him.
"I prefer making my money by working hard," Vichathep said. "But I can always make an exception."
According to a 2008 Gallup Poll, about one in six Americans gambles on sports.
Men are nearly twice as likely to gamble on sports as women, and younger Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are more likely to gamble on sports then the 35-to-54-year-old age group. Americans aged 55 and older are the least likely to gamble on sports.
Earnest Shelton, 64 and retired, has been gambling for 44 years and said he has played every type of gambling game possible.
"I've done sports gambling, played slot machines, football pools, etc.," Shelton said. "If you name it, I did it."
Shelton said the reason he started gambling was because of the people around him.
"I got started because of the guys I ran around with," Shelton said. "I did what I had to do to fit with the in-crowd."
He said that one of the differences between sports gambling and other types of gambling is that you could cheat more easily in other types of gambling compared to sports gambling.
"The reason cheating in table gambling was easier was because I had a bad dice and a bad deck of cards in my back pocket," Shelton said.
Shelton said he could easily get away with that back in the day, but nowadays he would never try something like that.
"I wouldn't do it now because it's simply too dangerous," Shelton said. "People will kill over a penny nowadays."
He said if he had not started gambling, he might have been a millionaire.
"I bought some big houses (along the way), and if I had just stayed out of gambling, I could've been a millionaire," Shelton said. "Gambling is a fool's game."
Jim Whelan, co-coordinator of the U of M Gambling Clinic, said that people gamble because it gives them positive feelings.
"People experience positive things from gambling, (as a result) your mood improves and you start to feel good about yourself," Whelan said.
Walter Winfree, a psychology graduate student at the U of M and therapist at the U of M Gambling Clinic, said that the strongest pull of gambling is the ability to make money.
"Some of the positive pulls include making money, but it can also be for social reasons," Winfree said. "(The casino) is a place where you can drink, interact and see concerts-it's one big entertainment center."
Winfree said gambling exists in one big continuum.
"In the continuum you first have people who don't gamble at all," Winfree said. "Then you have people who do recreational gambling and then it gets more into the serious types of gambling from there."
He also said sports gambling is different from other types of gambling due to the possibility of having to do some research.
"It (sports gambling) is different because you may have to do research for teams you bet on, usually through a bookie," Winfree said. "It's less of a game in that sense. It's not so much about skill."
Winfree said the best time to stop gambling is when you start experiencing problems directly due to gambling.
"Whether it is not paying your bills or missing work and/or school (at that point), it is probably time to change your gambling habits," Winfree said.
The U of M Gambling Clinic provides one-on-one counseling and will help people deal with all the different types of gambling problems individuals may have.
"We give them extensive feedback on their problems and ask them to log in their last six months of gambling," Winfree said. "From there, we look and find those triggers and try to give them different options when those triggers come about."
He also said that after six to eight sessions, the therapists follow up with the problem gamblers on an annual basis.
Gary Parrish, 37, a national college basketball columnist for CBSSports.com, said that he has always viewed sports gambling as just another form of entertainment.
"I only gamble on college football and the NFL, and it makes my Sundays way more entertaining," Parrish said.
According to the American Gaming Association, sports fans bet a new record $98.9 million on last year's Super Bowl and a further $60-70 billion is illegally gambled on college football every year, according to CNBC.
Parrish said his argument for making sports gambling legal is based on alcohol.
"Just because a few people struggle with alcohol doesn't mean you should ban alcohol," Parrish said.
However, he also said if people think that gambling can become a reliable source of income, they are mistaken.
"If you think it's a way to make money, there are a few examples of people who do, but more times than not they don't," Parrish said. "If you tricked yourself into thinking you can become rich, supplant a source of income or make money (off of gambling), you are misguided."
Nevertheless, Parrish said he thinks sports gambling will someday be legal throughout the U.S.
"I think one day it will be legal throughout the entire country-just look at same-sex marriage," Parrish said. "Ten years ago it was so rare, now pretty soon in every state you'll be able to do it. That's how I think sports gambling will eventually become."
