It’s the day after the ending of what was promoted as a “First-Time Ever” five consecutive days of playoff football. And over the two days of NCAA College Football playoffs and three days of NFL playoff action, anyone who watched knows that football wasn’t all we saw. If I had paid attention and counted, I would have never been able to successfully tally just how many online sports gambling commercials and in-game reminders we saw. If your kids were watching, they saw them all too.
Is online sports betting an issue? Consider that one of the biggest stories to come out of these five days of playoffs was just how much money was lost when Philadelphia Eagles’ running back Saquon Barkley took the ball and burst through an opening with clear-sailing to a touchdown, instead choosing to slide to the turf after getting a first down that would seal the win. News outlets quickly began reporting that Barkley’s choice to not score a touchdown rattled the betting world. How come? On Sunday, Barkley was the most-ticketed player of the day across multiple betting platforms where gamblers were sure he would score a touchdown.
In the not-so-long-ago pre-legalized-sports-betting world of 2018, this wouldn’t have been news. But in a world where legalized online betting and the host of betting apps is spreading like a cancer, Barkley’s slide became newsworthy for reasons other than football. We are now living in a world where the DSM-V lists “gambling disorder” as the only officially recognized behavioral addiction. It’s bad folks. And, it’s getting worse.
What is most troubling, perhaps, is how our culture is co-opting the future of our kids through this heavily marketed behavioral choice that any kid with a smartphone is going to be tempted to choose. Easy money? Sure, at least that’s the promise. Fun? Yeah. . . what did doesn’t want to have fun? And risk? Well, the adolescent brain, especially the male brain, is drawn to risky behavior. And if I consider what my teenage self might have chosen if I had lived in the smartphone-legalized-sports-betting-world. . . well, I have to be truthful and say that it probably wouldn’t be a pretty picture for me right now. Kids are vulnerable, impressionable, and easily-swayed. And let’s be honest, the earlier they see stuff normalized, the more prone they are to assimilate it into their lives. . . including online sports gambling.
How prevalent is it among our kids? The latest stats indicate the between 60% and 80% of high school students gambled for money in the last year. Most gambling disorders begin during those impressionable years of adolescence. Currently, 4% to 6% of high schoolers are considered addicted to gambling. It’s now estimated that the personal and social costs of gambling is around $14 billion here in the United States.
Let’s get beyond the data for a minute. . . as the data in burgeoning social problems tends to lag beyond the reality. . . which is a reasonable assumption in this case. My conversations with high school teachers about kids and gambling are starting to mirror the conversations regarding frustrations about smartphones in schools. I’m hearing more and more say “it’s off the charts” during school time. Not at all surprising. I wonder about how in good conscience all of these celebrity spokespeople for these sites can do what they’re doing? Have they considered the future of our kids? Is there any moral sense being enlisted in their decisions to promote what is a growing social problem that has repercussions both now and in the future for emotional, physical, relational, and spiritual health?
As Christians, we need to embrace a biblically-faithful theological perspective that not only informs our personal behaviors and choices, but which we can pass on to our kids as they grow up in a world that is doing everything it can to nurture them into a lifetime of gambling.
Here at CPYU we offering this helpful resource, a CPYU Parent Prompt on “Teens and Gambling”, that youth workers should get in the hands of parents so that they can have meaningful biblically-faithful conversations with their kids about an issue they will all most certainly face. And youth workers. . . are you having these conversations with your kids? Click here to access this FREE resource that looks at what is happening, what God’s Word says on the matter, and how to have nurturing conversations with your kids.