Is Sports Betting Good or Bad?

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Onyemaechi Mbanefo, Staff Writer

Sports betting has been getting really popular in America over the past few years. 46% of American adults, which equals to over 106 million people today are now using websites like FanDuel, DraftKings, and PrizePicks to bet on sports leagues and players trying to make thousands, even millions of dollars.

If you don’t know what sports betting is, sports betting is when 2 or more individuals wager money on the outcome of a sporting event. There are multiple factors to determine how much money you win, spreads, over and under, and parlays are some of the main factors to earn money but to also lose money. Like most betting, sports betting is a high-risk, high-reward type of thing; you can win a lot, but also lose a lot.

Now if you’re new to betting and think “if I lose this bet nothing bad will come out of it”, well you are definitely wrong, as in 2007 a famous Las Vegas bettor who placed a bet 835 million dollars in bets and lost 127 million dollars off his betting. There’s also a 50/50 split in sports betting, as either you win a lot of money or lose a lot of money. It’s basically a guessing game if you look at it in a simpler way.

Is sports betting good for you or bad for you? It can really mean both if you look in one different way than another, some might say it’s a careless way of losing money and is very dangerous, while others would say that it is a great way to spend your money, but also gain money as it brings in an exciting factor towards it.

Well, today I have interviewed two DeMatha men, Jacques Kearns, a sophomore, and Stephen McDonald, a senior. Jaques says, “I think it’s a good hobby if you know what you are doing and if you’re smart with your money, I don’t think it would be good for a person who doesn’t know too much about sports, and if you’re doing this by chance as there is a skill in this game, and will actually work if you have some good knowledge in sports.”

Stephen said that “I think the problem is that it is too accessible, like idiots who run around and bet then lose all their money. If you’re smart enough you can make bank, but it’s so accessible that there is a population that just throw all their money away.”