By advertising on popular sports broadcasting channels, sportsbooks and casinos take advantage of young viewers to turn a profit.
Most people today view gambling as a poor way to spend one’s time and money.
However, betting has become normalized within sports broadcasts, and marketing tactics have been reeling young adults and adolescents into developing gambling addictions.
Watch any basketball or football game on television and you will find that almost every other commercial encourages viewers to place bets on the game on a variety of different digital sportsbooks.
These companies will often offer incentives, like a risk-free, bet to entice new customers to make their first bet.
Unfortunately, sports betting (a form of gambling) can be extremely addictive and one bet may be all that some people need to get hooked.
One reason sports betting is an especially potent method of gambling is that it is absurdly easy to cast a bet and there are so many different things to bet on.
You can bet on who will score the first touchdown in a game, the number of points that a team will score in a quarter or even what color Gatorade will be dumped on the coach after a Super Bowl win.
With a myriad of betting options available, young viewers often think they have a shot at making some money, but the sportsbook will usually be on the winning end.
After all, they wouldn’t operate if they did not make a profit.
They are businesses designed to get you, the customer, to make losing bets.
Considering how many young viewers watch televised sporting events and the sheer amount of sports betting advertisements shown, some children are sure to be intrigued by what seems like free money to those with some knowledge of the games they are watching.
Most young viewers think that betting is entirely dependent upon their knowledge of the sport, without realizing that it is still gambling and totally unpredictable.
Many young children and adolescents are now playing mobile games that are formatted like a sportsbook or casino, but without cash attached to the outcome of bets.
The problem with this is that the line between games and gambling is becoming more and more blurred each day.
With children easing into gambling, they are likely to look for ways to make real