The Rise of the Degenerate Gamblers
By: Nicolas Leon Guzman
I’m sure you’ve seen dads who are passionate about sports screaming at the TV because a ref’s call didn’t go their way. I’m also sure you’ve seen young men do the same thing, but there could be a different reason as to why they’re screaming about the game. Sports Gambling has gained massive popularity in recent years with a younger generation, but how did that come to be? Back in 1992, Congress had passed a federal ban on state-sanctioned sports gambling with the exception of four states. New Jersey had tried to apply for an exemption, but failed to act because of their state-level political issues. In 2016, the Governor of New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, sought to have the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) overturned to allow state-sponsored sports betting. New Jersey was losing potential revenue – between $400 and $600 million – to these four states because New Jerseyans would set up accounts in these other states and would pay the fee in those states to gamble. On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court reversed lower court findings by favoring New Jersey in deciding that PASPA violated the anti-commandeering doctrine by a 7–2 vote and declaring the entire law unconstitutional by a 6–3 vote. The anti-commandeering doctrine is rooted in the Tenth Amendment. It prevents the federal government from directly ordering state governments or their officials to implement or enforce federal laws as it’s supposed to preserve state sovereignty. The states would have the choice to legalize sports gambling in their state. Since then, sports gambling is legal in all but four states: South Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Hawaii. Sports gambling is allowed to different degrees depending on which state you’re in. In some states, you can gamble online, while in others you can only gamble in person.
These all peaked in 2023, where platforms like DraftKings, FanDuels and Sweepstakes were able to legalize their sports betting app in several states, but there have been consequences to this legalization. According to the Jobe News network, the number of people who called gambling helplines in Kentucky more than doubled in 2024 compared to 2023. This cost Kentucky about $500 million in societal costs from social services, unemployment insurance, lost wages and productivity, bankruptcy and criminal justice. These gambling apps had also began marketing to a younger crowd. Before, the average gambler was a man in their mid-40s, whereas today it has skewed younger to people in their 20s.
An example is March Madness: one of the biggest sporting events currently going on. According to NPR, Americans are expected to wager an estimated $3.1 billion in legal bets during March Madness, which is $1.39 billion more than the Super Bowl. The ease of access to gambling is so quick and easy because it can be done on a phone. The layer of intangibility causes the gambler to not see their money being depleted and wasted on these bets. The gamification of sports betting makes it so addictive as they set up rewards and points for just logging in and winning a parlay. A WSJ investigation showed that these platforms make 70% of their money on less than 1% of users. These are the whales getting milked dry and having their lives destroyed. I believe some users look out to the economy being in a rough place and have decided to try to make money off gambling. However, it is an uphill battle as these platforms have the psychology analyzed against the user who is a glorified cash cow who gets excited from flashy lights. Gambling is a sickness that is eroding our generation and will become the cancer of our society if our lawmakers don’t do something about it.
