Sports gambling: fun entertainment or a scam that leads to addiction?
According to a Gallup Poll in 2008, one in six Americans gamble on sports. Christiansen Capital Advisors reported that between 2001 and 2005, online sports gambling revenues increased from $1.7 billion to $4.29 billion.
Rory Pfund, a first-year graduate student at the University of Memphis and student researcher in the on-campus gambling clinic, believes accessibility is the main reason sports gambling has become so prevalent.
“Our studies show that geography has a big stake in gambling in general,” he said. “Geographically, there are casinos more readily available in some places – like Tunica to Memphis. The more casinos around you, the more likely people are to go. I think in terms of sports gambling, it’s very similar. If you look at it, it is really easy to gamble on sports. It is online. All you need is Internet and a computer. If you do not have those, you can go to a public library or a campus like the University of Memphis that has free Internet access.”
National college basketball analyst for CBS Sports, Gary Parrish agrees that accessibility has made sports gambling more popular. Parrish is himself a recreational gambler.
“It has become more mainstream,” he said. “Now, if you look at weekend picks on ESPN or CBS Sports, it is all against the spread. Lines are available everywhere. Radio stations have handicappers on all the time. It has become more readily available to the casual listener than ever before. Fantasy football has played a part because it is gambling too, to an extent, because you create stakes for an outcome of an event to win money. Honestly, there is so much sports on TV now, you could gamble every night of the week if you wanted to.”
According to Parrish, gambling can be very fun for recreation and he believes that is all people should view it as – recreation.
“Me, personally, I do not do it to try to win money,” he said. “I think that is when you get dangerous. When people say, ‘Hey, I’m going to try and pay my mortgage by sports betting or pay a car note,’ that’s when it gets dangerous, because the truth is you do not win over the long term in this stuff. There are exceptions to that, but for the most part people do not win.”
Parrish said he looks at sports gambling strictly as a form of entertainment.
“If I am spending the night out at the movies on a Friday night with my family, I will not have bets on random basketball games because then I would be gambling just to gamble,” he said. “I do not do that. I use it strictly for entertainment purposes. My goal is not to win. I view it the same as someone spending $100 to $200 on a nice dinner and going to see a movie or a concert. If I can tread water and six months from now I break even, or I’m even down a little, I would say it was money well spent because it was for entertainment value for me.”
Parrish believes that sports gambling is good for sports in general, because it provides a way to get more people interested in sports and makes them more exciting.
“It makes me enjoy games more,” he said. “I think it is undeniably good for sports because it increases eyeballs. How many people outside of Memphis would watch a Memphis–SMU football game if it were not for gambling?”
Parrish believes that sports gambling is the motive behind some of the decisions made by networks covering sports.
“Honestly, I think sports gambling is a cousin to fantasy football. I can tell you for certain one of the reasons networks are willing to put college football games on any night of the week – Tuesday night games, Wednesday night games, Thursday night games – the reason that works, where you see two bad teams play each other late at night is because there is a gambling audience for it.”
Legalization of sports gambling is currently a major issue across the U.S. In 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act banned sports betting except in Nevada, Oregon, Delaware and Montana. Nevada is the only state that regulates legal sports gambling. New Jersey has pushed to make it legal as well, but has not yet succeeded.
Parrish believes that soon it will be legal everywhere, and that it is the right thing to do in this issue.
“Whatever risks come with sports gambling, I do not think they are really risks that trump the common sense theory that this is happening all over our country all the time,” he said. “If it is going to go on no matter what, why not try to legalize it? Bring it all above board, and let the government profit off of it in some way. What is preferred? Having it all underground with billions of dollars changing hands, without people paying taxes, or bringing it all above board, where it is legal and tax dollars are generated from it?”
Though legalization seems smart to many people, it would not eliminate the major risks involved in sports gambling.
Pfund, who studies different ways to help break gambling addictions, explained how he has witnessed gambling getting so out of control that it destroys lives.
“There is a wide variety of factors,” he said. “Honestly the financial loss is the worst. I remember looking at a file of a debt over six figures. I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my gosh. How can you let it get that bad?’ And on the same line, you have to think if people with that bad of losses are married and have families or are in relationships and that there is probably a lot of lying going on. You can imagine what that could do to a relationship.”
Pfund went on to explain how easy it is to get addicted to sports gambling.
“I think people can get addicted to any form of gambling, but for sports it is so easy because of its accessibility,” he said. “You can just go online, sign up and put in your credit card information. It is that easy. With sports, it is also really easy for gamblers to have different cognitive distortions, such as, ‘Oh, I have a hunch, and I know I’m going to win.’”
Pfund said he believes gambling on credit has become a major source of problems for gambling addicts or people at risk to become addicts. He said losing money doesn’t seem as real when it is done with a credit card or ATM.
“It takes a little bit of time to realize, ‘Oh, wow, I lost all of this,’” Pfund said.
Parrish agrees with this sentiment, stating gambling on credit can lead to a lot of trouble.
Mike Shaul, a 23-year-old recent college graduate, used to gamble on sports but quit because he believes it’s a scam.
“Well, I thought it would be an easy way to make money,” he said. “I thought it would, but it is not easy and you do not make money. I got into it thinking, ‘You’re telling me I can put $2 down on a three-team parlay and make $20? That is awesome.’ Yeah, that happened once every 10 times.”
Shaul said online gambling was a rip-off because not only could gamblers not cash out whenever you wanted, but those who kept playing eventually lost.
“It is definitely a rip-off,” he said. “I did not like the online thing because you could not take out whenever you wanted and if you do not stop when you are ahead, you are just going to play until you lose because the house always has the advantage.”
Shaul explained that while gambling seemed like fun, it wasn’t worth it in the long run.
“If you are the type of person who is going to put big money down, it can definitely mess up people’s lives,” Shaul said.
Pfund explained that once someone is addicted to gambling, it is very unpredictable as to how long it will take the person to break the addiction.
“Gambling, like other addictions, has different processes involved with changing,” he said. “Every person is different so their method of changing is a different process than others. You can’t put a number of sessions or time limit on when you will break an addiction such as this.”
Pfund said that, overall, sports gambling can be enjoyable entertainment. But people must remember it is so easy to let it get out of control.
“Gambling itself is supposed to be a recreational fun thing, but it is like anything that can get out of control,” he said. “Same thing with drinking alcohol. Someone can drink alcohol with moderation, and it is the same with gambling. Someone should probably set limits for themselves so they do not get out of control.”
