The Rise of Gambling in the Digital Age: Sports Betting and Adolescent Vulnerability
Connor Huynh
13/11/27
Since the Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, legal sports wagering in the United States has grown significantly, with the large majority of bets now placed online. This shift matters for adolescents in particular, who develop gambling problems at higher rates than adults and are at higher risk. This paper examines how the digitization of sports betting has reshaped adolescent exposure to gambling, and argues that there are four mechanisms that combine into a single, reinforcing system rather than acting as separate risks. The first mechanism is smartphone accessibility, which removes the friction that used to help prevent impulsive betting, and embeds wagering into daily routines. Second, the convergence between gambling and gaming is examined, and how gambling-like mechanics familiarize young people with paying for chance-based rewards years before they reach the legal gambling age. The third mechanism is manipulative app design, including how the interfaces of betting platforms are deliberately built to make losing money easy. Finally, it looks at how social media has normalized gambling through advertising and gambling livestreams as an ordinary part of sports and online culture. The paper uses a literature review methodology by synthesizing the evidence across the four mechanisms and it identifies the main gaps that limit current research. It then assesses why current safeguards such as age verification and voluntary spending limits have largely failed. Then, it closes by proposing stronger measures, including biometric identity verification at registration and mandatory restrictions on gambling content across streaming platforms.