An Explosion in Sports Betting Is Driving Gambling Addiction Among College Students

Gambling addiction is a disorder recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, but students who don’t meet all the criteria for a clinical diagnosis can still struggle with gambling. It’s often correlated with other forms of addiction, as well as anxiety and depression, experts say, and problem gambler are at greater risk of suicide. Because it is legal, because it is aggressively promoted by corporations, because of its capacity for destruction, and because it is spreading so quickly, observers see parallels between gambling and opioid addiction.

One out of 10 college students is a pathological gambler, according to one meta-analysis conducted by professors at the University of Buffalo, far higher than the 2-5% of the U.S. general population estimated to have a gambling problem. Other studies place the number of student gambling addicts lower, but still higher than the overall population of pathological gamblers.

Large universities have counseling departments, to help students with things like depression and anxiety, and they also employ professionals to deal with substance abuse. Gambling falls between the cracks and “doesn’t have a home,” says Jim Lange, the executive director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drug Misuse Prevention and Recovery, at Ohio State. Schools don’t usually ask about gambling on student welfare surveys, he says, and students who self-report gambling addictions are extremely uncommon, and probably not representative of the overall population.

Campuses may be slow to appreciate the problem in part because gambling addictions aren’t as visible as other disorders, Lange says. Without the same signs of erratic behavior or weight loss that can alert peers or professors to a substance abuse disorder, even close friends or partners of gambling addicts can miss the problem. In many cases, when college counseling services do become aware of problem gambling, it’s often because the student has other, more obvious mental health issues.

To address this gap in care, Lange and others formed a consortium of university substance abuse experts to try and develop best practices for educating and treating college students. About 20 experts convene once a month to discuss findings and new research.

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