Sports betting has become pervasive across the United States in recent years. With an increase of sports betting sites, Americans regularly see many advertisements to join such sites. The ads often say that your first $100 dollar bet is covered, regardless if you win or lose. 

Most people who gamble on sports place their bets and parlays online, it’s simply easier. The number of online sports bettors has risen from 25 million in 2022 to an expected amount of bets of 37 million by 2025. That is a wide-reaching audience and parlays will continue to increase every year.

A parlay is a bet you place that connects different wagers among different sports. This can be from the winners from major sports, or to how many yards a player gets in a game. The more that you win, the more likely you are to continue to place bets.

Most online sports betting apps give you a daily limit for how many singular bets and parlays you can place. This is one of their “steps” on reducing the amount of gambling addictions created. These apps, however, have very few other limitations on money spent, and regular betting. So, how do we know if these apps are actually trying to protect us?

Betting sites offer fans a sign-up bonus. Fanatics, for example, advertises a “Bet $100, Get $100 in Bonus Bets Every Day for 10 Days!” deal, BetMGM Sportsbook offers a “Get a 20% Deposit Match up to $1,500 in Sports Bonus!”, FanDuel Sportsbook has a “Bet $5 Get $200 in Bonus Bets If Your First Bet Wins!”,and ESPN BET does a “Make any Sportsbook Bet, Get $150!”

The similarities between these sports betting apps is that they all make guarantees that if you bet in any way, you will either get your money back or at least have the chance to win big. The only requirement is that you have to sign up and register. Would it be too much for people to make one bet using some of their information and then fully sign up later? This strongly combats the overall goal of such betting sites to prevent gambling addictions. It’s clear why: apps like these aren’t worried about their victims. They are more worried about the money that is being made. 

These betting sites don’t care what age you are. Their lackluster verification steps can let anybody gamble with the use of credit card information and somebody else’s ID. With the growing age of the technology, your ID and information can be tracked earlier as long as you’re on the internet. But for people that haven’t been exposed to the internet yet, having their information stolen and used is likely. The risk of the company having illegal sports betting is even more prevalent. They could face legal penalties, ruin their branding, and violate numerous laws. But, this doesn’t stop them from reaching more audiences with ads that promote that you can always win. Kids tend to be victims of this with 71% of kids between 11 and 17 now have access to the internet. With the increased amount of students online, kids can utilize sports betting in a number of ways – pretending to be their parents, other relatives etc. But, these sites have no way of verifying this. We need to rely on parents to prohibit their children and teach them that sports betting is not something they should be interested in. It’s hard, most social media pages show various sports parlays that are absurd and have very low odds of winning anything. So, the importance of age verification isn’t just to protect the companies, it’s to protect the people. 

Each professional sports league has their own set of rules and regulations to prohibit gambling with its players. All view gambling as a vice that negatively impacts their own team. It can also impact the dynamic of the team if you are betting on the outcome of your own game.

The NFL’s policy is that “All NFL Personnel other than Players are further prohibited from placing, soliciting, or facilitating bets on any other professional (e.g., NBA, MLB, NHL, PGA, USTA, MLS), college (e.g., NCAA basketball), international (e.g., World Baseball Classic, World Cup), or Olympic sports competition, tournament or event.” This does not however mean that players can place bets at a legal casino or racing tracks during the season or in general.

In the NBA, they do not have any rules that strictly forbid players from betting on other sports. The NBA does prohibit its officials, players, and coaches from betting on specific league games. Maintaining a similar set of rules, the MLB allows all personnel to place bets on sports not including baseball or softball. They also require the betting to be placed legally.

The NHL also notes that players are prohibited from gambling on league games. The “Big 4” sports leagues all have similar viewpoints about gambling. These rule sets ensure that players aren’t using intel from their own team as an advantage to earn money outside of their regular salary. With these rules in favor, it does not stop everybody. 

A recent headline popped up in the sports world on January 25th: “Kayshon Boutte arrested in Louisiana on charges for illegal sports gambling while at LSU.” When reading the article, the first thing you see is the number 8,927. That’s the amount of illegal bets that were made while Boutte was playing college football. Boutte turned himself in after the Louisiana State Police were notified from FanDuel that “a prohibited person, a collegiate athlete, possibly made several sports wagers.”

As the investigation continued, they found out Boutte created a fictitious name and used his mom’s credit card to help fund his gambling. Between the years 2022 and 2023, Boutte won a total amount of $556,267.58 and he withdrew only $50,282.36. Using the rest of the money to place additional bets. Boutte was charged with a misdemeanor of Gambling Prohibited for Persons under 21 and a felony charge of computer fraud. After his arrest, Boutte’s future in the NFL is in question.

Other players have faced consequences from the league like Calvin Ridley, Jameson Williams, and Isaiah Rodgers Sr. Only two of these players are still in the league after Ridley faced a year long suspension while Williams received only a 6 game suspension this past season. Boutte will likely join Rodgers looking for an open slot on a team. The consequences they will face will alter the trajectory of their lives. Now being unwanted by an NFL team, they will have to look elsewhere for a way to make a living. These players gamble for different reasons, but for players who have the whole rest of their careers to look forward to playing, is it really worth it just to place a few bets? 

So what should be done about sports betting? We cannot simply strip betting away from everybody. That would take away countless jobs, and interest in sports would decline. The biggest concern about the increase of sports betting is its involvement with children under age 18. More kids have gained access to the internet which has allowed them to become vulnerable to getting advertisements for different betting services. The more TV that they watch also gains their attention.

With the Super Bowl being in Las Vegas this year, the amount of advertisements about casinos and deals have increased significantly. There are limitations for players in pro sports to stop betting, but there needs to be an increase in steps to help keep children away from gambling. The tricky question is: Where do we start?