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Sports betting isn’t all bad but needs better regulation.
Since the state of North Carolina legalized online sports betting, the amount wagered has grown to more than $120 billion a year. Eighteen percent goes to the state and primarily used to support college athletic departments, especially the smaller schools in the University of North Carolina system that don’t have substantial external revenue sources like UNC and N.C. State, which still get six figures to add to their budgets.
Now, here is the bad news.
The influence sports betting has on people with compulsive gambling habits is untold. Sure, each ad on TV has fine print you can barely see with warning messages and phone numbers to call for help with such an addiction. That obviously has to do with the state laws passed to legalize sports betting, just like there are “danger” messages on packs of cigarettes and at liquor stores.
Pro sports are one thing, but college athletes should be removed from the betting categories. In his last season at Carolina, Armando Bacot talked about the hundreds of hateful comments he got over social media sites from people who bet on how many rebounds he would get in a game. That is patently unfair.
And have you noticed how the number of online betting sites have grown over the last few years? Every casino in Las Vegas has a site along with most cable TV networks. And how the commercials promoting those sites hire actors like Kevin Hart and Jamie Foxx and others who could lose millions if they wagered and would never know the money was gone.
For the same reason, I personally do not like commercial breaks in games flashing up small windows with the studio hosts from the pregame and halftime shows picking overs and unders on the stars of the games being telecast. C’mon, aren’t Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith wealthy enough that they don’t have to create more gamblers?
Online betting pays tempters and influencers at the highest levels, hiring celebrities from movies, music and sports to do commercials for retail products and services. If it’s not Jake from State Farm, the Mayhem Man from Allstate and Flo from Progressive, all insurance companies, scores of other national ads pay big bucks to current pro athletes like Jayson Tatum and Caitlin Clark while former stars like Rob Gronkowski and David Beckham push everything from autos to sports apparel to beer and soft drinks.
Just like the manufacturers of those products benefit from the sales generated from those ads, the famous messengers make six and seven figures for being spokespeople. The credit cards are already run so it’s probably too late, but don’t you think laws and regulations could be better tailored to the greater good? It’s as easy for underage kids to bet on restricted platforms as it is for them to use fake IDs at the ABC Store and bars and restaurants.
That’s bad.
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Featured image via Associated Press/John Locher
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
Chansky’s Notebook: Bettors Beware Chapelboro.com.
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