Sports Gambling: A New Era of Sports Fandom

By: Noah Massey | Nov 11, 2024

In 2018, one Supreme Court decision changed the sports industry forever.

With a 6-3 ruling, the nation’s largest court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, a 1992 law that prohibited state-authorized sports gambling on game outcomes in every state but Nevada. 

Now, 38 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the practice, causing the market for sports gambling to explode nationwide, drastically influencing the way many fans consume sports. Ads for sportsbooks have pervaded into all forms of sports media, from nonstop commercials during games, to betting lines being posted next to scores on websites and apps, and even to the advertisements on the front of Premier League shirts.

Yet, the influx of money has only increased, as the American Gaming Association expected $35 billion in bets to be placed on NFL games in 2024, about a third more than last year’s total. With sportsbooks only continuing to expand – the industry is still relatively new – the customer base has also continued to grow, with a Seton Hall University poll finding that 37% of the general American population had placed a wager at some time in their lives, a sizable increase from 28% in 2022.

While 37% might seem especially high considering that 12 states – including California and Texas, the two most populous states in the nation – don’t have sports gambling legalized, other forms of sports gambling are still prevalent. Daily fantasy and pick’em contests, which are legal in both of the aforementioned states, serve as a legal alternative to traditional gambling in many states thanks to protections provided by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. This law directly excluded fantasy sports from normal gambling, though the clever workaround of daily fantasy and pick’em contests often align closer to traditional sports gambling than the fantasy sports originally protected.

Following its legalization, the constant barrage of advertisements and the constant appearances of betting lines and win probability in sports media as well as the availability of sportsbooks on mobile devices has made it so anyone can easily be entranced by the habit and give it a try, which can have debilitating effects. 

According to a study conducted by the University of Kansas, “Following legalization, sports betting spreads quickly. This increase does not displace other gambling or consumption but significantly reduces savings, as risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments. These effects concentrate among financially constrained households, as credit card debt increases, available credit decreases, and overdraft frequency rises.” 

With two million U.S. adults meeting the criteria for problem sports gambling in a given year – a number that would only rise if all states chose to legalize the practice – the practice is addictive and a societal vice, yet continues to be embraced by teams and leagues alike. The root cause of this is business – gambling companies make money by attracting new customers, and sports leagues make customers more loyal if the customers are given an interest in the outcome of games beyond the loyalty to their team. 

This interest, while beneficial to the business of leagues as a whole, is accompanied by a variety of moral concerns beyond the addictive nature of gambling and how the house always wins, even if fans disillusion themselves into believing otherwise. In its current form, sports betting has expanded beyond the largest professional leagues – the NFL, NBA, and MLB – to include college athletics and smaller professional leagues. While professional athletes might have the resources to at least partially avoid the consequences of fans losing money on them – and are also being compensated well in their profession to do so – the moral questions become even more concerning when a person has option to gamble on the performance of a 19-year old student-athlete who likely won’t play the sport professionally, is reaping limited rewards from the new Name, Image, and Likeness rules, and is just trying to get the same degree as other students.

You’d think the pressure already faced by these fresh-faced adults playing in some of the largest stadiums in the world would be large enough, but with social media they also have to face abuse online, lines written online that would never be repeated to the player’s face in real life. In an article published by the Guardian, Callum Jones claimed that “College athletes are facing ‘significant abuse’ amid a surge in harassment unleashed by America’s gambling boom”, and links part of this abuse to prop bets, bets which allow a player to risk money on the individual performance of an athlete. 

By removing the team aspect, it becomes much easier for a gambler to place the root cause of their misfortune on a singular player, who had no say in the transaction and isn’t affected by the success or failure of the bet. However, this same player can become the target of beratement and verbal abuse, something which has also become more accessible in the social media age. 

With sports betting only becoming legal outside of Las Vegas recently, its adoption to mobile devices, and its legality in only 38 states, we are living through the test period of this new era of sports fandom. While some forms of sports betting can be utilized as intended and serve only as a way to enhance the fan experience of a given game, the likelihood of developing an addiction or reliance upon gambling poses a major threat to sports fandom as we know it. In a study by the National Council on Problem Gambling, the study outlined that “Heavy sports bettors who meet the criteria for clinical gambling disorder are typically male, young, single, fully employed, and have a high level of education”. Essentially, a significant sector of the industry’s prospective consumers going into the future are those most likely to be affected by a sports gambling addiction, a problem which could have severe consequences on their relationship with sports, something which could hinder the continued growth and development of sports business in all facets. 

As gambling continues to become further integrated into sports media, leagues need to exercise a degree of caution to protect the well-being of their athletes while also ensuring that their fan base doesn’t drift too far from what made their franchises and leagues so beloved in the first place. This caution also extends to moral grounds, as leagues and governments alike need to look beyond the short-term benefits of sports betting as a legal establishment and direct league partner and consider the possible long-term ramifications if this habit is allowed to continue to become more widespread among the newest generation of fans. 

Map of the states where sports gambling is legalized

A ESPNBET Sportsbook - the sports media giant launched its own sportsbook last year