What Dads Need To Know About Sport Betting

From guest writer Tyler Curtis

The government is going all in on regulating teenagers’ access to online gambling, while their fathers are folding.

When the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the federal government could not prohibit online gambling, it opened the floodgates for a whole bevy of betting apps. Despite legal age restrictions, several workarounds make these apps available to minors. Boys especially seem to be getting into online gambling, leaving many wondering what to do about it.

Should the government impose stricter age verification rules? Should it ban gambling companies from advertising on television? Should individual states allow sports gambling at all?

For the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle, the knee-jerk solution to teen gambling is to impose new government regulations. Conspicuously absent from these discussions is the role of parental responsibility.

Outsourcing oversight of teens’ online activity has several drawbacks. Not only do politicians wildly overstate the problem of teen gambling, but many of the proposed regulations wouldn’t even work. If our society is serious about preventing boys from developing gambling addictions, then fathers, not the nanny state, need to step up.

So far, they’ve have been dropping the ball. When asked if their kids were engaged in online gambling, a mere 2% of parents said yes. Barely half were confident that they would know if their kids were betting online.

In reality, most parents are totally in the dark. According to a recent survey by Common Sense Media, more than a third of all teenage boys have made online bets within the past year. Among 16- and 17-year-olds, it’s around half.

Revelations about the ubiquity of teen gambling is kicking off a moral panic across the country. Personalities as divergent as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and conservative podcaster Michael Knowles have sounded the alarm, demanding that the government do something. But the matter hardly demands government intervention.

While Common Sense Media found that many teenage boys are gambling online, they’re not spending much money. The average boy who gambles spent $54 in the past year, which isn’t exactly the kind of habit that spells civilizational doom.

That being said, a small fraction of teens and young men do develop highly destructive gambling addictions. Anecdotes abound online of men who became obsessed with betting, spiraled deeper into debt, lost their jobs, declared bankruptcy, and ruined close relationships.

But for most, gambling is a relatively harmless form of entertainment. Imposing broad, extremely strict government limits on online gambling would be like using a sledgehammer on a finishing nail. It might work, but it may destroy both the nail and the wood in the process.

Preventing kids from developing gambling addictions should be first and foremost a parental responsibility, not least because they will do a better job than an impersonal state. We have ample data showing that parental involvement and guidance, especially from fathers, lower the odds that kids will develop harmful addictions of any kind.

Of course, the government has its own role to play. By enforcing reasonable licensing rules for legitimate operators and going after illegal and violent gambling rings, they can protect both kids and adults from some of the worst aspects of the betting world.

But the government shouldn’t be relied upon to prevent people from making bad financial choices. Responsibility begins at home. Fathers who bet on sports themselves can model responsible gambling, in the same way that dads who crack open a beer or two on the weekend model responsible drinking.

It’s also about more than just setting a good example. Dads need to be aware of what their kids are up to online and what kinds of content they have access to. No sweeping ban on prop bets and sports betting commercials will guarantee that kids won’t develop gambling addictions. Instead, dads need to have hard conversations with their sons about the temptations of online gambling: when they should hold ‘em, when they should fold ‘em, and most importantly, when they should walk away.

It’s up to fathers to step up and lead, or else allow the nanny state to raise their kids for them.

Tyler Curtis is a Senior Contributor at Young Voices.