Gambling Ruining Sports

About now, football fever is kicking into high gear. Debates over whether Michigan really beat Western Michigan on Sept. 5 are already on the back burner. That said, shouts of “rigged” will continue as long as I’m on this earth.

But what should concern every fan is the undeniably corrosive influence of sports gambling. According to this recent CBS Sports report, it is now legal in 39 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, whether online or in person.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to legalized sports gambling in 2018 by striking down a ban against it, money’s corrupting influence has damaged college sports.

To see how bad, check this penetrating analysis that appeared just days before college football’s opening weekend.

A Harmful Practice

In “Expanded sports betting is harming student athletes,” theologian and pastor Josh Olds laid out a strong case against the practice.

He opened by talking about the cacophony of criticism aimed at players from the University of Dayton after the Flyers blew a halftime lead and lost a game by one point to underdog VCU in early 2023.

While upsets aren’t out of the ordinary, the timing was: the game took place two weeks after Ohio legalized sports betting.

Online complaints appeared immediately, with fans claiming corruption; one posted a screenshot of his gambling losses and added, “You cost me a lot of money.”

Olds noted that after their next game, Dayton Coach Anthony Grant responded to the hate-filled messages players had received, telling the media, “There’s some laws that have recently been enacted, that . . . could really change the landscape of what college sports is all about.”

It’s rather telling that outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine now says that signing that law into effect was his biggest mistake during his eight years in office.

Negatives Abound

Olds goes on to list other negatives that surround sports betting. Just a few:

• During the 2024 March Madness tournament, Armando Bacot led North Carolina to a win in the second round, scoring 18 points and grabbing seven rebounds. But because DraftKings had set the latter over/under total at 9.5, Bacot said he received more than 100 DMs from people saying “you suck” because he didn’t hit the over.
• Earlier this year, Duke basketball player Isaiah Evans told media about “the threats that a lot of our players get” for failing to meet sportsbook bets on their individual performances. “I just got a text right now,” Evans said, “some dude told me, ‘I hope you blow your knee out.’ It gets out of pocket for sure.”
• NCAA president Charlie Baker told of striking a deal with Venmo to get help in blocking bettors from asking players for money over failed prop bets.

Dehumanizing Impact

I have had some personal experience with the betting arena.

In the late 1990s I wrote a story about the negative influence of gambling for a Christian sports magazine. It included comments from a reformed bettor who told me in a phone interview about past suicidal thoughts over heavy losses gambling on Kentucky’s state high school tournament.

I later met the ex-bettor on another assignment. When I mentioned my interest in helping him write something about that experience, the look of terror in his eyes told me the bad memories were still fresh in his mind.

Where does this all end? Olds sums it up best: “Where sports figures of the past were considered superhuman, sports figures today are dehumanized – treated as props, not people.”