I have no issues with gambling. If consenting adults want to blow their hard-earned money on games of chance as state law allows, then that is their prerogative. I spend enough on ball caps and sneakers to keep several small Chinese factories in business. Just ask my wife.
But sports betting? Well, that’s a different matter. Currently, “sportsbooks” are only allowed to operate in brick-and-mortar casinos along the coast, the Mississippi River, and a couple of Native American gaming facilities in Neshoba County. Meaning, you have to be physically present in a casino to gamble on sports outcomes.
House Bill 1302, the “Mississippi Sports Wagering Act,” which passed the House a couple of weeks ago and is currently before the Senate gaming committee, would legalizing online sports betting, allowing existing casinos to partner with entities like DraftKings, Caesar’s Sportsbook and BetMGM to facilitate betting on sports of all types for adults 21 and up. If passed, Mississippians of legal betting age could use their cell phones to make wagers from anywhere in the state.
Seems reasonable, as 30 states plus D.C. currently allow live online sports betting, with Missouri soon to follow. Proponents of HB 1302 note that once casinos without online betting partners get their cut – they’re guaranteed a slice of the first $6 million of revenue – the rest of the money is deposited into the Emergency Road and Bridge Repair Fund. I might argue there are better uses for revenue from a “sin tax” (like education and childhood food insecurity) but I’ll leave that to The Dispatch’s other columnists.
There is, however, a catch. (There’s always a catch.) The risk of gambling addiction. According to a 2024 study from researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, 10% of men ages 18-24 exhibit behavior that indicates a gambling problem, including borrowing money to gamble and reporting financial and emotional problems related to gambling. Furthermore, 45% of men under 30 who gamble online report at least one problem behavior. I think it’s no coincidence that total bankruptcies climbed by as much as 30% in states where sports betting was newly legal.
A 2023 study commissioned by the NCAA found that 58% of 18-to-22-year-old men bet on sports in the past year, and that number rose to 67% on college campuses. Fortunately these figures are much lower for women. Maybe they’re onto something.
Last March, my son and I attended a couple of men’s NCAA Tournament games at FedExForum in Memphis. As we rode the elevator up from the bowels of a Beale Street parking garage, we were joined by a gaggle of young men also headed to the game. I didn’t ask their ages, but based on the number of beers they were carrying, I assume they were of legal drinking (and gambling) age. They weren’t wearing any particular team’s colors, so I asked the man closest to me who he was rooting for in the first game. “The over,” he said, without hesitation. For those unfamiliar with gambling parlance, that’s a bet based on the total number points scored in the game. Oddsmakers set a number, he bet they’d be wrong.
As our conversation continued, I learned that, between the five of them, they had bet more than $500 on various propositions and outcomes that might result from the game. If those bets hit, they’d stand to triple their money. But if they didn’t, well, you get it.
Maybe I’m old school; I came of age in a time when sports betting was relegated to backrooms, friendly wagers, Super Bowl “squares” and nebulous talk about “guys” you knew who would “take bets.” It was all very much illegal, and thus, difficult to get involved in. Now, you just fire up an app, deposit some money, make your picks and wait to be showered in cash. Or, the more likely scenario, lose it all and wonder how it all went so wrong, so fast. After all, what 21-year-old has an extra $500 lying around for each weekend’s bets?
Professional sports have caved. Sportsbooks now partner directly with every major American pro league, and seem to dominate commercial breaks and in-stadium advertising. College sports, in its never-ending quest for more money, is sure to follow. As gambling money – in the form of advertising, sponsorships and partnerships – rolls in, the young men playing these sports (the same young men so often lured in by incessant advertising and easy access to sports betting, not to mention bullet-proof egos) might be tempted to help sway an outcome or two to make a tidy profit, or use their lived experience of the college game to make bets on other games.
Don’t believe me? It’s already happening. In 2023, former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohannon was fired after being linked to suspicious bets on his team, and more than three dozen athletes at Iowa and Iowa State were investigated for gambling. In 2024, former LSU wide receiver Kayshon Boutte was arrested over illegal betting while he was an underage student, Temple men’s basketball was investigated for unusual betting activity and Notre Dame’s entire men’s swim team was suspended for at least a year for wagering on the results of their competitions. Earlier this month, basketball programs at Eastern Michigan, Mississippi Valley and North Carolina A&T were linked to an ongoing federal investigation into suspicious gambling activity. And it’s only going to get worse.
So let’s keep gambling where it belongs; off the field, away from the court, out of the locker rooms and living rooms and in the casinos. Besides, only a fool would bet the over during March Madness.
Philip Poe is sports editor.
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