By Justin Stulpe
Sports betting has become ingrained into the fabric of sports over the past few years, but not that long ago sports betting was banned in most parts in the United States. The constant flurry of advertisements through commercials, mainstream media and celebrities promoting betting at every turn and the easily accessible nature of apps that make it incredibly easy to sign up and place wagers have certainly contributed to the exponential explosion in the popularity of sports betting.
Since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was repealed in 2018, permitting states to allow sports betting, sportsbooks across the countries have gone from just over $6.6 billion wagered by bettors in 2018, to over $142.5 billion in 2024. This rapid growth has been fueled by more and more states legalizing sports betting, with people in 38 states and Washington D.C. currently able to place wagers.
Along with more and more states legalizing the practice, the increased publicity that betting has garnered, especially in the past few years, is another reason why it is so popular and accepted in today’s culture. Whether it be celebrities promoting it through commercials, TV broadcasts trying to get new customers through promotions for free money, or even giant ads inside the stadiums where the games are played has led to betting being synonymous with current sports culture.
With the constant stream of propaganda trying to entice people to start sports betting, it can be tough to manage gambling with the media hyping up every game with moneylines, overs and unders, player props and promotions for free money or boosted odds. Being able to control gambling by knowing what to avoid and when to stop is critical to avoid becoming addicted, as gambling can develop into a destructive habit that ruins people’s lives.
I have personal experience with sports betting, as I began right after my 21st birthday. My entire life has revolved around sports, whether it be playing or watching, I have always been entrenched in the culture of sports.
When I heard the news that sports betting was legalized in Michigan back in 2019, I knew that when I turned 21 I would be participating by placing wagers on NFL games that I had been watching my entire life. Being the friend and family member that people ask for answers to sports questions made me feel that when I was able to, I would do very well in my goal of making money by putting my sports knowledge to the test and putting some money on it.
In addition to my individual understanding of sports and my own plans to start sports betting when I was the legal age to do so, people close to me, including family members and older friends, encouraged me to join in on the growing phenomenon of sports betting. A lot of people fall into a similar situation to mine, that being people enamored with sports who wanted to make some money off of it when they were old enough, along with those close to them constantly urging them to get into betting.
This process, however, can easily lead to a full-blown addiction, when people start to chase losses in order to get back to even, which repeats itself to the point where people ruin their lives off of gambling debts. Luckily for me, I have never had an issue with being addicted, all the while being up money over the course of my sports betting career. I have learned and implemented a few different strategies and limitations in order to not get addicted to chasing the highs of a win, or trying to make up for frequent losses that are inevitable with sports betting.
One of the most important tactics that I have applied to my own sports betting accounts on my phone has been being able to set user limits on various different aspects within the online betting apps. For example, on one of the most widely used sports betting apps Fanduel, there are many different categories that can have limits placed on them to ensure that irrational depositing or spending does not occur. Some of these limits include deposit limits of how much money you can put into your account to bet with, alerts of reaching a loss limit that will stop your ability to place wagers when you have lost a set amount of money, along with maximum wager amount limits and time limits on the app per day.
These user limits are pretty universal across many popular sports betting platforms, but they are incredibly useful to help gauge and moderate what is going into and what is being lost in your account. I set limits on each of the previously mentioned categories immediately when I registered to be able to place bets, and it has helped me handle my money very efficiently and not let me spend and deposit absurd amounts of money monthly.
In conjunction with setting limits on things such as the most amount of money that can be placed on a bet, determining a unit size and sticking to it is crucial to maintaining control over the money that is being spent on wagers. In betting terminology, a unit is the dollar amount that a bettor uses to standardize the stake they place on each bet. For example, a person that decides they want to put $10 on every bet they place means that their unit size would be $10.
Assessing how much money a unit size should be per person should be based on multiple factors including, evaluating your total bankroll and ensuring it is money that you can afford to lose, choosing a small percentage of bankroll to keep money volatility in check, and consider establishing a smaller unit size based on frequent bets being placed.
Avoid Betting on games or players just for the sake of placing a bet instead of being confident in what you are putting your hard earned money on. Sites like Fanduel, Draftkings and ESPN Bet are always cycling through profit boosts and no-sweat promotions that try to get people to place wagers on anything and everything. While some of these promotions can be beneficial to take in the event that you were planning on placing a bet on a game anyway and there is a promotion for it, don’t feel compelled to place a bet on something that you have not researched or put thought into just because the odds are slightly improved to increase winnings.
One of the main ways people start to lose money from sports betting is by placing wagers on parlays instead of just straight bets. A parlay is a bet split that includes multiple separate bets combined with one another that increases the payout considerably per “leg” added, whereas a straight bet is just one individual bet by itself that pays out less. Many people think that the way to build a bankroll through sports betting is to hit a couple of longshot parlays that pay out 10 to 20 times the initial wager amount, but it is actually the opposite when it comes to parlays. Parlays are incredibly difficult to hit when many different bets are placed together, so when they inevitably lose, the rare wins of these types of bets do not make up for the losses the user built up trying to hit one of these low-chance bets.
Instead of placing a 13-leg parlay that would turn five dollars into $2,000 with an astronomically low chance of winning, consider placing a straight bet instead. It is much less risky in the long-term and has a remarkably higher chance of hitting than those small-wager longshot parlays that build up considerable losses over time.
Sportsbooks make a majority of their revenue from user losses off of parlays, so don’t feed into the oddsmakers tricks in placing those parlays that usually don’t win, but opt to build a bankroll in the avenue of smaller, yet monumentally more stable manner of placing straight bets to stay even or make money.
Lastly and arguably most importantly, never chase losses by depositing higher amounts of money than normal and placing increasingly risky wagers to try and make back the losses that are unavoidable when sports betting. The most responsible thing to do when you have endured more losses than you are comfortable with is to distance yourself from betting in its entirety and just walk away. Understanding that sports betting is inherently designed for you to fail, do not get too drawn into the idea of trying to break even, as it will get much worse more often than getting much better.
Sports betting is a double-edged sword in today’s culture, as it creates a sense of community for people who enjoy sports that want to prove their sports knowledge by making money off of it, but it can become an inescapable monster that can swallow people’s livelihoods in crippling debts. If you do decide to start sports betting, try to implement some of the aforementioned strategies to help control it to a low-stakes practice for fun and not let it consume you and your life. Most importantly, if you or a person close to you has a gambling problem, reach out to the Michigan Gambling Helpline for support and confidential help.
