During this year’s March Madness, the NCAA launched its "Don't Be a Loser" advertising campaign, focused on reducing harassment directed towards student-athletes.
This harassment often comes from people gambling on sports. An NCAA study from June found a 23% decrease in abuse related to sports betting compared to 2024.
Despite the drop, the issue has become more prevalent in recent years with the rise of online gambling.
Jeffrey Derevensky, director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviours at McGill University, said proposition bets and other on-demand betting mechanisms have accelerated abusive behavior. Before, gamblers would place a single bet at the start of a game and wait until the end for the results.
“Now, what we have is gambling on athletics as a continuous form of gambling,” Derevensky said. “You could gamble on each play, you could gamble on who's ahead in the first quarter and you could gamble on individual athletes.”
The abuse is not restricted to collegiate sports. In June, bettors heckled players at professional sporting events, including a WNBA game. Olympic gold medalist Gabby Thomas was followed and verbally harassed at a track meet by a man who later claimed online that the abuse helped him win a parlay bet.
An NCAA survey from January found that 21% of Division I men's tennis athletes and 17% of Division I men’s basketball athletes reported experiencing harassment from bettors.
Derevensky has studied gambling behaviors in children and young people for more than 30 years and partnered with the NCAA on previous studies. He said young people, particularly young men, are far more prone to risk-taking behaviors, like gambling.
“Put that into the context of males, and competitive behavior and impulsive behavior and risk-taking behavior,” Derevensky said. “This is a scenario that's just primed, ready for developing more and more problems.”
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act to allow all U.S. states – rather than the four authorized at that time – to legalize sports betting.
That same year, even before the court handed down its ruling, the West Virginia Legislature passed a bill to allow betting on professional or collegiate sports under the supervision of the state lottery. Online gambling was legalized in the state the following year.
The rise of online gambling has changed how and when people bet. It's also caused a shift in who is placing those bets.
“The landscape has dramatically changed because of technology,” Derevensky said. “Who adopts technology first? We see young people adopting technology.”
In her more than 10 years of treating gambling addiction, Kathy Servian said there was a certain type of person that would make their way out to the casinos or the local hot spots to place a bet.
“When I first started doing this in 2014, the training involved the older female going to the casino, gambling,” Servian said. “And then there was the occasional fantasy sports guy that would bet. We know that that's not true anymore.”
Servian, the clinical director at the Carruth Center for Counseling and Psychological Services at West Virginia University, said most people place their first bet between the ages of 18 and 24.
“I am now seeing people say, ‘I started in college. I started on the gambling sports app, and that's where I got myself into problems.’” Servian said.
A 2023 NCAA survey of students aged 18 to 22 found a majority have engaged in sports betting. In some states the legal minimum age for gambling is 18, but states like West Virginia set the minimum at 21.
“Three out of four of the college students gambled within the past year, and 6% of college students potentially meet the criteria for gambling disorder,” Servian said.
Like all addictions, Servian said problem gambling doesn’t discriminate. Unlike others, it can be difficult to address because it's what she calls a “silent addiction.” It doesn’t leave a smell on your breath or noticeably alter your motor functions.
She and Derevensky agree that more education and awareness needs to be raised around gambling at every age.
Servian said such programs do exist in West Virginia starting at the elementary school level, but friends and family need to do their part as well.
“We should not be giving children scratch-off lottery tickets,” Servian said. “We wouldn't give them pack cigarettes. We wouldn't give them alcohol. We wouldn't give them other items that are for adults.”
The prevalence of gambling advertising is also a concern both experts share, indicating more can be done to regulate the industry.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU in Kentucky and NPR.
