When Las Vegas and the PATRIARCHY merge inside an iPhone.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1(800) 799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org
The rapid legalization of sports betting across the United States has created new revenue streams, advertising markets and a noticeable cultural shift amongst young men. What was once largely regulated and considered to be an “underground” activity has become embedded in mainstream sports culture and is now only a few taps away on a smartphone.
Since the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, dozens of states have legalized sports wagering in some capacity. The result has been an explosion of betting apps paired with near-constant sportsbook advertisements during commercial breaks in televised games. For many sports fans, betting is no longer an option that exists only on the side as an optional add-on to the larger game at hand. Instead, it’s become a part of how people watch sports.
This shift is especially visible amongst teenage boys and young men. Even those who label themselves as only “casual” sports fans have most likely felt this shift in some form through the pressure to participate. Granted, it’s not always high stakes — sometimes it’s small bets amongst friends or informal pools — but the normalization is there, and it’s become apparent. Access to these sites is also difficult to fully restrict because, despite enforced age restrictions, underage users are commonly able to bypass safeguards. Offline, traditional gambling hasn’t disappeared either. Informal poker games and group-based betting pots still remain common and often act as the entry points into more structured online platforms.
Media coverage, such as McKay Coppins’ Atlantic essay, “My Year as a Degenerate Sports Gambler,” describes how quickly his casual sports betting shifted from an occasional form of entertainment into a compulsive behavior once apps, push notifications and live odds became a daily routine.
In his personal account, his small wins created a false sense of control, while his losses led to a behavior of “chasing.” Over time, betting became less of a deliberate choice and more of an automatic response to when he was feeling boredom or stress — patterns also seen in gambling research on mobile platforms and compulsive engagement. This personal cost also extended into his family life, where secrecy, financial strain and emotional instability eroded trust and presence in his private home life.
This same predicament increasingly shows up in dating culture. On social media platforms like TikTok, some women explicitly share that they avoid or end relationships with men who participate in sports betting or gambling. They cite their own personal fears of financial instability and emotional unpredictability from these men. For them, it is not about single, isolated bets, but the pattern of behavior surrounding money, emotional inconsistencies, the risks they’re willing to take and the damage accumulated over time.
This broader distaste for sports betting also exists alongside a long-standing problem: the normalization of misogyny and violence committed against women that is embedded within many parts of sports culture. High-profile athletes, locker room environments and fan spaces have repeatedly been linked to cases of domestic violence, sexual assault or harassment that only raise concerns about how hypermasculine environments have the ability to reinforce harmful aggressive behaviors.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 1 in 3 women (nearly 43.5 million women) experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. The CDC also states that an average of 24 people per minute are victims of stalking, sexual assault or physical violence. These widespread statistics are often discussed in the context of major sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup or the Super Bowl, where mass alcohol consumption and high-stress environments have drawn some focus to the broader issue of societal domestic violence.
As sports betting and sports fans become more digitally embedded with each other, some may argue that the same spaces that intensify male bonding through competition and money can also amplify dismissive attitudes toward women’s concerns — especially when financial risk taking and emotional harm are normalized as part of “being into sports.”
Still, supporters of sports betting and gambling argue that these activities are social, skill-based, rooted in connection with friends and part of having pure love for the game. In other words, it is less like gambling and more like interactive entertainment. But as betting becomes increasingly integrated into sports, and Fantasy Football merges with sportsbooks, this distinction is harder to maintain. What once felt like a separate hobby now exists in one continuous digital landscape of wagers, leagues and live odds.
For younger generations navigating friendships, relationships or finances, the worry is no longer whether they will encounter betting culture, but how deeply it will shape their habits and social norms.