My kids are betting on their own sports!
- Mar 21, 2007 - comment
ESPN estimates that 118 million Americans, some as young as 14, are caught up in a riptide of sports gambling that is rapidly jeopardizing the integrity of the sports we enjoy, as well as the futures of those who are drawn into its mesmerizing current.
Even those who never go to Las Vegas or buy a lottery ticket will one day be confronted by an Internet pop-up ad, school friend or office colleague hoping to introduce the concept of pool betting.
Sports pool bets are common and focus on events as big as the Super Bowl and as small as your local high school basketball games.
And pool bets are often portrayed as harmless since they require risking relatively small amounts of money. With the hype surrounding sporting events, it can be tempting to risk “just a dollar.”
Assuming that office pools are legal and “all in good fun” (most are neither), many parents have introduced and modeled sports gambling to their children. And kids are following that lead: According to a 1998 study by Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, three-fourths of all teens will have gambled by the time they graduate from high school.
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Increasingly, college students are “developmentally prone” to gambling, according to Laurajane Fitzsimons, assistant director of counseling at the University of Massachusetts. Because they want to be perceived as adults, many believe that gambling on sports (or playing poker) will provide both an entertainment outlet and a way to work smarter, not harder, to make money. According to the NCAA, 35 percent of male college students bet on sports each year, while just 10 percent of their female counterparts do.
But sports wagering among students is not limited to the students in the stands. Point-shaving, or agreeing to score a certain way to meet a book master’s expectations, is a means student-athletes employ to offset and repay their own gambling debts. Trading inside information about team members, injuries, etc. has also been used among athletes to finance debts.
And gambling has caused incredible pain for many of them. Five years ago, 35-year-old Keith had amassed $20,000 in credit card debt and owed others $20,000 more. In counseling, Keith traced his gambling back to tenth grade when he won his first football pool.
Keith continued playing online pools and poker during college. His penchant for competition as a student-athlete and euphoria in winning persisted despite waning success. But because Keith occasionally recovered his losses, he tried diversifying his gambling. “You name it, I’d go bet on it,” he says. Losses ultimately forced Keith into bankruptcy.
Like many of Satan’s wiles, gambling can start as a casual appeal, then expand as individuals buy into the notion of meeting their needs through chance. Our society has become so desensitized to the dangers of gambling that parents are hosting poker birthday parties for their young children.
But Christians should be different. We must endeavor to keep ourselves above reproach in the area of gambling. At its core, gambling is rooted in idolatry, greed and a conscious choice to subvert God’s role in meeting our needs.
We must actively discourage all forms of gambling, including sports and Internet betting, and live lives worthy of emulation as parents and role models. May we heed the admonition of Hebrews 13:5: “Your life should be free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for He Himself has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Related
- NCAA to unveil plan on gambling dangers – USA Today
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