Gambling in College
—By Yannick Nandury
In the midst of a March Madness game one realizes there are three types of people within the room. Those who don’t care about the game, those who are somewhat upset/excited, and those who are in an absolute frenzy. When asking the final group why they’re so invested in the game’s result, a typical proclamation will go along the lines of “Bro I bet (insert dollar amount) on this game” and now I’m down “like $80”. After having one too many interactions like this with peers, it raises the question, why bet if you’re almost always going to lose money?
Sports betting has been a prominent part of American culture since before America was even a country. Richard Johnson, the editor of Sports Betting Nation, explains in his May 2018 article that the cultural stigma, or lack thereof, in combination with advancements in technology, “have made the gambling industry worth over $240 billion” (That in conjunction with maneuvers to get around the 21 age limit, students have been gambling at an earlier age and with higher frequencies than generations past. The National Council on Responsible Gaming explained that over “75% of college students have gambled, either legally or illegally within the past year”. However, among these college students, the vast majority of those engaging in dangerous gambling levels are men. With female youth participation in sports at comparable rates to males, and with women having equivalent access to online platforms for gambling, it raises the question why are men three times more likely to have problems with gambling? Understanding gender roles and societal expectations allow us to understand why men tend to gamble at higher rates than their female counterparts.
Higher frequency and impulsive gambling are more prevalent among men in certain cultural contexts. Gloria Wong, a psychology professor at UC Davis, explains in her 2013 meta-analysis for the National Institute of Health that “men are socialized at an early age to take risks. Therefore, it is not surprising that gambling, especially high-stakes gambling, appeal to young adult men who are developing and defining their gender identity” . While women are still socialized to take risks, men are asked to take risks from an earlier age and are forced to deal with the consequences of said risks.
Risk taking and an image of emotional control go hand in hand. Even when life is hitting the fan, men are asked to maintain their composure and maintain an appearance of stability. Men are asked to hide their feelings because an emotional guy often gets conflated with a weak guy. All of this bottling up of emotional insecurities increases the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors such as impulsive gambling. Wong corroborates that when examining the “reactions of mothers to their children’s risk-taking, [we] found that parents expect sons to have more risk-taking behaviors compared to daughters. Men who take more risks are seen as more successful, and therefore, more attractive and more capable of providing resources for the family”. These gender roles are well documented as Stephanie Baggio, an addiction expert from the University of Sydney who explains in her 2018 paper, that men who gambled frequently “were [intrinsically] motivated by a desire to appear smart, skillful or more masculine”. While today’s political climate incentivizes women to break from traditional roles, traditional gender roles are still in full force for men. Women may be incentivized to take risks in other areas, but gender roles dictate that men must be financially independent and thus many men ironically gamble away their futures in order to flex their financial prowess. Females and males may experience a similar dopamine rush from winning a poker match, but males are more likely to relish in the competitive aspect and the fact that they beat their friends. Gender roles are culturally ingrained into our society and they can contribute to the rates of problematic underage gambling, particularly among men.
These gender roles were engrained in American society since the early 20th century. Gambling was federally prohibited post several scandals that elected to rig major sports games such as the NBA Finals and the World Series. Much like prohibition with other banned products, just because something is outlawed doesn’t mean people stop doing it. They go underground. With the entire gambling industry federally outlawed, it took a matter of minutes for underground speakeasies to proliferate to cities servicing over 66% of the American population illegally (Johnson 1). A significant portion of the population that was being served was under the age of 18. Many young men had seen their fathers gamble before and had an idealized notion of what gambling was. Dervensky furthers that “parents (especially fathers) have been found to encourage their son’s gambling, males are more likely to gamble with their fathers” (Dervensky 7). A century later, much of this is still relevant to sports betting and gambling among emerging adults (16-24) in today’s society. Even in today’s society, many men look at media and their fathers as role models. When gender roles proclaim that a man is successful only if they can financially provide for themselves and others, it should come as no surprise as to why men are more likely to flex and take risks to demonstrate their ability to lose money.
Social pressures, typically within college campuses, can foster an environment where men feel left out if they don’t partake in risky behaviors such as gambling. College campuses, particularly those with a heavily spirited environment around sports, are unsurprisingly the perfect environment for students to develop and hide a gambling problem. For example, March Madness every year, according to the American Gaming Association generates around $10 billion in revenue. Out of the $10 billion being bet in brackets across America, over “97% of it is being bet illegally”. While there are obviously women in brackets nationwide, the vast majority of these bets are being made by emerging adult (16-24) males. Granted, just because one puts $20 on a march madness bracket doesn’t necessarily mean they have a gambling problem.
Social anxiety and FOMO are factors that contribute to this vast amount of illegal underage betting among guys which can be a slippery slope later on in life. When interviewing Geeg, current Sophomore at Michigan poker enthusiast, Geeg felt that “gambling and betting are a part of the cultural norm for guys”. This casual gambling is a prevalent part of the University environment, so much so that these interviews were conducted over the course of a Monday night poker game. Geeg elaborated further and said that “playing poker is a relaxing way to decompress and hang out with the community”. Hamms, a Michigan student, a weekly gambler and investor, believed that being at this University can make you significantly more inclined to bet. Hamms recognized that the “Universities competitive environment can lead guys to being overcompetitive with trivial things such as betting”. Geeg also agreed that being at the University of Michigan has made him more invested in sports than when he was in high school. Hamms furthered his point and exclaimed that “if I was working a regular job back home, or went to a school that didn’t care about sports, I probably wouldn’t be betting $150 a week”. The universities pressure cooker environment can incentivize men to be more competitive with each other in areas that can problematic for future development.
Studying the peer group and environment is critical in understanding why men are more susceptible to having a gambling problem. Jeffrey Dervensky writes in the Austin Behavioral Psych Journal in 2015 that “having a friend with a gambling problem appears to be a risk factor, with upwards of 40% of disordered gamblers reporting having friends with similar gambling [problems]”. Thus, as a result of having a competitive social and academic environment where success is based on how much money in your bank, the high rates of gambling among Michigan men are borderline predictable.
Social media content has made the idea of constant gambling glamorous, and this normalization of betting has had an impact on the lives of many of my peers. Chungus explained that there’s this “low-key FOMO. Imagine it’s a typical Tuesday night and all of your boys are playing poker. No one wants to be the one guy who’s all alone on the couch and not playing” (Chungus). This social pressure has admittedly influenced me in certain situations to participate in gambling when I otherwise wouldn’t have. In full disclosure, I’ve played poker around five times in my life. I’ve played one or two hands more than I should have all because I didn’t want to be the only person not playing in a given room. These social pressures are well documented, as the fear of missing out can influence anyone to partake in activities that they normally wouldn’t have engaged in. Moreover, massive media marketing campaigns by big betting websites such as DraftKings and FanDuel have only further engrained gambling as an acceptable way to pass time. All in all, this lack of stigmatization around betting has created an environment that promotes problematic gambling.
This normalization of sports betting through Social Media, compounded with the legalization of gambling in certain states, has fundamentally diminished the stigma around gambling. When interviewing Chungus, my roommate and avid gambler, Chungus said: “I don’t care about how much money I lose because I know I’ll get it back at some point”. This type of narrative which is engrained within many gamblers can oftentimes be the result of Social Media, which has further piqued interest in gambling among young adults. Barstool Sports has inadvertently set out to make gambling youthful and trendy again. Barstool Sports, whose founder David Portnoy is a University of Michigan alum, has Instagram pages and a variety of merchandise dedicated to decreasing the stigma around betting. An example from their own clothing line on the website shows this glorification with phrases such as “it’s only money”, and “life’s too short to bet the under”. Moreover, the vast majority of Barstool’s Instagram followers are college-aged males. Unsurprisingly, it’s evident that social media plays a disproportionate part in affecting young men’s perception on gambling.
The status quo culture surrounding gambling has fueled a problem that’s being swept under the rug. It’s important to first recognize that gambling occasionally on sports events or an occasional game of poker in no way constitutes having a gambling problem. However, definitionally, according to Jeffrey Trull, a financial analyst from Money Talk News, people with dangerous gambling habits are those who tend to gamble more money in order “to recover losses” and those who continuously increase the amount of money that they gamble with before each game. While rates of problem gambling within youth are relatively constant, the constant availability of gambling through technology platforms indicate that problem gambling is likely to increase in the generations to come. While the line between a moderate gambler and someone with an addiction is blurry, repeatedly losing money and continuing to gamble is an indication of a bigger problem. With rates of problem gambling among youth at college campuses nearly three times higher than adults, the resources that college campuses dedicate to fight this hidden addiction are more important than ever. When looking at the resources given by the University of Michigan dedicated to helping students fight their gambling addiction, we were startled by the results. Outside of CAPS, there are no support resources at the University of Michigan specifically dedicated to weaning students off their gambling addiction. In fact, unlike for Alcohol and Marijuana, there are no regulatory policies employed by the University to combat problem gambling. When Geeg was looking for help to stop his compulsive roulette addiction, he looked for resources on campus. Post drunkenly losing $300 in roulette, Geeg was heartbroken and deprived. Unfortunately, a quick google search made him realize he was all on his own. This lack of resources in conjunction with heightened social pressures, a pressure-cooker environment, and amplified gender roles all facilitate a microcosm in which America’s young men are developing an addiction that gets harder to fix as time passes. As the Monday night poker game progressed, the stakes became higher with each hand. As the night went on, what started as a $10 buy in had turned into $25 which turned into $50. The stakes at America’s poker tables are higher than ever before.
Feature photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash
Works Cited
- “97% Of Expected $10 Billion Wagered on March Madness to Be Bet Illegally.” Edited by Caroline Ponseti, American Gaming Association, American Gaming Association, 12 Mar. 2018,
- Baggio, Stephanie. “Gender Differences in Gambling Preferences and Problem Gambling: a Network-Level Analysis.” Taylor & Francis, 23 Mar. 2018,
- “College Gambling Facts and Statistics.” National Prevention Gambling Association, National Council on Responsible Gaming.
- Derevensky, Jeffrey “Youth Gambling: Some Current Misconceptions.” Austin Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Austin Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, 17 Nov. 2015,
- “Gambling and Debt – Problems & Compulsive Behavior.” org, Debt.org – America’s Debt Help Organization, 2 Apr. 2019,
- Gustini, Ray. “How Point Shaving Works.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 31 Oct. 2013,
- Johnson, Richard. “How American Sports Betting Became Illegal in the First Place.” com, SBNation.com, 18 May 2018.
- Trull, Jeffrey. “8 Signs You’re Addicted to Gambling and 5 Tips to Stop.” Money Talks News, Money Talks News, 24 Jan. 2013,
- Wong, Gloria. “Examining Gender Differences for Gambling Engagement and Gambling Problems Among Emerging Adults.” National Institute of Health Studies, National Institute of Health Studies, June 2013.