MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 7th of January.

We’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It… sports gambling.

If you follow sports, you likely hear a lot of this.

DRAFTKINGS: Action so good. Why bet NFL playoffs anywhere else?

VIVA LA STOOL: we’ve teamed up with our partners at DraftKings to give new customers $200 in bonus bets after you sign up and deposit and bet just $5.

KERNEY: Betting on sports adds a whole new level of excitement to any game you’re watching, even a blowout

Sports betting companies spent more than a billion dollars on advertising in 2024. That same year by one estimate Americans bet around $150 billion.

REICHARD: The National Council on Problem Gambling says risky gambling was particularly bad during COVID lockdowns. They’ve leveled off since then, but public acceptance of sports betting continues to grow.

WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler has the story.

PAUL BUTLER: Gary Schneider was thirteen when he placed his first bet on sports.

SCHNEIDER: And I continued to do that until I was 18 years old. And I know that I got addicted at 18 years old.

Betting on sports seemed like a fun way to put his knowledge of sports to work. Long before online sports gambling came on the scene, Schneider called up a bookmaker in Jersey Shore to place his bets.

SCHNEIDER: And the bookmaker told me I won every single bet. From that point on, my goal was to bust many bookmakers, and I was chasing that illusion until I came at 40 when I crashed.

After 27 years of betting on sports, Schneider was buried in debt and suicidal.

Today, however, Schneider counsels gambling addicts…and serves as a board member for the advocacy group Stop Predatory Gambling.

The group’s National Director, Les Bernal, says gambling corporations are more sophisticated in their offerings and messaging.

BERNAL: They like send you text messages, if you haven’t gambled today, like they’ll send you, you know, two or $300 worth of free bets, you know, to keep you in action.

The rise of online sports betting is not just a recent technological phenomenon. It’s also a legal one. In 1992, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. That law made sports betting illegal in the United States, with a handful of exceptions for states like Nevada and New Jersey.

But then in 2018, the Supreme Court struck down that law.

BERNAL: The Supreme Court did not endorse sports gambling, but they just said the way the law that prohibited commercialized sports gambling was written, you know, was unconstitutional, but that Congress still had the right to, you know, to prohibit sports gambling, just but had to do it a different way.

Congress left the issue open to the states, and within six years, 38 states and the District of Columbia legalized sports betting.

BERNAL: State governments, in partnership with these powerful gambling corporations, they acted with lightning speed to ram through sports gambling, online gambling, like just at an extreme pace, all driven in a very sophisticated National Public Affairs campaign, not because the public demanded it, but because of greed.

The lucrative partnership between state governments, gambling corporations, and sports leagues has since drawn scrutiny from Congress.

DURBIN: This meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin chairs the committee. Last month, Senators heard testimony about the effects of sports gambling on citizens, athletes, and schools.

DURBIN: It is critical that Congress look into sports betting’s impact on America and determine how the industry should be regulated going forward.

Former gaming enforcement director David Rebuck encouraged lawmakers to leave the issue to the states.

REBUCK: I believe after six and a half years of litigation to the states to earn rights constitutional rights to have sports wagering, that we are entitled to do the best we can to regulate and deal with the issues that are highlighted here…

But public health expert Harry Levant says current regulations fail to address the problems created by gambling corporations partnering with state governments, sports leagues, and media companies.

LEVANT: …all are acting in concert to deliver online gambling at light speed and ensure the action never stops. The new AI fueled business model will inexorably result in increased gambling addiction and gambling related harm.

Back in September, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill to set national minimum standards for the gaming industry. He told WORLD about some of the problems it would address.

BLUMENTHAL: So-called risk-free bets, the throttling techniques, the targeting and customizing of betting to individuals, the sophistication and complexity of these techniques is staggering and it’s successful because the amount of gambling is exploding.

Several witnesses and lawmakers said they support putting minimum standards in place. But Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling says the legislation will not fix a key underlying problem.

BERNAL: All these forms of commercialized gambling that you see in the public square, every single one of them is an extension of a government program. This, this business is only legal when you partner with state government.

States like New York and North Carolina tax the winnings of sports gambling and use that revenue to fund programs like education and youth sports, as well as gambling recovery programs. But gambling is not your typical business service or product.

BERNAL: You can’t regulate this business in a way that’s safe for the American public, because it’s a con. It’s a form of consumer financial fraud.

Gary Schneider’s gambling addiction ended only after months of counseling through Gamblers Anonymous. As a counselor now, he is alarmed by the data that reveals a high number of high school and college-aged young people who have tried gambling. In 2023, the NCAA reported that more than half of college students bet on sports online and were convinced they could make money by playing the game.

SCHNEIDER: We’re talking tens of millions of kids that have that have gambled so far.

Les Bernal says that it will be difficult to deter young people from accepting sportsbooks’ call to “get in on the action” when so much of pop culture is on board.

BERNAL: They don’t know enough to stop, and why would they stop when they see their favorite athletes are endorsing this on TV, LeBron James endorsing online gambling, and, you know, Peyton Manning and all these other famous athletes, like, why would they think it’s a dangerous product that could hurt them the rest of their lives?

Schneider is hopeful that changing the rules for how sportsbooks present themselves to the public could help Americans see the danger…and put gambling corporations on notice that they are going to have to change.

SCHNEIDER: Remove that advertising, it’s going to be hard for them to survive.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.