tanderson9@una.edu
The United States has normalized sports gambling to an upsetting degree, with 38 states legalizing it in some form and over 16 million average monthly users of the most popular sports-betting apps. There is an overwhelming amount of advertisements and celebrities earning commission to lure viewers with promotional money without consideration of people’s financial struggles. Promo money is “free” money the company sometimes gives to encourage users to remain hopeful in their betting. Some companies also refuse to consider themselves as gambling and instead label it as daily fantasy sports, which is legal in Alabama. Additionally, social media influencers upload videos to their platforms, creating parlays for viewers to copy and labeling it as a ‘100% lock’ to encourage gambling. TikTok user @propbetting lures his 77,000 followers and other users with introductions such as, ‘If you’ve ever lost, you’re just doing something wrong. Copy my parlay for a guaranteed win’. Some influencers also gain users’ attention by promoting artificial intelligence, which creates an easy-to-read chart and guesses how a player will perform—easing the research stress but lessening people’s knowledge of sports altogether. Most people believe that sports gambling is solely based on luck, which should be true. But the sports betting industry is completely unfair. It’s not just a coincidence that most bets are only lost by one point. The industry covers the debt cuts with promo money bandages.
I decided to start betting to make extra money while in college. Prizepicks, a well-known fantasy sports app, bombarded me with deals and even offered me promo money to start with. The company did everything they could to convince me to keep giving them my money; unfortunately, it worked. I found it enjoyable at first, but I soon realized how merely impossible it was to hold myself accountable because of how easy it was to throw my money away with a few clicks on the screen. I went through many emotions daily, constantly checking how close I was to winning. But I grew frustrated when the player I was confident in started playing completely differently later in the game—taking fewer shots and even avoiding wide-open ones. I later found myself submitting an additional bet the same night I lost, holding on to hope. Sure you can win money, but the sports betting industry will make certain they have users wrapped around their finger. Some people even go so far as to say they communicate with athletes to sabotage users by one point or even less.
Recent debates online are starting to question the seriousness of athlete’s injuries. Last year in the NBA, Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors was caught faking injuries in order to bet against his own team and himself to purposely underperform after returning. It has also been considered that a player will dramatize an injury to be substituted out as soon as the third quarter starts to throw gambling users off. A refund is given to users who bet on a player who gets injured in the first half of a game. However, if the injury occurs during the second half of the game, no refund is obligated. Many and myself believe sports gambling companies can use this as an advantage to earn more profit.
Sports betting can become incredibly harmful if not taken seriously. Studies show that gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate. Dopamine, the feel-good hormone, is released after each successful game. Which is also the same brain chemical being released as if someone were consuming drugs or alcohol. Many people who gamble deny the term addiction but repeatedly come back in an attempt to earn extra money “just one more time.” Be aware of the long-term physical and emotional effects of gambling and think carefully about how much money you could lose because of the blatantly sabotaged system. It’s not worth risking your life being changed because all you needed was one more point to win big.
