In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Murphy v. NCAA, holding Congress did not have the power to ban states from authorizing sports gambling within their borders. In the five years since, 35 states and the District of Columbia have passed bills to license and regulate sports betting.

Not since Nevada welcomed wide-open gaming in 1931 have so many people been able to gamble so easily so quickly. Millions of Americans now are betting at home and on the job, often on the hand-held privacy of their mobile phones. A recent American Gaming Association report predicts “the annual sports betting handle is poised to surpass $100 billion this year.”¹

In every state — including Tennessee, where I wrote the first set of gaming regulations enforced by our Sports Wagering Council — laws prohibit anyone under the age of 21 from gambling. At the same time, however, betting operators are reinvesting their billions in advertising designed to capture the attention of every moderately bored sports fan.

So, one might well ask: How’s this working out? One place we might look is college campuses, where nearly every undergraduate is barred from gaming. A quick glimpse of recent headlines suggests an answer:

• “Iowa, Iowa State betting scandal explained: Multiple Hawkeyes, Cyclones suspended.”² One of the players suspended in the scandal was the Iowa State quarterback.
• “Alabama baseball scandal reflects new reality in college athletics.”³
• “Experts: College sports wagering scandal ‘already happening, we just don’t know it.’”⁴

These are just the major stories involving major universities. Smaller colleges also are affected. Regulators know stories of NCAA Division III coaches caught betting on their own schools. The NCAA has documented, in repeated studies, that students on any size campus are more likely to gamble on sports than the general population, linked, in part, to higher rates of student alcohol abuse.

To be fair, campuses are not unaware. The NCAA has promulgated its own gambling bylaws for member institutions and announced earlier this month it would urge legislatures to protect student athletes from gambling-related threats and harassment.⁵ The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has retained legal counsel to design gambling education programs for its high-profile member universities.

States, however, have lagged in realizing the unique problems of underage gaming on campus. Many state universities have marketing relationships with gaming operators. Others have ads for sportsbooks inside their arenas and stadiums, buildings typically full of under-21 students. Many states, though not all (Tennessee is one), allow gamblers to wager on an individual student’s statistical performance, such as points scored in a basketball game or yards rushed in a football contest. States have expansive programs in schools and colleges regarding alcohol and drug abuse, but next to none on gaming addiction.

In Tennessee, a portion of sports betting tax revenue is designated for use by the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to finance grants “to address problem gambling and gambling disorders. Funds “to address juvenile addiction and mental health disorders” are only available “secondarily.”⁶

Operators and vendors should expect political pressures will rise on lawmakers and regulators to introduce more affirmative measures to prevent and treat underage gaming. Expecting much of the NCAA seems far-fetched, as the organization’s power ebbs from conference realignment, NIL payments, and the rise in television network power. In the meantime, the job of policing campus gaming will fall to colleges, universities, and athletic conferences, where smart administrators will work with experienced regulators, treatment experts, and addictionologists to protect all their students — including their quarterbacks — from the high cost of gambling addiction.

^{1 AGA Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker – American Gaming Association}

^{2 USA Today, Sept. 9, 2023.}

^{3 USA Today, May 12, 2023.}

^{4 On3.com, May 2, 2023.}

^{5 NCAA.org, Oct. 4, 2023.}

^{6 Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-49-119(c)(1)(A).}