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2022 Will Mark the Beginning of the Online Sports Betting Epidemic
A dangerous convergence of trends signals a grim future for this rapidly growing industry
One weekend in high school, a classmate and I found ourselves involved in an amateur sports betting ring. My friend convinced me to place a wager on five different NFL teams with him, but the bet wouldn’t payout unless we correctly picked all five games. Also known as a parlay in the gambling world, this type of bet is high-risk, high-reward because the odds are so low for all five outcomes. But surely enough, we won the bet and couldn’t believe it. I’ll never forget watching the games on Sunday with so much excitement — it felt like we had won the lottery.
Just two decades later, millions of high schoolers across the country can have the same experience with a few taps on a phone. The ease of depositing money from your bank or Venmo account with any sports betting app is alarming. During live games, the odds change before and after every play and it’s a horribly addictive experience. If we know anything about variable rewards and tech addiction more broadly, many gamblers struggle to understand their limits and the ramifications can be dire.
The sports betting industry generated $2.1 billion in revenue last year and is projected to…
