On Sept. 10, the NFL kicked off its 2009-2010 season with a prime-time Thursday night slugfest between the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers and one of their more tenacious rivals, the Tennessee Titans.
After four quarters of intense competition and four-and-a-half minutes of overtime, a 33-yard field goal by kicker Jeff Reed gave Pittsburgh the victory, and sent Steeler fans to bed with smiles on their faces.
Except, of course, for those fans who had placed a few (or more than a few) dollars on their hometown heroes.
Because even though the Steelers were the winners on the scoreboard, most sports books and illegal bookmakers had established them as six-point favorites — meaning that their three-point victory was actually a loss for anyone who had wagered on them.
And if you think that this “loss” is little more than a minimal distraction from the on-field victory, then you probably haven’t been paying much attention to the decades-old connection between football (professional, college and, yes, even high school) and gambling (legal and illicit).
A Prevalent Behavior
In a Sept. 7, 2005, article, USA Today writer Michael McCarthy reported that gamblers in the United States wager an estimated $40 million every weekend in Nevada’s legal sports books. That massive amount is dwarfed by the estimated $2 billion to $5 billion that is exchanged with illegal bookmakers — again, on a weekly basis.
Gambling on Super Bowl Sunday (or, as McCarthy refers to it, the “High Holy Day” of football gambling), involves the estimated exchange of $7 billion among legal and illegal gamblers and bookmakers.
In addition to the enormous sums of money, sports gambling also involves millions of Americans. McCarthy’s USA Today article also addressed the degree to which sports gambling has permeated modern American culture:
The National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) says that about seven out of 10 U.S. adults gamble at least once a year.
The NCPG reports that between six and eight million individuals qualify as problem gamblers.
A 2003 study sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) revealed that 35 percent of male and 10 percent of female college students bet on sports the previous year.
The same year that the NCAA study was released, the University of Delaware Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies reported that more than 20 percent of high school juniors said they had bet on a sports event in the previous 12 months.
“The NFL is built on the back of gambling,” Bo Bernhard, an associate professor of sociology and director of gambling research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in an Aug. 30 article by Los Angeles Times writer Kurt Streeter. “It is a sport that is perfect for the wager, which partly explains its incredible popularity. And it’s not alone. Without gambling, [college basketball’s] March Madness would not be what it is, college football would not be what it is …. you could go on and on.”
The Power of the Internet
As is the case with increasing rates of prescription drug abuse, the rise of the Internet has provided additional (and easier) outlets for illegal gambling on football and other sports.
Where once would-be gamblers had to either trek to Las Vegas or find a local illegal bookie to take their action, in today’s networked world all that is needed to bet on football or another sport is Internet access and a credit card number.
Though gambling on football and other sports via the Internet remains illegal in the United States, enforcement of these laws has proved to be tricky. The majority of the major online gambling sites are headquartered in nations such as Costa Rica that do not prohibit gambling.
U.S. law enforcement organizations have attempted to stop Americans from gambling on these illegal sites, but — again, as with other shady areas of online commerce — successfully stopping illegal online gambling has proved difficult.
Addiction & Compulsion
Though online gambling and other forms of illegal wagering on football may seem to be matters for law enforcement only, the prevalence of Internet gambling and the start of football season pose a threat to the health and well being of individuals who are struggling with a gambling addiction.
As the website TooManyBets.com reports, gambling addiction (also referred to as pathological gambling or compulsive gambling) affects millions of Americans, and follows a pattern similar to other types of compulsive behaviors and drug dependencies.
According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, about 1 percent of the U.S. adult population, or approximately 2 million Americans, is affected by an addiction to gambling.
Pathological or compulsive gambling has been defined as “the inability to resist impulses to gamble, leading to severe personal or social consequences.”
A gambling addiction is very similar to any other addictive behavior, including addictions to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, sex and shopping. Compulsive gamblers are simply unable to resist the urge to gamble.
The NCPG lists the following as symptoms of a gambling compulsion:
A need to bet more money more frequently (similar to developing a tolerance to alcohol or another drug)
Restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop or when unable to gamble
“Chasing” losses by betting increasingly large sums of money
Loss of control, which manifests itself in continued gambling even after experiencing significant negative consequences as a result of one’s gambling
Just like walking past a familiar old bar can trigger an urge to drink in a recovering alcoholic, so, too, can the start of football season — and the seeming omnipresence of college and professional football on television during the fall and winter — be dangerously enticing for individuals who are afflicted with or attempting to overcome a gambling compulsion.
If you or someone you love is exhibiting signs of a gambling compulsion, know that football season can be a particularly vulnerable time — but professional treatment for compulsive gambling is available, and long-term recovery is possible.
