So, is sports gambling good or bad? Healthy or unhealthy? To answer that question you might want to steer clear of what the NCAA has to say, as their recent decision to allow college athletes and staff to now bet on professional sports is a complete 180° to the stance the NCAA has had for 100+ years! How could something that was once viewed as so bad that student athletes — as well as entire college athletic departments — could face suspension and other tough penalties, but now they are encouraged to go bet?! It should be noted that nothing around gambling has changed to where it is now healthy for college student athletes to bet, but soon many will go into deep debt, fall in to harms way, and develop substance abuse issues as a means to cope with their depression and debt. Did the NCAA do an about-face on gambling for those issues to arise? It can be assumed the NCAA will fiscally profit by allowing gambling, but are those new revenue streams worth it as student athletes fall into financial debt — or worse?
The realities of sports betting
Until recently, professional and college sports banned sports gambling, protecting the integrity and fairness of sport competition. In recent years, however, both pro and college sports have caved in, creating a new landscape where sports gambling is not only legal, but literally promoted at every turn by means of stadium ads, signage, and even fiscal incentives to place a bet. This new motivation to bet by means of free starter money, combined with barely any oversight, has resulted in a growing number of athletes in recent years that have received suspensions, and in some cases life-long sport expulsions, for using secret, insider-information to win bets (i.e. knowing about a team injury before it has been made public).
While sports betting may be fun for gamblers, allowing the actual people who dictate the outcomes of games to now bet seems, on its face, a short-sighted thing to do. Pro and college sports already bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, leaving people to wonder how much legalized sports gambling was needed? And to introduce sports gambling in such a haphazard way with little oversight seems irresponsible, especially when considering college athletes are still in their late teens/early twenties. Did the NCAA simply assume everyone would play by the rules, and that student athletes would not be persuaded and influenced to use insider information to win bets? And for the NCAA to meet those valid concerns with even more loosening of restrictions does not make a lot of sense to student athlete mental health and their safety.
Sports gambling is exciting, and these days quite easy to do — arguably too easy. College student athletes, even with new NIL revenue streams, are still largely an underpaid group of people who regularly struggle making ends meet. With the NCAA now essentially saying “have at it!” with sports gambling, one can only imagine how many student athletes will be tempted to use insider information to quickly win a bet (or sell the information to someone else)? How many bets does it take for a student athlete to become addicted to gambling? And what new substance and mental health issues will arise for student athletes who quickly find themselves over their heads in debt from losing bets — is the NCAA going to ramp up psychological services to help, or just let these young people figure things out on their own?
Final thoughts
There were very valid reasons why pro and college sports previously steered clear of permitting sports gambling, but those old ways of doing business have been replaced by new revenue streams that sports gambling provide. We have already witnessed athletes getting into trouble with sports gambling, with some being suspended/expelled from playing. Ironically, even knowing these facts and future risks, the NCAA has decided to go all-in and now allow student athletes to engage in sports betting. Sadly, money wins again, and I guess pro and college sports will just deal with the problems and fallout as things (predictably) occur.
drstankovich.com
