Cover art by Isabella Marsh
Collegiate gambling: An unspoken addiction rising in our nation
By Jack Block
According to a study from Rutgers University Addiction Research Center, “Gambling among college students has surged, with an estimated 60 to 75 percent of students engaging in gambling activities annually, driven largely by legal, mobile sports betting.” In a study by Gambling.org, gambling is legal in some form for most 18-year-olds across the United States. Gambling upon arrival at college is an increasing epidemic. For many students, college is the first time where you have full control over your life, certainly giving many young students independence. To college students, gambling may seem fun; a harmless way to make a quick buck for a broke college student. In reality, gambling is one of the most damaging addictions anyone can have. Especially at a young age, gambling produces one of the biggest dopamine rushes one can get, making it highly addictive and dangerous. According to a Stony Brook Medicine study, gambling especially affects the adolescent brain’s reward system much like substance use disorders. People begin to rely on gambling once they get their first hit, turning a small amount of money into a big payday. Additionally, many online platforms hook gamblers, especially college students by advertising free picks, a seemingly harmless way for people to begin betting, without cost. This is what gambling sites do to hook people, making it a susceptible entry point into gambling addiction for many. The reason that gamblers are so susceptible to addiction is because of the thrilling feeling of a potential payout. Unlike other forms of entertainment, viewers actually have the chance to gain something while gambling, making it appealing. This is especially the case for young people who are often relatively irresponsible with money and uneducated on the harms of gambling. While appealing, the truth is, these big hits and payouts are not reliable. According to a 2026 report from Gambling Insider, only 11 to 13.5 percent of gamblers end up profiting from their bets, meaning over 85 percent lose money from gambling. Despite this, people continue to gamble, chasing the hit, and losing money in the end. Gambling is especially dangerous to college students, who are already in debt paying loans for their studies. Despite the danger, with tuition increasing nationwide, many college students turn to gambling to make a quick buck. Whether it’s to pay for a meal, as a quick side hustle or even a seemingly harmless poker night with friends, gambling makes it hard to produce a stable income in the long run. Gambling can become so addictive for college students because they are relying on quick cash to solve immediate problems, but this isn’t sustainable, physically or mentally. According to a teenage gambling study from Mass.gov, gambling leads to significant mental health struggles, including depression, anxiety and guilt and is linked with one of the highest suicide rates among addictions. Gambling gives a high, just like a drug, and it’s easier than ever for college students to access. In the United States, over 30 states allow online betting. In many cases, especially among young men, sports betting apps such as Prize Picks, Underdog Fantasy, Kalshi, Betr Picks, and more allow gambling at the age of 18. These apps specifically target young men; According to a study from Today News, 60 percent of boys aged 11 to 17 had online gambling advertised to them on social media apps. With these advertisements being viewed at such a young age, young people are enticed to access gambling apps. There are easy loopholes for young people to access gambling, such as creating fake accounts, inputting their parents’ personal information, or by purchasing a VPN and changing their location setting to a state that allows online betting. When hooked on gambling in adolescence, it makes college an even easier place to gamble freely. In a 2025 survey at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), 40 percent of students admitted to gambling, and 36 percent of students claimed to see gambling advertisements weekly. In response, Ole Miss approved the launch of a new facility dedicated to gambling prevention called the Center on Collegiate Gambling this past February. According to an article from ESPN, the approved center will require 700,000 to maintain yearly, making it a large emphasis of importance for the university and exactly what needs to be done in order to prevent collegiate gamblers. Collegiate gambling is a rising epidemic that has seen a large increase in popularity among college students, especially online. In order to combat this as a nation, we need to begin to take action and prevent gambling addiction at a young age. It may seem harmless and easy as a college student to place a quick bet or two, but in the long run gambling addiction only leads to negative consequences.
Online Betting: Kalshi
When betting became the game
By Joel Kurtzman
In 1919, eight players on the Chicago White Sox were banned from the game of baseball for skewing the outcome of the World Series. In 1989, Major League Baseball (MLB) player Pete Rose was permanently banned from baseball due to betting on his own performance. For decades, these cases stood as cautionary tales for athletes, that gambling and athletics could not mix. Beginning in 2018, that perception shifted fast. The United States Supreme Court overruled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PAPSA), which had previously restricted most forms of sports betting in the country, allowing states to legalize online sports betting. The momentous shift made sports gambling a worldwide phenomenon almost overnight. This ignited advertising campaigns for major sportsbook platforms such as FanDuel and DraftKings, which have dominated the online gambling industry for nearly a decade. In the years since, Americans have poured over $500 billion into sports wagers, creating an environment where betting is now deeply embedded in everyday sports culture. However, as gambling has become more accessible and convenient, the temptation has begun to reach athletes themselves. The shift has already left a mark on professional sports. In the MLB, Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Tucupita Marcano was permanently banned from the sport in 2024, after placing hundreds of bets, including games that involved his own team. With the legalization of betting on specific pitches or plays, gambling on specific moments during a game has become popular, making it much more enticing to place wagers. Other players, such as Emmanuel Clase and Luiz Ortiz, have both been tied to gambling-related activities involving their own performance in games. The concern around gambling in professional sports is not limited to baseball. In the National Basketball Association, former all-stars Terry Rozier and Chauncy Billups were recently accused of being connected to gambling-related activities suspected of causing suspicious patterns to show up in games. While neither case has resulted in confirmed findings of betting on their own sport, both were suspended indefinitely. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, professional athletes are four times more likely to develop a gambling addiction than the average person. The environment athletes are placed in mirrors how gambling acts as an addiction for the average person. Athletes are constantly pressured with their performance and their high financial stakes, while having nonstop exposure to betting through the media around them. This creates a place where gambling behavior can seem encouraged and normalized, so athletes become much more susceptible to the addiction of sports betting. This shift is not just tied to the rise of gambling, but to how it has become intertwined with sports culture. Betting is no longer separate from sports as it has made its way into broadcasts and sponsorships. The link between sports betting promotions and the side of gambling addictions is increasing, making it hard for athletes to ignore. The prospect of gambling on a sport seems intriguing and exciting on the surface, but when every pitch, possession and performance becomes tied to betting outcomes, the focus of a sport shifts away from the game itself, and towards the money at stake. Fans are no longer just watching to see who wins or loses, and a growing number of athletes are falling into this addiction due to its accessibility. At a certain point, these issues extend farther than just gambling existing in sports, but how deeply it has begun to influence the people involved. As that influence continues to grow, the line between athletic performance and the netting system surrounding it begins to blur, and the sports themselves will start to lose what made them so meaningful in the first place.
Sports betting: When the game isn’t just a game
By Logan Scully and Reed Grossman
It’s a lock. I’m due. Just ride it with me. For many sports fans, just watching the events is simply not enough. Sports gambling has quickly become an essential part of young adult culture, transforming the sports community. In a 2026 study, Common Sense Media reported that 51 percent of 16-year-old boys have gambled in the past 12 months, despite it being illegal for those under 21. DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGMr, Fanatics, PrizePicks, Sleeper, Kalshi and Underdog are just some of the many platforms that Americans use today to place bets on sporting events. These mega platforms have dominated advertisements and social media over the past decade, embedding the illegal practice into youth culture. Although these apps are designed for adults and are illegal under California Penal Code § 330 PC, which states that sports betting is illegal for all residents, teenagers still find it easy to access them. For one male junior student who will remain anonymous for legal purposes and will be referred to as “Steve,” getting involved with sports gambling started at the age of 13. Steve mentioned the simplicity of downloading an illegal sports betting application on his phone and using his parents' personal information to gamble. “Any kid can instantly make an account and start betting. Sometimes some of the apps make you get a social security number. I have taken my mom's social security number before, and put it in on the site or my parents ID to be able to gamble,” Steve said. “It's very accessible for underage kids to do it, and more companies are finding loopholes to beat the laws so they can still allow a lot of people to gamble.” The majority of young gamblers are exposed to gambling platforms online through social media and advertisements. According to the 2026 Common Sense Media study, 45 percent of adolescent boys who gamble see online gambling content, 59 percent of which is through algorithmic exposure. This means that even those who aren’t actively seeking out gambling opportunities are still being targeted by content pushed onto their feeds. With the constant presence of promotions and celebrity partnerships, these illegal platforms can reach underage users with little effort. “If you try to quit, or you try to take a week off, [the gambling companies] are going to give you more promotions to get you back betting again,” Steve said. “The apps also send you notifications constantly to try to reel you back in once they realize you haven't placed a bet for a while.” Another student who wishes to remain anonymous, and will henceforth be referred to as "John," detailed his experience with sports gambling early in his high school career. “What hooked me was when it made the game a lot more entertaining to watch, especially if it was teams that weren't my favorite,” John said. “It was a fun thing to do with other people as well to amp up the scene a little more.” Some young gamblers have already lost the love for the sports they are gambling on, and strictly rely on placing money on the games to be entertained. “Gambling has become a necessity for me. It's very hard for me to watch games without gambling on them,” Steve said. “I used to always watch every sports game just for the love of the game, and now I can't even get happiness out of watching my own favorite team without putting money on it.” Another hook is peer pressure, which forces many to place unnecessary bets and consequently lose money. “Your friend will say, I just found a lock or, just ride it with me,” John said. “It's similar to when someone says, why not just take a hit on this vape?” Steve also touched on the sense of community that comes with gambling in your teenage years. “You can go watch sports games with your buddies and all put bets on the game,” Steve said. “It's really a big community here at Redwood and teen boys in general.” The youth gambling culture has created numerous terms that signify different meanings in the habit. Terms include a “lock,” meaning a bet is believed to be guaranteed, or being “due,” where someone feels they are bound to win after a long losing streak, are commonly used among teenage bettors. Some have described being “on a heater,” referring to a winning streak where it feels impossible to lose a bet. This shared mindset is detrimental to the addiction aspect of gambling, where one can feel outcomes are predictable, even when they are far from it. When one becomes severely addicted to gambling, once strong relationships often turn toxic and, in turn, damage one's mental health. John has experienced this first-hand with a relative of his. “We've had a lot of good times together when winning lots of lots of money, but we've also had some very harsh times where we've gone to some arguments,” John said. “He’s put me down, I’ve put him down. He’s used the R-word a couple times; there's been a lot of ups and downs.” Early exposure to sports gambling doesn’t just affect behavior; it can completely reshape how young people understand money. “When the money’s in my gambling account I see it as much less than I used to. Even $50 used to feel like a lot, and $1,000 was huge. Now, I don’t really see it as money. When it’s actually in my bank account or in cash, I realize it’s a lot. In the betting apps, it doesn’t feel like real money,” Steve said. Many teenage gamblers recognize the fact that they are addicted to betting on sports, but breaking the harmful habit remains extremely difficult. When teenage boys become obsessed with the idea of gambling as an easy way to make a large sum of money, it shifts from a casual form of entertainment into a dangerous cycle of false hope and financial risk. “I'm 100 percent addicted, but I feel like I'm gonna hit big enough one day where the gambling aspect is not going to be a problem anymore, and sports betting will become my full time job,” Steve said. When one is down a significant amount of money, they will try to do whatever it takes to win it back. This kind of thinking has led millions of Americans into a downward spiral, shifting all of their focus to gambling. “A lot of the time, my food money goes straight into my gambling accounts,” Steve said. “I've even taken my parents’ money to try and win it back.” Unlike other addictions, sports gambling leads to immediate financial losses, which can make quitting that much harder. Taking a smoking addiction for example, individuals are often already at a low point in their life, with quitting being their only hope to improve. On the other hand, an addicted gambler who is down a great sum of money would feel inclined to try and win it back and recover financially. In a 2024 study done by BMC Psychology, they found that roughly 33-40 percent of gamblers acknowledged the fact that they chase their losses occasionally, and 13 percent found they do so regularly. These numbers are just part of the reason as to why gambling is so hard to quit, which is why certain steps must be taken in order to get rid of the addiction. A quick start is to lower the magnitude of your bets, so that the potential losses won’t drastically affect your financial standing. The next step is to make the usual “gambling money” harder to access so that you are less likely to frequently place bets. Following these first two steps, log out of all gambling apps to ensure you will not continue placing bets going forward. Then, seek out immediate help from a professional or trusted friend who will hold you accountable. The National Problem Gambling Helpline™ (1-800-MY-RESET) is available 24/7, and completely free of charge. Finally, find a new hobby that will redirect your focus, and relearn how to enjoy sports without placing bets. Taking these five steps will not only help you quit gambling, but will also elevate your life in ways you haven’t seen since before the addiction.
Illustration by Rosstin Pouradib
The math behind a parlay
By Jake Post
It's a quiet Thursday in September, and an enticing slate of college football games paired with the Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs is on your agenda to watch tomorrow night. You check your go-to gambling app to check what bets seem to underestimate your favorite players. Then you see at the bottom of your app that parlays of three picks pay five times the odds of a regular pick, since they have lower chances to hit. In the moment, it’s a no-brainer; it takes just one second to put in five dollars for a chance to make $250. You lock in your picks: an Alabama football win, a Giants player to hit a home run, and Patrick Mahomes to throw for three touchdowns. You hit “Place Bet.” The confirmation screen pulses with a celebratory green checkmark. For the next 24 hours, those three athletes and teams are your associates. Friday night arrives, and you are 2/2 going into the Giants game. You reach the 8th inning, and it's your player's last at bat. He swings and hits one deep to center field, but ends up just short of the fence, a double, respectful, but not the winning home run you needed. You sit there with the partial dopamine rush of getting two back-to-back picks right, and dismiss your wasted five dollars. The worst part of it all is the near-miss effect, the fact that you almost had it and were having a great time watching the games, makes you feel almost as successful as if you won the bet. According to a University of Cambridge study on unraveling the near-miss effect, MRI scans show that a near-miss triggers a surge of dopamine in the brain. This creates a successful error loop. The brain ignores the financial loss and focuses on the closeness of the result. It tricks the bettor into believing they have a winning strategy that was screwed over by bad luck, rather than recognizing that their bet had already lost from the start. This is why the apps offer Parlay Insurance: they give you money back if you get a majority of your parlay picks right. They want to keep you in the almost-win mindset to keep you hooked and continuously betting. The reason these apps push forward these parlays is that they understand the math is overwhelmingly on their side, even though it's a low risk for a high reward for each of the bettor’s picks. According to Zach Lutz at Birches Health, the house averages five percent on each bet. On parlays, that number is compounded, increasing to 15 to 30 percent on each bet. The big payouts they make are so infrequent that the couple of winners of each night are easily affordable, as thousands of other users lost five dollars each on their bets. No matter how good the deal sounds, it's important to remember that you are playing a game that you can’t win.
Online gambling in the United States
To view the interactive infographic, click here.
Pay, pull and repeat
By Elsa Sherman
In 2026 alone, nearly 700 million dollars have been spent on in-app purchases in“gacha” games. Gacha games, named for Japanese gachapon machines, a capsule toy machine that doles out random prizes for a price, are free-to-play mobile or online games that use a randomized "loot box" mechanic to incentivize spending. Rewards range from items to in-game characters. Commonly, these games use a system that builds “luck” for the user, slowly increasing their chances of getting rarer and more desirable items the more they spend on loot boxes, with the increased odds resetting following their acquisition of a rare item. This predatory system hooks users into spending more and more money, with the distant promise of a digital reward pressuring the user to keep spending. A student who chose to remain anonymous and will be referred to as “Kira” has spent over 2000 dollars on gacha games since 2024. Kira has mainly spent money on Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves, two of the most popular and influential gacha games. Genshin Impact earned over 40 million dollars in March of 2026 alone and has consistently topped the profit charts since its release in August of 2020. “It was very, very addicting. The thrill of just seeing the [rare item] on my screen was very much like an adrenaline rush every time. And knowing that, like I could fall back on that, definitely drew me in a lot,” Kira said. “I would probably say I was spending around maybe $200 to $400 a month.” The addictive nature of these games is rooted in the bright colors and limited-time tactics drawing in consumers. Often, loot boxes and in-game events are only available for a specific length of time, which increases the chance of impulse purchases for characters and items. “The character designs were a big reason for [spending money]. Another reason is just the game's reliance on new characters being the best in the game, which definitely was a contributing factor,” Kira said. Another student and gacha game player who chose to remain anonymous and will be referred to as Ruby, noted the inherent financial aim of gacha games. “This game’s ultimate goal is for us to spend money, and it can be seen with how the game is structured, just needing these new characters constantly to be able to keep up with the game, in a way. That definitely leads to that impulsive, ‘I need this right now, I can't wait,’” Ruby said. Gambling addictions to gacha games, like what Kira and Ruby suffered from, can have impacts on mental health and the day-to-day lives of addicts. “There were times where I would spend money on the game, and then when I'm hanging out with friends, for example, I would be like, ‘Oh no, I can't pay for anything right now, I just don't have money right now.’ And it was a very embarrassing topic to bring up,” Kira said. “It got to a point where I had to have a sit-down conversation with my mother about just like, ‘Hey, you gotta get this under control. Like, you're spending too much’. And I definitely tried to find reasons as to my spending, but they were just all excuses.” Breaking the cycle of addiction is never easy. But, Kira managed to rein in their spending, using tactics like asking themself if a purchase is worth it to prevent impulse buys. “I think about it in the long run, and take a moment to think about the pros and cons. Like, ‘Is it really worth it to get this right now?’ Or can I wait a little bit longer, spend some more time figuring out another way to get it?” Kira said. Kira urges others to take gambling addictions seriously, noting the destructive power of them to the addict. “I know that it might seem like a weird thing to say, but this addiction, it's arguably just as bad as having, like, an alcohol or another type of addiction, because it still very much does harm you in a financial way that other addictions couldn't harm you in. And overall, just like any addiction, it will have its hold on you, and it's very hard to break. But as you start to get a better hold on yourself, it definitely feels a lot better,” Kira said.
Illustration by Elsa Sherman
The reality of teenage gambling
The rise and fall of my short-lived sports betting career
By Henry Barker
The day I turned 18, I deposited $30 on PrizePicks. I knew of my peers who started gambling well before they reached legal status, using their dad’s name and information or lying about their birthdate. In their cases, it was very easy to put money in, but nearly impossible to get money back out. One of my friends made $600 under their dad’s name, but lost it all trying to withdraw. I didn’t want that to happen to me. Gambling wasn’t new to me. I won my dad’s March Madness office pool in 2017; I was nine years old, and I picked all of the one seeds in the final four. I “made it rain” with the stack of $20 bills my dad gave me after UNC beat Gonzaga in the championship, securing my victory. A couple of years later, I won a season-long NFL pick-em pool for my mom, successfully beating out over 100 other league members with minimal research and vibe-based picks. I was allowed to keep $100 of the winnings, a fortune at the time, but not exactly a fair commission for making all of the 272 picks. To be fair, though, I didn’t fund the entry fee. I was also too naive to recognize and appreciate the amount of luck that supported my early gambling expeditions. But neither of these are examples of what I would consider “real” gambling— I didn’t have any of my own money on the line. I chose PrizePicks as my first-ever sports betting app because my friend told me that I could use his referral code to get free bonus money— deposit $30, get $50 to play with. With the extra cash boosting my confidence, I proceeded to burn through my $50 in bonus bets in the first week. This taught me my first big lesson learned from gambling: it’s a lot easier to place bets with “fake” money on the line. Since it wasn’t part of the $30 I deposited, I placed carefree bets, hoping to 10x my money with 4-leg parlays instead of being disciplined and patient. With the $30 I had left, I began to take a much more conservative approach— making no bets over $5, and limiting the parlays to two- and three-leggers. PrizePicks limited me to player-prop bets only (as I was under 21 years old) with a minimum of two picks, meaning I had to make multiple correct predictions to make any money. But after three more losses, I discovered my next lesson: sports betting is hard. I used my last $15 in the app on one bet—hoping to make more than all my money back—and missed again, as kicker Brandon McManus couldn’t make one field goal and effectively wiped out my bankroll. After this, I took a break but eventually decided to give it another go. I thought that, now with my experience, I would be able to make more disciplined bets and finally make money. And I did—at least for a little while. I hit several bets, and while I had losses, my winning clip was enough to make a profit, taking me up to $90 in my Prizepicks account. However, a slow, painful losing streak would dwindle my money back down to zero, and I learned my next lesson: it’s almost impossible to be profitable long-term. The saying, “The house always wins” doesn’t only come to fruition in casinos with Blackjack or Roulette; in fact, less than 3 percent of regular sports bettors are profitable over six months. I was profitable for about one week. Once I struck out on PrizePicks, I took another break, but I got roped in by the NFL playoffs. I decided to try my luck on a different platform, Underdog Fantasy, which also gifted me hefty bonus funds upon my deposit. Every sports betting app offers some kind of promo deal as an enticing way to get to your credit card. Underdog gave me profit-boosters and higher payouts, while Prizepicks allowed flex-plays and “gimme picks.” These features attract millions of new sports bettors yearly, like myself. But while they all have their quirks to stand out among their competitors, in reality, they are all the same. Because no matter the promo deals they throw at you, they know something you don’t: they always know more than you. My experience on Underdog Fantasy was a lot like PrizePicks: it was short, unmemorable and unsuccessful. I always considered myself a “certified ball-knower,” but that didn’t translate into sports betting as it did for the Fantasy Football leagues I participated in over the years. I quickly realized that winning a league trophy against my friends didn’t mean anything when I was up against Vegas’s math. All of this led me to one final lesson, which probably should have revealed itself earlier; I don’t like losing money. I was now down that $100 I worked so hard for picking NFL games on my mom’s iPad many years ago. There’s something about losing $5 when it was one parlay leg away from being $50 that makes it a really tough pill to swallow. You think you’re close enough to the point where you keep going, and keep losing. Then you fall into the trap of trying to make your money back, and only get deeper in the hole. While I was frustrated about failing so miserably, knowing my friends were winning in bunches, I wasn’t about to start digging a hole. $100 was enough for me.
Why the house always wins
How casinos stack every game in their favor