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Sports Gambling

A perspective on the controversial ban on college sports betting

Listen to this Commentary!

By Ben Simrin and Will Cherrin

Recently, the NCAA, backed by congressional allies such as Senator John McCain, proposed a ban on college sports betting. Youth Radio's Ben Simrin gives a perspective on the controversial issue.

SCENE: Betting conversation between teenagers

BEN: For my friends and me, this is how the majority of our conversations begin. We talk about the latest sporting news, and often end up wagering at least a dollar. For us, betting on sports is a way to pay attention to games we otherwise would have no interest in. When there's money on the line, you can't help but care about the game. Though technically, underage sports gambling is illegal, for many high school kids it is part of their everyday lives. One of my 17-year-old friends — we'll call him Joe — started gambling as a result of a life long love for sports.

JOE: I've been a sports fan all my life. I remember in like the second grade when we were learning multiplication, everyone was good at multiples of three, you know, the easy ones, and I was best at multiples of seven because of all the football games I watched.

BEN: For most kids who are into sports at a young age, gambling on those sports makes it more exciting. The combination of the desire to compete and the early formation of a strong male ego — you know, the feeling that you know everything — drives teenage guys to do more than just watch games. Joe's first bets were in fourth or fifth grade with his dad, then with his friends.

JOE: We would gamble on like football games, just random football games. That's still what I do, basketball games for like $1 or something. The first couple times I gambled. Basically the same thing. It was pretty serious because winning a dollar back then was good. You could go buy some candy or whatever.

It would rarely go over $1 because fourth or fifth grade we didn't have any money. Betting a $1 on a football game would be such a serious thing. It would be so intense to watch the game and like you would be rooting so hard for your team, for the team you wanted to win. It was just like crazy.

BEN: Joe gambled, but it wasn't a big deal. His parents knew about it, and didn't seem bothered by it. They even gambled with him sometimes. If it was so bad you would think his parents would have put a stop to it rather than encouraging it. This is what Joe's dad has to say about his son's gambling.

PARENT: I trust my kid. I think he's got good common sense. I think he understands the value of money. The one thing I hope is that he doesn't think he knows so much about sports that he can't lose.

BEN: While some parents don't see the harm in a little bit of gambling, the government sees it as a growing problem. Some legislators say that once kids start gambling, more often than not, it escalates into addiction and other problems. The government's latest fight against gambling was a bill introduced by Arizona Senator John McCain in an attempt to ban all gambling on college sports. I found an 18-year-old from Richmond, California who is the perfect poster-child for the government's argument. He doesn't want to use his real name, so we'll call him Jason.

JASON: First couple of times I started winning. So I won small amounts and as I started winning smaller amounts I bet big amounts. One day I lost like four games in one day and a big amount and I was just trying to even after that.

BEN: Soon Jason was in a bind many gamblers experience, betting more than he could front, but he was young and inexperienced. While he was able to get himself out of debt with little trouble, the experience taught him a lesson he will never forget.

JASON: Yeah I think it's bad that underage kids are allowed to do it so easily because they don't really know what they're getting into and they don't know how much they can really lose and when they lose it's worse because they don't have that much money to back it up. I guess I would probably tell them that it's not worth it and it might seem like it is easy money, but there's really no sure thing even in sports gambling.

BEN: Do all kids who gamble small amounts become big gamblers eventually? Or did Jason just go too far? The truth is that all my male friends and even a few female ones who are interested in sports have gambled on one or two games in their lifetime. Statistically, it's unlikely that most of them will become big time gamblers. According to the Minnesota Institute of Public Health, five percent of teenagers in the United States are engaged in serious gambling.

But even when a small percentage of kids take gambling too far, it gives the government a reason to crack down.

The problem is that gambling is an extension of America's competitive nature.
Whether it is comparing salaries with friends or sporting the newest Lexus model, Americans have always enjoyed competition. From my perspective it seems like a mixed message: to discourage teenagers from college sports gambling after we've been raised to believe that a little competition is a good thing.

For Youth Radio, I'm Ben Simrin.

— Ben Simrin and Will Cherrin attend Berkeley High School.