Online gambling puts students in red
Published on Tue., December 6th, 2005
Matt Anderson was a freshman when he got involved in a habit that took him down a path of great stress and financial hardship.
He was debt-ridden because of lost bets from the previous semester. To pay off his bookie, he bet on every college football bowl game that season. But it wasn’t just to pay off his debts — he also did it for the adrenaline rush.
As he talks about his experience with sports gambling, the Crystal Lake, Ill., senior’s face shows the pain he suffered as a result of his addiction.
It started with the New Orleans Bowl, which pitted Cincinnati against North Texas. He checked the line, the number of points a team in a game is favored by, on sportsbook.com. After some research, he put $50 on Cincinnati.
The Bearcats lost 24-19.
By the end of the bowl season, Anderson had lost almost $2,000 after losing wagers on 15 of the 16 games he bet on.
“Once I got started I couldn’t stop,” Anderson said. “It was my drug.”
Anderson, like many other college students, found the ease of gambling and the allure of a quick dollar enticing. With the ease of placing a bet online, more and more students are falling into the same trap and losing big. The limited regulation of online gambling — despite the fact that gambling on sports is illegal in every state except Nevada — only makes it easier. Most gambling Web sites operate offshore, making it nearly impossible for U.S. law enforcement to press charges against them.
The hook
Anderson compared his addiction to alcoholism and drug abuse. Although it didn’t involve toxic chemicals that harmed him physically, the hook was as strong as anything else he could have abused.
He began placing bets with a bookie on campus whom he met through a fraternity. After early winnings, Anderson thought he could earn a supplemental income to help pay his expenses at school. But betting soon became about more than money.
“Once I got going, I couldn’t watch a Wednesday or Thursday night college football game without having something on the line,” he said. “It was just ridiculous. Every NFL game had something on it, too.”
A recent Harvard University medical study showed that one of every 20 college students surveyed was addicted to gambling. The study also determined that the same group had the highest percentages of pathological and problem gambling. In addition, youth were introduced to gambling through sports more frequently than through any other method.
Another study surveyed 1,700 students from six Midwestern colleges. Thirty-three percent of men and 15 percent of women said they gambled at least once per week. The study also found pathological and problem gambling rates were four to eight times higher for college students than the rest of the adult population.
Francis DeSalvo, director of Counseling and Psychological Services and assistant dean of students, said gambling addiction was a repetitive behavior that often masked a person’s real problems. Most of the time, DeSalvo said, reducing stress and increasing self-esteem help those who are fighting addiction.
“Gambling is different than alcohol or drugs,” DeSalvo said. “Your body doesn’t really need more and more and more of it. The issue is figuring out what that’s all about.”
Just point and click
During winter break of his freshman year, Anderson ran into serious trouble. He had lost badly on the bowl games and had no way to pay back his debt. Rather than stop betting, he bet more and more to try to dig out of the hole.
“I started betting $200 because that was the max they would allow,” he said. “I just kept doing $200, $200, $200, and before I knew it I was down about $2,000.”
Anderson was forced to make drastic lifestyle changes because of his “drug.” He sold a lot of personal items, including DVDs, a Sony PlayStation and games. He gave blood once, and he contemplated pawning a Breitling watch that he bought for $2,400.
He eventually resorted to other means of paying his debts. He collected or bought student tickets to KU men’s basketball games against Arizona and Texas to give to his bookie. For each ticket, the collector knocked $25 off his tab.
He used about $800 of excess financial aid to chip away at the bill before finally asking a friend for the remaining $300.
“He said if he found out I was betting again he would get the money back from me somehow,” Anderson said. “That’s the main reason I don’t do it anymore. When I talk to him he still asks me if I’m betting.”
Compounding the problem for students is the ease of placing bets online. Only a user name and a credit card are needed to make a deposit and get started. Nellie Mae, a foundation that provides loan programs for college students, conducted a study of college students who applied for financial aid through its firm. The survey showed 65 percent of undergraduate students have credit cards, 20 percent have four or more and the average balance is more than $2,200 dollars.
Hard to be responsible
Although many students get out of control at the computer, others say they can keep it in check. Brad Liszt, Minnetonka, Minn., senior, said he tried to keep his bets to a minimum, wagering $100 per week on a couple of games. He said staying within a budget would prevent problems like Anderson’s.
“I’m not going to do anything that will affect my life,” Liszt said. “When you have to start cutting back on other things just so you can bet on a game that weekend, that’s when you have a problem.”
He said the difference was being selective when choosing to bet. Betting just to bet is dangerous because you don’t play the games with the best chance of winning.
Liszt said he also avoided betting on games that involved his favorite teams, something that Anderson didn’t do during the 2002 KU football season. The Jayhawks were in Lincoln, Neb., to play the Cornhuskers, and the KU team was a 48-point underdog with its third-string quarterback scheduled to start. Anderson put a sizable chunk of cash on Nebraska.
After the Jayhawks scored on the opening drive of the game, Anderson had to sweat all the way through the fourth quarter and won when Nebraska scored a late touchdown. Despite the win, the stress took its toll.
“I’m still nervous,” Anderson said. “Those are the reasons I won’t get started again.”
Efforts to stop Web sites
The FBI estimated that nearly $6 billion was wagered on the 2002 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament alone. Only $600 million was bet legally in Nevada — meaning the rest was gambled illegally, either online via offshore operations or through bookies.
Law enforcement agencies in the United States have no authority to pursue most offshore online gambling sites. A simple Google search reveals that most of these sites operate in locales such as London, Aruba, Costa Rica, Curacao and even tiny Barbuda.
According to Whitney Watson, spokesman for the office of Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, any gambling that occurs in Kansas and isn’t sanctioned by the state is illegal, including online wagering. The state would have a difficult time trying to enforce jurisdiction on foreign operations. In addition, a Kansas resident who won a large amount of money would have no legal standing if the sports book refused to pay up.
Legislation has been drafted over the past few years in an attempt to get a regulatory grip on the online gambling industry. In 1999, Senator Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., proposed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which would amend the Wire Wager Act of 1961 to clearly include online gambling. The Wire Wager Act banned the use of telephones to place sports bets.
Despite support from the NCAA and congressmen from both sides of the aisle, the bill failed. The Justice Department’s concern with the language of the bill spelled doom because, under the proposed legislation, people who called in picks for office NCAA tournament pools would be safe while those who e-mailed their selections would be subject to arrest and jail time.
In 2001, a bill sponsored by Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made it to the floor of the Senate. Named the Amateur Sports Integrity Act, the bill would have supplemented the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act by banning all gambling on NCAA or other amateur athletic events. The bill failed, largely due to Nevada lobbyists’ claims it would take away states’ rights and income.
The NCAA and legislators such as Brownback continue to fight gambling on amateur athletics, but no laws have been passed to regulate online gambling, and no proposed bill has made it as far as the Amateur Sports Integrity Act.
Help for students
When gamblers get out of control, curbing the addiction is often a tough proposition. The first step, and often the biggest hurdle to recovery, is recognizing that a problem exists. The Gamblers Anonymous International Web site defines compulsive gambling as “an illness, progressive in its nature, which can never be cured, but can be arrested.” It says most gamblers have low self-esteem and think of themselves as weak or “just plain no-good.”
There is also a list called “20 questions” that can help a gambler decide if he has a problem. An issue that KU students face specifically is that there is currently no Lawrence chapter of GA. The closest chapters with weekly meetings are in Topeka, Overland Park and Leavenworth. A closer option for help is Counseling and Psychological Services.
Located in Watkins Student Health Center, CAPS offers counseling to KU students for a wide variety of issues. DeSalvo said the psychologists at Watkins rarely treated gambling addictions. He said only one or two students received treatment last year for gambling. That was not enough patients to justify an ongoing program for problem gamblers, so the department treats patients on a case-by-case basis.
Anderson said he wished he could have stopped earlier, and he cautioned anyone who was contemplating making gambling part of his life.
“It’s a liability,” he said. “If you win, you want to win more. If you lose, you want to win it back and keep playing more. It’s so addictive that you’re going to lose no matter how you come out of it financially.”
- Edited by Katie Lohrenz and Tricia Masenthin
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