Sports Gambling and University Life
Legal sports gambling has dramatically impacted University life
—By Eric Yang
It is like any weekend night at one college house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, except the house is screaming at the TV screen. The Paris Olympic’s women’s singles table tennis match is on. No one in the house has ever watched a single game of Table Tennis, but it is the biggest event of the night.
Two roommates had placed opposite bets on the victor of this table tennis match, and the match was getting close.
This is not at all an uncommon scene in many college houses as sports gambling has largely been legalized and normalized. Research from a CommonWealth Beacon/GBH News poll indicates that around 30% of 18-29 year olds have placed a sports bet within the last year. And according to Vice News, “This has also led to bettors increasingly flocking to smaller sports rather than waiting for a once-a-week NFL game.” This is no more prevalent than college campuses, where students discuss recent elaborate parlays, a cumulative series of bets, on a weekly basis.
Sports gambling has added a new element and new incentives to the ever-growing sports industry, but it also presents a whole new array of challenges. Fans and viewers no longer root for their teams but root for over-unders and random events in the game.
History of sports betting
Placing bets on sports in the United States has been illegal since 1992, when Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act; however, Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, a Supreme Court ruling in 2018 determined this Act to be illegal. States’ rights advocates largely argued that limitations on legalized sports gambling created a black market for it, which led to a loss of consumer protection and tax revenues.
Since 2018, sports gambling, among many other forms of gambling, have fallen to individual states to legalize and regulate. As of 2025, 38 States and the District of Columbia have varying restrictions and limitations on sports gambling. With restrictive ranges in age and betting limits typically left up to individual States to decide. This all culminates to $147.9 billion wagered on sports gambling in the United States in 2024, an impressive 23.6% increase from just one year prior. Since 2018, Americans have wagered $450 billion on sports betting.
This rapid growth has also had increasing financial impacts on users. Sports bettors reported spending on average $3,284 in the past 12 months on gambling (with a median of $750); a shocking 14% have reported going into debt as a result of sports gambling. All the while, Sportsbooks are generating record levels of revenue and profiting an increasing share of revenue.
The sports purist
Andrew Albrecht, a current senior at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, is not interested. As an avid sports fan, he watches and loves all Michigan sports. From the Detroit Tigers to the Detroit Lions to the Michigan Wolverines, he has stuck with his teams through good times and bad.
Although Albrecht lives in the same house as those betting on Women’s Table Tennis and has high school friends who craft elaborate parlays that include the gender of the Puppy Bowl’s Most Valuable Pup, he personally does not participate. He argues that sports gambling “is ruining the integrity of the games” as viewers get more interested in “random events in the game than winning or losing. Fans become more interested in random layups or rebounds over if the game is good or not.”
Albrecht hears about parlays every weekend and gets texts about it all throughout the week. “It’s kinda scary how much my friends talk about it.” Although Albrecht’s friends typically wager under $5, “they’re spending so much time worrying about their personal bets and stakes in the game that they don’t actually follow the team or have a favorite player. They’re not engaging in the game in a productive way.” As a sports purist, he wonders what the future of sports fan bases are going to look like. “It’s kinda sad that the new generation might not have an actual favorite player, they’re just watching specific players that could change every week.”
Sports gambling has also led to increased pressure on players. Research by the NCAA and data science company Signify Group determined that a quarter of online abusive or threatening posts directed at specific college athletes, coaches, or teams originated from “angry sports bettors.”
A difference in opinion
Brady Nordbeck, a senior in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, sees it from a different perspective. “Sports are a lot more fun to watch.… It adds suspense and a stake in the team’s success.” Nordbeck adds that the financial costs are not that high: “it’s only a couple bucks a week.”
As a member of the club rowing team, Nordbeck has seen firsthand how sports gambling (and other forms of gambling) have taken ahold of University culture. “Some of my friends are actually addicted… there’s an international student who can’t legally sports bet, but whenever they’re around they ask for our phones and just pays us back for whatever he gambles.” Nordbeck is also not the biggest fan of sports gambling but views it as just something that people do now. “It just kind of happens,” he says.
Zach Dunn, a senior in Economics and minor in Computer Science, agrees. Dunn views sports gambling as just “a form of entertainment. It’s like the same price of buying a movie ticket.” The loses as nothing more than the cost of going out or having fun. “If it costs less than going out, and it (sports gambling) makes a night more fun than I don’t think it’s really a bad thing.” This is a common thread echoed by Nordbeck. They both do not personally know friends who have lost a large amount of money, and both view it as just a cheap way to make a night more fun.
The opportunists
Where there is opportunity, there are those who pursue it. Trent Cappaert, a senior dual-degree in Business and Actuarial Mathematics at the University of Michigan, knows this all too well. As soon as he turned 21 years old, he took advantage of all the free sign-up bonuses and promotional codes. “I have gotten hundreds of dollars free for pretty much just signing up.” This in reference to the countless promotional offers from any major sportsbook advertised during every major sports game and sports arena. As a lifelong sports fan, Cappaert is already invested in and watching all sports, but mostly Michigan Wolverine Basketball and Football.
“All you have to do is place bets that you are absolutely certain will hit. Once you win it, you can withdraw the money.” It seems easy enough, but it is not at all. The psychology of winning makes repetitive sports gambling much more addictive. These promotional offers attract customers into their product and provide just enough enticement to encourage them to stick around. For example, in 2022, DraftKings, one of the United States’ largest sportsbooks, boasted an impressive 83% retention rate after one year. If promotional bets seem way too good to be true, they likely are. Those fortunate enough to walk away with their promotional offers are rare, and only make a small dent in the profitability of Sportsbooks.
The changing game
As sports gambling cements itself into the daily pulse of university life, it reshapes not just which sports to watch, but also why they watch them. From multi-legged parlays to bonus-chasing strategies, the once-passive sports fan has become a gambler, a strategist, an investor.
For some, it’s harmless weekend fun while for others, it’s an obsession that has drastically affected their financial and emotional futures. In dorm rooms and dining halls, the conversation has shifted from favorite teams to betting odds, from buzzer-beaters to point spreads.
Sport, what once shaped culture and discourse, now doubles as a casino. And while the industry’s future is growing, the future of how students engage with sports is far less clear. The game is changing. The question is, at what cost?
Feature photo, People sitting on chair inside building; Photo Credit, Nick Wang