With gambling becoming ever more popular, one group of people have become especially involved in it. However it’s the one group you don’t want to get caught up in gambling; teens. It can start by just betting on a basketball game, but it can develop into an unhealthy addiction just as quick. Gambling is an addiction for so many people, and when it gets into the hands of teens, it sets the stage for a dangerous path throughout the rest of their lives.

It has become ever so prevalent to find young people gambling on so many different events, the most popular of course is sports betting. Sports betting is perhaps one of the most common forms of gambling that there is, and nowadays it has become such a fixture in sports that we often find ourselves invested in the stories of people like Jim McIngvale, or more commonly known as “Mattress Mack”. It seems like every year we hear the same story about Mack betting millions of dollars on the Houston Astros to win the World Series. Granted in the past few years it has paid off a few times, but the promotion of sports betting has become popular at such a fast rate, and who knows where it will stop.

One prime case of popularizing sports betting is the Bleacher Report betting social media accounts. It’s one that you can find all over instagram attached to BR’s main account. On their account it will show videos of crazy bets or fan reactions to losing their bets. It’s always the same, you either see people winning or losing grand sums of money. Particularly with how much this economy can go up and down, playing with your money is a risk most people can’t afford to do. 

But how does this all tie into young people? Well, as popular as gambling is with adults, it’s just as popular with teens, especially male teens. It has become so popular for them to place bets that according to pewtrusts.org around 60% to 80% of today’s teens have reported gambling for money. It is such a staggering amount and a quite dangerous endeavor as well.

Here is why gambling is so dangerous: it grows into an addiction; it’s as simple as that. With so many things that people of all ages are addicted to, adding another one for young people is only making an already bad problem worse. Between drugs and alcohol, gambling would be just another thing that plagues the minds of young people. The excessive urge to bet money, just to experience the rush of possibly winning, is a risk that is not worth taking. 

The rush that some feel winning  a little money is what keeps them all coming back. Gambling has become so over the top that there are even bets out there that will predict if the national anthem at the Super Bowl will be over or under a certain amount of time. However, the scary thing about that is there are tons of people who are willing to bet large sums of money on something as unpredictable as that. So having all of this be in the hands of young people is a very dangerous game to be playing. 

“It hasn’t been harmful to me because I am winning close to all of my bets, but if I started to lose I would keep betting to get out of it. I could find how it could be addicting. I personally do not find it addicting, but there were times when I would lose money and would want to make it all back that very moment,” said an anonymous junior at a St. Louis area high school.

It’s those ‘small wins’ that can be the biggest problem of all. A feeling of achievement, of satisfaction, is what keeps the gambling companies in business. When you are dealing with teenagers who don’t really know how to spend money yet, the betting business is a very dangerous one to get involved in. Companies like FanDuel, or DraftKings do a very good job at getting their marketing done. I’ve watched tennis on the TennisChannel before, and I have seen the same commercial dozens of times telling me to go bet on who would win the first point of the match. The lengths at which people are willing to go and gamble are extreme.

This isn’t limited to the TennisChannel, all over other TV channels like ESPN or FOX Sports, some sort of betting promotion is going on. It can be a commercial or at the bottom of the screen telling you who is the favorite and by how much. The signs of how much can be bet on is right in front of our very eyes. The next time you watch a basketball or a soccer game on ESPN, pay attention to just how much you will see promotions for betting. Now take that and put it in front of teenagers who haven’t fully developed the ability to wisely spend money. What do you get? An entire generation of teenagers who will be going into adulthood with more debt than you could imagine. 

That’s the game that we are all playing right now, and it must stop. Underage gambling is an addiction for so many, and it is only another form of addiction that is terrorizing today’s youth. It’s a danger that isn’t nearly addressed as much as should be. Perhaps  these betting companies have such a grip over so many adults that teens are a natural progression for them. However, we have to call it out for what it is, and put an end to it before more damage can be done.