Back with a vengeance on Wescoe Beach after getting kicked out of Kansas in 2023 for violating state gambling laws, the sports betting app Underdog Fantasy has returned to targeting college students with cash giveaways during Hawk Week in exchange for creating an account and placing a bet. They are not the only group to have jumped at the chance to profit from the lucrative market that emerged when Kansas legalized sports betting in 2022. The University Daily Kansan is promoting weekly parlays, and the Kansas Gaming and Racing Commission is promoting betting at Kansas State University. Our college mental health services are not prepared to support students who develop addictions, and it is having devastating effects on students and athletes alike.
Sports betting has always been a part of the fabric of college life. Even after nationwide criminalization in 1992, it persisted in the underbelly of the university without any formal marketing apparatus. During this era, it was still fueled by addiction, with students ending up in tens of thousands of dollars in debt, running on the belief that they were smart enough to beat the odds. A 1995 article from Sports Illustrated highlights the important role that the live broadcasting of games from Allen Fieldhouse to televisions across the nation had in ‘democratizing’ sports betting in the same way that the stock ticker ‘democratized’ Wall Street.
Seven years ago, after litigation from states who wanted to cash in on this black market, the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide ban, and a lobbying race began across America to legalize sports betting in every state. Television was old news. A new market had emerged, allowing students to place bets directly on their phones and respond in real-time to any game of their choosing. This enabled thrilling speculation around not just the outcome, but specific plays and player statistics. Kansas was ground zero for this transformation. Reporting in The New York Times in 2022 revealed our state politicians gave lucrative tax breaks to the industry and skirted campaign finance laws to approve licenses for political donors. The promise of cashing in proved to be a farce for the states. Kansas instead invested in selling out its most vulnerable citizens to the lowest bidder.
On campuses, the impact of this transformation has been devastating. According to a 2023 NCAA survey 60% of college students have engaged in betting activity, with even higher rates for students living on campus who report seeing more targeted advertising than the general population. Young men in particular tend to report much higher levels of problem gambling, with rates rising over time. Recent surveys estimate that just over 45% of college-aged men engage in at least one problematic gambling behavior.
Influencing this culture is Volunteer Staff Writer for the University Daily Kansan, Caden Letsche, who publishes a weekly column recommending parlays under the title “Letsche’s Lockes”. The column has official branding designed by Head Sport Editor Ben Hooke and receives additional editorial support from the paper.
Sports betting does not only hurt students, it also hurts our athletes. The NCAA found that during the championship season, targeted harassment of student athletes, coaches, and officials by people with betting interests increases, creating a “nightmare” for mental health outcomes. The Kansan spares no innocence in encouraging the practice of player prop bets, which place stakes on an individual athlete's performance. In Week One, Letsche recommended students bet on University of Kansas (KU) running back Daniel Hishaw Jr scoring a touchdown against the Wagner Seahawks.
In response to a request for comment, Ben Hooke, head sports editor at The Kansan told The Weekly Rose:
The player props point is notable, I think, but limited. You're correct that Caden advocated for a bet on Daniel Hishaw to score (which he did), but he has not advocated for any other player props and does not plan to.
Sports betting apps are designed to manipulate students' fear of missing out on the opportunities Letsche advertises. By branding themselves as a game of skill and telling players to “never waste a hunch”, apps lean into students’ perceived sports knowledge to get them to take bigger and bigger risks. Peer groups who bet together perceive fewer risks associated with gambling. The culture we build around sports betting will have an outsized impact on student outcomes.
AJ KOHLER: Companies may have found a new demographic to distinguish themselves with, but they use many of the same predatory tactics as traditional casinos. Just a few miles south of Pittsburg lies the Kansas Crossing Casino. They have the normal casino faire, like slots and table games for their older clientele, and sports betting through Caesar Sportsbook for the younger generation, which allows students to bet on live games.
Gambling doesn’t cause an immediate dopamine rush like some drugs. Anticipation, rather than winning, triggers your brain's reward circuits. Regardless of the outcome, the spinning of the roulette wheel is what keeps gamblers coming back. Problem gambling is predicted by someone’s perceived ability to accurately predict wins. Casinos do everything in their power to lower your perception of risk, and maximize your perception of reward.
I used to work at a Casino in Northeast Oklahoma as a stagehand. While I rarely interacted with anyone on the gaming floor, I did have to go through it in order to get to the stage. This is deliberate. The Casino knows that if the concert venue doesn’t have an outdoor entrance, they can make you wait on the gaming floor, where you will be surrounded by visual enticements to gamble. My training included a video on how to spot gambling addiction. It illuminated that gambling is one of the most deadly addictions, not because gambling in and of itself is fatal, but because people get in so much debt that they either take their own life or have their life taken by someone they are indebted to.
Despite this training, I observed the casino do everything in its power to encourage people to keep going. Small techniques like constantly smiling when you’re on the floor and saying “good win” will encourage people to keep going. These same tactics are making their way onto college campuses.
DANIEL ROBERTSON AND LOGAN THOMAS: Inducements, like the $80 incentives given out by Underdog Fantasy at KU, make gamblers feel like they have more control over the outcome of their bets. This paradox of credibility is so much worse when Universities permit the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission to promote “responsible” gambling while giving out free bets. They appeared at the Kansas State Student Union during the “Week of Welcome”, when many freshmen and new students were exploring campus opportunities for the first time. The Commission wore shirts that mentioned problem gambling, but passed out cards for free sports bets, witnesses told The Weekly Rose. Just like the casinos, they put on an air of concern, and in this case appeared as responsible government agents, while simultaneously ushering in new customers for parasitic gambling companies.
Once they get you signed up, sports betting apps hijack your brain to keep you invested. By removing the friction inherent to the activity, “microbets” on in-play outcomes are easier to get hooked on. These are associated with higher rates of problem gambling, especially among younger, more educated adults. Apps aggressively push notifications to your phone with all sorts of incentives, which turn betting into a continuous reward process, like checking social media, instead of a measured or deliberate activity. Research at the University of Kansas demonstrated that sports betting drains household income faster than other forms of gambling, reflecting the impact of these design choices.
Universities are getting in on the grift as well. Michigan State, which KU considers to be a peer institution, signed a deal with Caesar's Entertainment through a third-party sports marketing firm to skirt public disclosure laws. It included announcements during games and access to tailgating venues. Louisiana State University, which signed a similar deal, sent out a promo for $300 in free bets to students' university emails, including to students under 21, the legal gambling age. Both colleges have since ended these partnerships following concerns over rising rates of addiction.
When platforms like The Kansan run stories guaranteeing “Locks”, studies show students feel more confident in their abilities while gambling. Although Letche’s record isn’t terrible - he went 12 for 22 in his first 5 articles - the way he packages bets leaves students vulnerable. Letsche recommends 3-5 games each week for students to place a parlay on. Parlays allow you to stack the odds by betting on multiple outcomes in hopes of seeing a bigger return. If one of those predictions is incorrect, you lose your initial wager, but multiple losses can be offset by a single win.
At first, this seems lucrative. If Letsche’s predictions were on point, readers would have seen a 12x return in Week 2, but the statistical reality is more complicated. The Moneyline favorites, which Letsche cites, tend to win only 66% of the time. Stacking just two of those puts your chances of success under 50%. Stacking 4 bets like Letsche recommended in week two puts your chances at just 18%. Stack 5 like he recommended in week three, the odds you win are only 12%. The “near miss” experience betters encounter when all but one of the legs of a parlay succeeds has volatile psychological impacts, but encourages gamblers to keep going, validating their “hunches”. Despite knowing that rationally parlays are more dangerous, the promise of high returns causes gamblers to dig deeper and deeper into the hole. At the end of Week 5, still riding high off of his Week Zero success, The Kansan’s very own “betting insider” is only 1 for 6 in successful parlays, down $282 on the year (Moneyline betting odds are calculated on the basis of a hundred dollar bet).
When we reached out for comment, Hooke told The Weekly Rose:
Caden asked if he could do this column at the beginning of the year and I said yes. He enjoys gambling and is of legal age to do so, and betting is legal in the state of Kansas, so I saw no reason why he couldn't put out the piece given that other sites like The Kansas City Star digitally publish articles of this nature.
The series is largely entertainment. We are transparent about our financial nature (that we are not supported by any outside gaming companies) and look to provide a disclaimer on responsible betting. I would not point to Caden's picks as "expert advice" or "expertise" in any way, and I don't think the work does either.
I'm not sure what the $100 figure for an average parlay bet is from but I'm a little surprised by that. As far as I know, Caden has not bet any more than $10 on a single parlay and I doubt anyone, had they taken his advice, would place that size of a wager with this advice.
Stories of problem gambling are unfortunately all too prevalent, especially among college athletes. Bets can start small, then quickly spiral from hundreds to thousands of dollars. One former player told ESPN:
I started winning money, so I figured, oh man, this is easy. I can do this. Then it kind of snowballs on you. Before you know it, you're waking up, what are we taking? What's live right now? Going to breakfast, going to a workout, watching a game, having a game on my phone just to stimulate me. I had parlays going even in classes. It's almost like surviving a car accident. You're in the car and your heart's beating, and your body's in shock. That's kind of to a miniature scale, the state of gambling. And I happen to like that feeling.
Even a hundred dollars is enough to make or break someone’s rent or food budget. The line between entertainment and dependence is thin when you can “double your paycheck if Iowa wins their next game”. The house and the deck are stacked against students. Universities have a duty to create safe learning environments for students, not offer their enrollees to the wolves.
Although the Health Education Resource Office (HERO) at KU has some education materials on sports betting that they run during March Madness, they have low visibility compared to advertisements and inducements. Clinical and Psychological Services (CAPS), the first stop for students facing addiction, told us they do not have any resources specific to the topic. Sports betting is spreading, not going away. Several sports books are set to come to Missouri on December 1st, the state with the second highest enrollment in Kansas Universities. Even if it is just for entertainment purposes, 58% of students report being more likely to engage in sports betting activities after seeing advertisements. The effect of normalizing sports betting is not neutral, whether it be through a group tabling at the university, or through an article in The Kansan. It is now incumbent on our universities to get ahead of this problem by providing real support services instead of encouraging it.
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