Teens targeted by money machines

If you’ve ever watched a sports program in the last year, whether it’s Sunday night 

football or a mid-week NBA game, I have no doubt you’ve been flooded with constant advertisements from corporations such as Draftings, Barstool, FanDuel, Caesars etc. 

These advertisements at first may seem harmless, but the predatory ways in which these corporations target bettors and namely younger, underage bettors are undermined. 

The Ohio Control Commission (OCC) fined DraftKings $800,000 for illegally claiming bettors could get $200 in free bets; the parent company of Barstool Sportsbook, one of the sportsbetting giants, was also fined for promoting their app to underage bettors during a college football show. 

“Their greed trumps the common sense that they should be employing when looking out for the harm to minors,” said Matt Schuler, executive director of the OCC. I can speak on the effects of sports betting in the youth: it’s now difficult to have a talk about sports in a group setting without someone complaining about their fantasy league failing, or how their parlay just almost hit last sunday. 

These complaints may sound nit-picky and trivial, but they shouldn’t be brushed away when considering my prior evidence. The effects of sports betting culture not only affect the youth or the vulnerable but are rapidly worsening to a point where athletes themselves are facing hardships. 

Since sports betting was legalized in 2018, student athletes have reported copious amounts of instances where they’ve been harassed, verbally accosted, and threatened simply for their lack of “covering the spread.” 

In 2019, an anonymous social media user, who was later identified as Benjamin Patz, made these comments towards a Pepperdine Men’s Basketball player, “Your throat will be severed with a dark knife,” “your entire family will be beheaded and burned alive,” “watch your back, you’re a dead man walking.” 

According to court records, Patz may have been upset at a bet he placed in which the player he messaged did not fulfill. This isn’t an isolated incident, however, it is far from it. 

Though the former example was a more extreme case of this, an anonymous Furman’s Men’s basketball player says he receives messages “all the time” from upset bettors who could care less about the athlete and only about their own bet. 

“[Being harassed online] is all pretty new honestly. I’d say more so in the past year,” says the anonymous player. The “past year” that the player refers to is the same year that 1.8 billion dollars was spent on advertising, up 70% from the year prior (via BIA). 

I have no doubt that the publicity gained from these ads directly correlates to the harassment of these athletes. The volumes this speaks on the money-hungry, vulturous ways in which these companies operate. So next time you wanna put some cash into a sports betting account with your mothers social security number, consider the companies you’re supporting.