News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
College football will crank up this weekend and so will the betting on games, especially among young people.
An NCAA study last year found nearly 60 percent of students had bet on at least one game. 67 percent bet more frequently. Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Meredith Ginley said male college students make up the majority suffering from gambling addiction due to an unfamiliar lifestyle.
“You get to college and then you have all this access to time, all this access to money, no one knows if you’re coming or going,” Ginley said. “And with this kind of newfound freedom becomes some opportunities to engage in higher risk behaviors if that is how people choose to do so.”
Ginley said a common mistake she sees in gambling addicts is they tend to bet more after they lose rather than after they win, causing them to go on betting benders. Ginley said even though young men are a large portion of addicts they have a good chance to recover from addiction.
“Because they are young and flexible and have like a long on-ramp to recover financial resources that they have lost from gambling,” Ginley said. “Generally they have a really good outlook, they are able to get support from friends and family.”
Ginley said she sees gambling becoming a new social norm in young men. According to the Tennessee Institute for Gambling Education and Research, more than 200,000 Tennesseans will experience some form of harm from their gambling addiction.
“You get with people who are also engaging in these things and they tell you about stuff,” Ginley said. “All your roommates are doing it so it seems like it’s cool and you want to try it out.”
Ginley said the easy access to sports betting has caused a spike in gambling addicts. Mobile sports betting and Gambling were legalized in Tennessee in November 2020.
