It was Game 5 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, and the Houston Rockets were aiming to take the lead in a tied series with the Golden State Warriors. With just one minute left in the game, Rockets Guard Eric Gordon hit a clutch shot. Rocket wins, 98-94.
When Gordon scored, a room erupted at a Houston home on the outskirts of Saul Marek. The victory was refreshing, but also frightening, for a 20-year-old at the time who was a lifelong Rockets fan. He joined his twin brothers and dad, jumping up from the couch and cheering.
Unknown to them, he was in panic.
He had bet $1,500 on the Warriors to win, but now he’s borrowing money that he didn’t need from his bookie. It would be the first time he fell into debt due to the sports gambling addiction that ruled his life for two years. At his lowest point, he recalls a $25,000 drop.
“My life was focused on gambling. If I hadn’t made a bet, I would have been thinking about what to do next,” says Marek, now 27.
According to a 2023 survey by the NCAA, following the legalization of sports bets in 2018, 67% of all college students bet on the game. Gambling experts believe it is even higher now thanks to the prevalence of apps and the growing market that has attracted more young people. It’s a trend that wiped out university campuses, and for some young people it leads to complex and debilitating addiction. Addiction experts say the problem is widely misunderstood.
Sports and gambling are everywhere for young men
For Malek, the bet has always been to evoke the same feeling as he won the first middle school fantasy baseball league. Even as a sixth grader, the rush proved his excellent sports instincts – he drafted Matt Wheaters to lead the 2009 Fantasy League – was exhilarating.
After he began to lose money, he blocked Bookie’s number and moved on to a new online sports book. Rockbottom came at 1am in the winter of 2019 on a school night at Trinity University. He waited for his girlfriend to fall asleep and drove for two hours to Lucky Eagle Casino near the border with Mexico, where he was planning to get his money back.
It only took him 15 minutes to blow $400 into his pocket. Upon getting home, he tried to convince him that he had no problems.
Before sports betting was legalized, Maryland’s Problem Gambling Prevention Manager Heather Eschleman received about three requests a year as educators demand presentations on sports betting addiction. Now she earns three times a month from a high school teacher and a university professor.
Over the past three years, the number of 1-800 her organization runs has seen a surge in calls between ages 18 and 20, tripling the number of calls between ages 21 and 25.
According to Dr. Timothy Pon, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Research Program, teenagers’ executive capabilities, abstract thinking and decision-making skills continue to develop until age 25.
“The (teenager’s) brain has no impulsive control, and it has no ability to recover quickly from loss,” says Fon. “I know, I want money, I want to get excited, I want what my friends have. I want to prove that I’m very cool to my friends.”
According to Fong, there are teenagers and young adults who often inaccurately confuse gambling success with skills.
Philadelphia sports fan Rob Minnick (now recovering at age 26), says he felt it was “not easy” to make money by betting on games he watched with friends in high school. He had won a scoop ice cream of $8.38 per hour, but his ability to win $100 on a parlay was “splash of the mind.”
“I understood the odds of the game, but I was sure I would be the exception to the rules,” says Minnik, who goes on a lob with Rob at once on his YouTube channel.
Jose Mendoza of Kansas City, Missouri, turned to sports betting at the age of 23 to deal with the death of his father, a habit he hid from his family. On the night when his mother couldn’t sleep from the weight of her grief, he lay in the bed to comfort her while she wept. She never knew he often puts a parlay on his cell phone while he was drifting away.
“Of course I told my friends that I was winning, but they said, “How much, how much did you lose?” “It’s always a kicker.”
“Everyone always has a betting workbook in his hand, 24/7”
The 2018 Supreme Court decision filed wagering restrictions with states when it overturned the Expert and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) that prevented most states from allowing bets. Today, sports betting is legal in 39 states and the District of Columbia.
Then came the pivots to sports bets on gambling platforms – draft king, fanatics, betMGM, and dozens each with incentives for new customers. Instead of a brick and mortar casino and physical sportsbook, anyone with a mobile phone can always bet.
33 states and the District of Columbia allow sports betting on mobile apps and websites.
In-person sports betting fell in 2024, while mobile sports betting increased by around 50%, generating around $10.4 billion in revenue, according to the American Gaming Association.
“For years, I meet patients who have struggled physically to the casino and drive for 90 minutes or an hour,” says Fong. “A lot of these people I see right now don’t let them step into the casino. The only casino they know is on their phone.”
Jordan, who began betting at 3pm and asked him to withhold his last name for fear of stigma while searching for work, says he thought sports betting was a habit of growing up. But when he went to Division 1 College and joined Greek life, his addiction snowballed.
Party, alcohol and sports betting were closely related. He could bet on everything: excessive industry, props to hit the first home run.
“It’s inevitable that we’ll hear others talk about it,” says Jordan, now 25.
“Everyone has a betting workbook in his hand, 24/7,” added his father, Austin.
Minnik says it is a new heavy drinking, as it is ubiquitous with male college experiences. Even if some young adults aren’t talking about betting, they’ll hear about it while watching the main game, thanks to the ads and betting odds being mentioned by the presenter.
“It’s so normalized that if you’re experiencing gambling problems and you’re a young man, you essentially can’t see sports,” says former gambling addict Sam DeMelo.
Sports betting addiction faces stigma. why?
Chemically, gambling addiction works in the same way as substance addiction, but many people mistakenly view it as a moral failure or a lack of self-control, according to Cait Huble of the Issues Gambling Council.
That misunderstanding was the most difficult thing for Jordanian father Austin to understand.
He and his Jordanian mother regularly rescued his son from high school debt. Conversations often came to be: “Stop it. This is the last one. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
When the problem spiraled in college, they realized that this problem was running deeper – and that by saving him from debt, they made it possible for their son to addiction without realizing it.
“Recognition is horse bets, and it’s a 70-year-old man sitting at the meeting (the gambler’s anonymous),” Austin says. “Sports betting in particular transcends this profile.”
DeMelo says supporters in the space need to work on meeting the boys they have. He founded Evive, a gambling-specific digital therapy app, to bridge the gap between age and technology. Health officials from Oregon, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Virginia and Nevada, are partnering with the app.
“Everyone who is obsessed with gambling says, “If I hit a jackpot today, I’ll reclaim all the money I’ve lost over the last decade, but it’s not harmful,” DeMelo says. “To make someone celibate, you have to kill that fantasy.”
Marek told the lie that he told his parents he hurt them “more than any amount.” He began going to anonymous meetings for gamblers in 2018, but it wasn’t until July 2019 that he stopped gambling. Looking back, he hopes he is more open to hearing a recovered addict. Marek says it is a “stable process of change” that cannot be done by will alone.
“I was very dying thinking that I could just understand things and be smarter than any kind of addiction, or that I could beat gambling,” says Marek. “To think I don’t have all the answers was more helpful than having the answers.”
For those trying to keep sports betting down, Eschleman recommends starting with self-exclusion methods, such as time and deposit restrictions on sports betting apps. Self-exclusion widgets such as Gamban, Betblocker, and Gamblock can block access to accounts for a set period of time.
Minnik says that young men can gamble responsibly, but they should be aware of their motivations. On his platform, he recommends gamblers to make sure they don’t just gamble from habits.
“If there’s no more reason, it’s an alarm bell,” says Minnik. “There were many times over the course of the six years I was gambling when I stopped. I’d have come to a conclusion earlier than I had problems.”
Young adults struggling with responsible gambling can text the national issue gambling helpline 24 hours a day at 1-800-GAMBLER and find anonymous meetings of gamblers.
Rachel Hale’s role in covering youth mental health at USA Today is supported by a partnership with Pivotal Ventures and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editor input. Contact her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale.
