With football season starting and baseball nearing the World Series, it\u2019s hard to walk around campus without hearing about someone\u2019s latest parlay or fantasy lineup.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just the fall and approaching tournaments that bring an influx of gambling activity.<\/p>\n
Since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was struck down in 2018<\/a> \u2014 ending the federal ban on sports betting \u2014 the popularity of online gambling and betting has increased, especially among younger, college-aged bettors.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Brooke Rollins, an associate English professor at Lehigh who\u2019s currently writing a manuscript for a book on the rhetoric of gambling, the activity\u2019s popularity at Lehigh and colleges across the country is more than just a fad for millions of students<\/a>.<\/p>\n She said last year, Americans wagered around $170 billion on sporting events, and most of it happened on phones.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just become such an innate part of our lives,\u201d Rollins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n When discussing why online betting has become the major source of gambling revenue, Rollins pointed to the relationships people have with cellphones.<\/p>\n Phones allow bettors to gamble without ever leaving the couch, with almost everything at their fingertips.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can go on your phone and not just bet on sports, but play blackjack and slots,\u201d Rollins said. Everything you could play in the Bethlehem Casino, you can play on your phone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Rollins said young men are especially at risk for the formation of a gambling habit, as they\u2019ve become the target audience for online gambling and gaming companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a report from CNN<\/a>, college-age adults gambling on prediction markets are now concerning addiction experts. Prediction markets are an increasingly popular new form of gambling which allows bettors to gamble on the outcome of future events.<\/p>\n The targeting of young people worries Frank Gunter, a professor emeritus of economics at Lehigh.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things I find very disturbing is that since we moved from casino gambling to online gambling, it\u2019s targeting younger and younger people,\u201d Gunter said. \u201cCommon Sense Media did a study showing that 49%<\/a> of 17-year-old boys have gambled online before.\u201d<\/p>\n Gunter said for young people the adverse financial effects of losing can often be worse, adding financial stress to the existing pressures of college life.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s mainly encouraging students betting at Lehigh isn\u2019t the proximity to Wind Creek Casino, but the seamless nature of online gambling.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rollins said the ease and familiarity of online gambling, coupled with the fast normalization, has caused a frictionless environment for gambling culture to grow on and off campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a slow cultural drift; it happened really fast, and I think when gambling becomes so frictionless, it stops being this kind of discreet activity,\u201d Rollins said. \u201cWe don\u2019t even have any distance from it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s not that people are more gambling oriented,\u201d Gunter said. \u201cIt\u2019s that the way we gamble now is incredibly pernicious.\u201d<\/p>\n A sophomore at Lehigh, who asked to remain anonymous due to the personal nature of his gambling habits, said he\u2019s been gambling online for the past two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said he was checking betting apps three times a day at the height of his usage.\u00a0<\/p>\n