Sports Betting: Harmless Fun or Hidden Crisis? (Part 2)

Boredom, betting, dopamine, and addiction

When you think of a sports bettor, it’s not Ron Mau, the departmental chair and a professor of business administration at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Mau starts his Saturdays listening to sports podcasts before his friends come over to place roughly $500 in bets and watch the games while eating burgers. “You get the adrenaline rush when you win, no matter how much or how little you have on it,” he told a reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Mau watching the Saturday games with friends while eating burgers

Sports betting is a modern manifestation of an ancient form of male bonding. Like fishing, hunting, and video games, it combines the camaraderie of a quest with the dopamine rush of reward. Half of American men aged 18-49 now have active accounts with online sports betting sites. They tell researchers that it’s "fun and exciting" and "stimulates conversations with friends."

For most people, sports betting is pretty harmless. 83% of young people wager less than $50 when they bet, according to a recent survey, and fewer than 25% ever wagered more than $500 in a single day. The average user betting $100 every week will lose about $432 a year — roughly the cost of Netflix's premium subscription.

The New Fentanyl?

So why then does Michael Lewis compare online sports betting to the fentanyl crisis? Why do cultural critics like Ross Douhat and Alice Evans blame the coupling crisis on young men so enamored with sports betting that they’ve given up on dating women?¹

For an increasing number of users, sports betting becomes an all-encompassing, harmful addiction. Consider Jack Ritchie, a 24-year-old English teacher in Vietnam, who ended his life by jumping off a building when he couldn’t shake his gambling addiction and accumulating debt.

Ritchie won £1,000 as a 17-year-old betting on soccer, and his addiction deepened in college, despite his attempts to ban himself from the betting apps.

A growing body of research paints a dire picture:

1. Bankruptcies rose by 28% in states that legalized sports betting²

2. Household investment fell: Every dollar gambled in low-income households was a dollar not saved or invested.

3. Domestic violence increased by 9% after unexpected home-team losses

4. Alcohol abuse rises alongside gambling frequency

5. Gambling disorder rates are twice as high for sports bettors than for other types of gambling.

6. Mental health: Sports bettors are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, loneliness, and lower life satisfaction.³

Sports betting is fairly harmless for most users, but incredibly harmful for the minority who develop an addiction they can’t afford.

Boredom and Dopamine

Our addictions form in opposition to boredom. Whether it’s shopping online during work, scrolling social media on the toilet, or placing a bet on the bus, we seek a squirt of dopamine to distract us from boredom.

The hardest thing for addicts in recovery, according to Anna Lembke, is “learning to live with things being a little boring a lot of the time.”

I think about Lembke’s observation every time I catch myself checking my phone while waiting in line.

Should We Treat Sports Betting Like Alcohol or Tobacco?

How can state policymakers, who have grown dependent on the tax revenue, reduce the likelihood of harmful addiction?

We can learn from alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol prohibition in the 1920s created black markets and increased consumption. By contrast, the multi-pronged approach to tobacco control reduced smoking from 43% of Americans in 1965 to under 12% today through incremental education, regulation, and cultural campaigns.

It’s only been legal for seven years, and yet sports betting is just the beginning. Crypto casinos are exploding. Video game betting is surging. The CFTC recently gave up on regulating prediction markets, and X has partnered with Polymarket to let users bet on anyone's predictions.

We're conducting a massive social experiment on a generation raised with smartphones, and we're only beginning to understand the results. By the time researchers catch up, the technology has evolved. Still, the early data on sports betting suggests we need more research and better regulation.

For most people, sports betting will remain what it is for Ron Mau — slightly expensive, thrilling entertainment with friends. But the minority of users who develop addictions they can't afford deserve better safeguards. The choice isn't between prohibition and a free-for-all. It's about finding smart regulation that minimizes harmful addiction while preserving the fun.⁴

Epilogue: Dopamine in 2045

I turned 45 last week. When I re-read this post in 20 years, I assume we’ll have super-intelligent AI and lots of robots. But will we feel more meaning, connection, and purpose?

I imagine two scenarios. In the first, which I glimpsed last week at the Penland School of Craft, we immerse ourselves in community, craft, cooking, and nature.

Recent Penland students. The campus is magic.

In the second, our AR/VR glasses connect us to a world far more titillating than reality. Anything you can imagine — wild sex with a celebrity crush, skydiving over the Himalayas, gambling with friends at a virtual casino — is just a prompt away.

Both scenarios will likely unfold, and most of us will land somewhere in between — occasionally tapping into the titillation of augmented/virtual reality, only to get a little spooked and seek out a simpler, more boring life of long books and slow walks with flawed people in nature.

At least that’s how I think it will play out. What about you?

1. Douthat: “A $5 same-game parlay can feel like a mini-adventure, so you skip the real adventure of asking somebody out.” Evans: “When online porn, endless scrolling and sports betting are beating Friday-night drinks in sheer excitement, no wonder we have what I call the ‘coupling crisis.’”

2. Also: an 8% increase in debt collection, as well as growth in late auto loan payments and weakened credit scores.

3. A study of 221 young adult sport bettors found increases in depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness — and decreases in life satisfaction, optimism, and social connectedness.

4. For instance:

1. Prevention over treatment: Don’t just treat addiction—flag unhealthy behavior early

2. Algorithmic limits: Platforms can detect when users spiral (e.g., “chasing losses”)—cool-off periods should be mandatory

3. Legal liability: Apply the equivalent of liquor liability laws to sportsbooks

4. Credit integration: Require coordination with bureaus to flag problem debt

5. Better transparency: Make it easier for users to see how much they’ve lost

6. Pharma research: Explore medication-assisted treatment for gambling addiction

7. Avoid black-market fear-mongering: Study whether regulation actually drives users to illegal sites

8. Holistic harm metrics: Track relationships, mental health, and employment, not just finances