Gambling
Young men are likeliest group to get addicted to sports betting, FDU poll finds
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Meet Kevin Hackett, a therapist that specializes in gambling addiction
Kevin Hackett is a therapist that specializes in gambling addiction.
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A new poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison found that young men across the U.S were more likely to bet on sports and more likely to become addicted compared to the rest of the population.
While just 3% of adults nationwide reported problem gambling, that number was 10% among men aged 18 to 30, the FDU poll found.
“There’s always some chance of gambling turning into problem behaviors, and online gambling is proving to be much more dangerous than other kinds,” Dan Cassino, who heads the FDU polling institute, said in a prepared statement.
New Jerseyans have wagered almost $34 billion since 2018, when the state won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a nationwide prohibition on sports betting.
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Spending on ads for gambling like sports betting has surged in recent years, enticing young adults and teenagers to shell out money on wagering.
Sportsbooks, the companies that take and pay out wagers, have inked deals with all the major U.S. sports leagues. TV announcers now announce odds mid-contest. For example, MLB streams games through the DraftKings app.
“It’s way out of line,” New Jersey Assemblyman Ralph Caputo, who chairs the chamber’s Tourism and Gaming Committee, said in a 2022 interview. “It’s completely insane. You can’t even turn a TV on without seeing an ad.”
Thirty eight states have legalized sports-betting, which is easily accessible through a smartphone or laptop.
New Jersey patrons wagered over $8.1 billion at sportsbooks in the state between January and August this year, of which the far majority — $7.8 billion — was done online or via mobile apps.
What the poll says
Fifty-seven percent of registered American voters have taken part in some form of gambling, be it lottery tickets, casino games, scratch-offs or slot machines, according to the poll.
Only 10% of registered voters said they took part in online sports betting, but that figure soared to 26% among men under the age of 45.
“Sports betting has been marketed heavily to the young men who are the biggest consumers of sports,” Cassino said. “When every league is partnered with a betting site, people who like sports are going to start gambling on it.”
While not as prevalent, the poll found the app popular with young women, with 19% of women under the age of 30 saying they’ve bet on a game or race in the past year.
The poll found that people with college degrees were less likely to gamble: 47% of voters with a college degree gambled compared to 66% of those without a college degree.
The report relied on responses from 801 American voters interviewed by phone between Aug. 17 and 20, and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.
In a 2023 study, the Rutgers Center for Gambling Studies found the rate of high-risk problem gambling among the population to be 6%, three times the national average.
Like with the FDU poll, Rutgers —which polled 3,512 New Jersey residents — found higher rates of gambling among men than women. Men had double the rate of problem gambling that women had, according to the Rutgers poll.
The New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling conducted a study this spring with the College of New Jersey in Ewing, which found that 65% of respondents had their first exposure to gambling between the ages of six and 16.
Why are rates so high among young men?
Many young men “love sports and they tend to be big risk-takers,” Felicia Grondin, the compulsive gambling council’s executive director, said in an email.
Those young men tend to overestimate their sports knowledge and are familiar with technology, Grondin added.
“On top of all this, the barrage of sports betting advertising targets young men and glamorizes gambling, and betting content such as the point spread and over/under is included in the commentary during games,” she continued.
Making matters trickier, the council executive director noted, “in-game wagers mean one can place many bets during a single game.”
“These micro-bets greatly increase the likelihood of developing a problem with gambling,” Grondin said.
What’s being done about problem gambling?
In 2023, the state created standards for gambling ads, as well as a new responsible gambling coordinator — a position filled by Deputy Attorney General Jamie McKelvey.
Last February ahead of the Super Bowl, state officials said they were rolling out a program to scrutinize gambler data to track signs of problem betting.
And in June, Gov. Phil Murphy signed an order creating a “Responsible Gaming Task Force” that would look at problem gambling and put out a report by March 31, 2025.
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