SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — As Pete Hall kicked off a four-day unit on gambling prevention in April, he asked his high school health class what comes to mind when they hear “sports betting.”
Fantasy football. Money. Socially engaging. Power. Control. Students typed on their laptops as Hall read their answers aloud.
“Adrenaline. Excitement. That sounds like it comes from somebody who’s maybe gambled a little bit — if you know what that feels like,” said Hall, 40, a health and P.E. teacher at Central High School in Springfield, about 90 miles west of Boston.
Hall then explained what gambling felt like for him — the rush of winning, the panic to recover after a loss — and how, eventually, it became compulsive.
“I grew up an athlete, played sports, thought I knew what I was doing,” said Hall, whose $5 and $10 bets grew into $5,000 and $10,000 bets, yet he never got ahead. “Every bet I won got me back to zero dollars.”
Hall said he could have gone down a path of “absolute destruction,” but fortunately, his family found out and he turned to Gamblers Anonymous for support.
When he heard Massachusetts was developing a new youth-focused program on preventing problem gambling, Hall told students he volunteered to help. “It was my way to give back,” said Hall, who hopes sharing his story will have an impact. “I don’t want to scare people. I just want to inform.”
In 2023, sports betting became legal in the commonwealth. It is now one of 39 states and the District of Columbia that allow some form of sports wagering. As the floodgates open up, it’s hard to escape the hype — and boys are often game. A recent survey of 11- to 17-year-old boys by Common Sense Media found that around a third gambled in the last year.
Research shows males are also at greater risk of developing a problem. Young people are particularly vulnerable because of peer pressure, their still-developing brains and the illusion of making quick money. Since gambling disorders develop over time, experts say early education is key. Massachusetts is in the second year of piloting this school-based gambling prevention program. Virginia and North Carolina are also experimenting with ways schools can bring attention to the potential danger of youth gambling, which some say is becoming a public health crisis.
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The landscape of gambling changed in the United States following a 2018 Supreme Court ruling overturning a federal law that had prevented most states from allowing sports betting.
Increased access to betting, especially with online platforms and mobile phones, has led to a new level of intensity, says Marlene Warner, executive director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health.
It’s not uncommon for teenage boys to have debit and credit cards, as well as access to their parents’ funds with their phones, Warner said. “Advertisements are coming at them fast and furious in a way that never would have before,” she said. “Kids from the ages of 11 or 12 are not only seeing the ads, they’re absolutely being directly targeted in terms of gambling.”
In 2024, the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General formed a Youth Sports Betting Safety Coalition with public agencies, nonprofit organizations and Boston professional sports teams, including the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics. The coalition tapped Warner’s council to create an evidence-based education, training and health curriculum for ages 12-20 to address the risks of gambling.
The new program was designed to get young people to think critically about sports betting, according to Shekinah Hoffman, director of programs and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the council.
“It’s a very hands-on approach,” said Hoffman, who led development of the curriculum. The lessons are giving students “the power and the tools and letting them learn, but also coming from a place of curiosity and self-reflection, rather than judgment.”
The four 45-minute sessions debunk myths about sports betting, convey risks and harms, provide strategies to outsmart sports betting ads, and teach financial skills about making wise spending choices. The program was introduced to 445 students at five high schools and three community organizations across the state in spring 2025.
Hoffman said there were significant shifts in student attitudes away from thinking of gambling as harmless fun or an easy way to make money. Seventy percent could identify warning signs of problem gambling, 64 percent said they intend to wait until they are of legal age to gamble, and 78 percent would recommend the program to a peer.
Based on the evaluations, Hoffman’s team refined and expanded the program, which is taking place this spring with 2,000 students at 15 high schools, plus 200 students at five middle schools.
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Next door to Hall at Central High, Melanie Dzioba debuted the revised media literacy lesson in her high school health class. Students analyzed commercials featuring comedian Kevin Hart for Boston-based DraftKings, model Kendall Jenner promoting Fanatics Sportsbook and one for Kalshi, the prediction market company that takes bets on anything from the weather to gas prices.
“Let’s talk about some of the tricks that are being used,” Dzioba said. Ads can create a sense of urgency with phrases such as “limited time offer” and “don’t miss out!” They also exaggerate the wins and hide the risks, she said.
“Have we ever heard a betting ad say, ‘You can lose all your money if you do this?’ No,” Dzioba said. She points to the warning message at the bottom of the ads, noting the font is so small that it’s hard to read.
A few of Dzioba’s students said they’ve downloaded betting apps, some on their own and others with the help of friends or family members. (As in most states, the actual legal age to wager on sports in Massachusetts is 21, but people can bet in prediction markets or buy a lottery ticket at age 18.)
One of Dzioba’s students, Jandiel Ortiz, 18, said he learned about the prediction platform Polymarket from watching a YouTuber named GOAT who calls himself a basketball scientist and makes videos of the NBA.
“If I’m low on money, I try to make a small bet, like $5, and earn back $20,” said Ortiz, an 11th grader who places bets about once a month. Overall, he says he’s wagered about $200 and come out even.
Since the gambling sessions at school, Ortiz said he hasn’t been betting as much and is considering deleting the Polymarket app. “I know that there is more of a risk that I will lose than win,” he said.
Six in 10 adolescent boys see gambling ads on YouTube and social media, according to the Common Sense Media report. Nearly half of the boys surveyed who gamble said they see gambling videos or streams online. For most, 59 percent, the ads are just showing up in their feeds.
“It’s not content they are searching for, necessarily,” said Michael Robb, head of research at Common Sense Media. “You look at the advertising and it’s part of the air they breathe.”
The report, released in January, found that around a quarter to a third of boys between 11 and 14 said they gambled in the past year. That percentage jumped for older adolescents; around half of 16- and 17-year-olds say they gambled over the same time period.
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For many, it’s a social thing. More than 80 percent whose friends gamble report gambling themselves. Around a third say they gamble with their own families — lottery tickets, scratch-off games, fantasy leagues, March Madness — which made them more than twice as likely to gamble on their own compared to boys who don’t.
The report also notes that online gaming can mimic gambling, with its chance-based systems and constant promotion of virtual gameplay items, or “loot boxes,” that are purchased with real money.
“This is a public health concern — not in the sense that it affects every boy, but for those kids who engage more deeply, the consequences can be serious,” Robb said. “What we know from research is that early exposure, through gaming or sports betting, can increase the likelihood of more problematic gambling later on.”
Robb encourages parents to monitor children’s online activity and have honest conversations about gambling. Schools can discuss the topic at parent nights, in health and math classes, and as part of digital literacy and financial literacy instruction, he said. Teachers also should be on the lookout for kids who exhibit problem gambling warning signs, Robb said.
“We educate kids about drugs, unprotected sex, drinking and driving, but very few do it around problem gambling,” said Jeff Derevensky, director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-risk Behaviours and professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal, who was on the development and evaluation team for the Massachusetts sports betting curriculum.
“Gambling has now become a socially acceptable, recreational pastime,” Derevensky said. “It’s not just about money. It’s about the adrenaline rush. It’s the thrill. And, unfortunately, that excitement and adrenaline rush comes when you’re winning, or, in fact, when you’re losing.”
One of Hall’s students, senior Davonna Davis, 18, said many boys in her friend group bet on games with each other, and she worries about the risk.
“Some people get too full of themselves and think they can make money but then realize they’ve gotten into a hole and they really can’t get out of it,” Davis said. “I try to persuade them not to even get into it because I know how deep it can get.”
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While Massachusetts is at the forefront of offering a program on the risks of sports betting, other states are working on the issue of problem gambling in the schools in different ways.
On the heels of legalizing casino gambling and online sports betting in 2020, the Virginia Legislature passed a bill in 2022 requiring education on problem gambling to be included in school curriculum. The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services led a team to develop a curriculum, according to Anne Rogers, problem gambling prevention coordinator for the department. The 90-minute (or two 45-minute) sessions cover the brain science of gambling, well-being impacts, laws, media literacy, financial literacy and how to make healthy choices.
In North Carolina, there is no mandate for gambling prevention instruction, but the state has distributed grants to support anti-gambling programs in middle schools, high schools and community organizations since 2010.
The next step in Massachusetts will be a review of the pilot’s second phase by Warner’s Council on Gaming and Health. She hopes that the resulting data will convince lawmakers to mandate problem gambling prevention in the commonwealth’s health curriculum.
Beyond classrooms, the council is exploring creating a digital version of the program geared toward 19- and 20-year-olds and recruiting athletes to tell their stories as part of the outreach.
At Central High, Phoenix Yates, a 17-year-old junior, said he knows lots of boys who like to gamble — often trying to “one-up” each other in friendly rivalries over games. Many are involved in fantasy sports or make bets at sport practices — wagering $10 or $15 if someone is going to miss a volleyball serve or get a certain number of football tackles.
But Yates said he’s not interested in betting. “The money I do have, I’m not going to risk it.”
Last year, Yates was in Hall’s initial class on sports betting. “I really appreciated hearing an actual person talk about it. It was surprising to hear how bad things could get, and how quickly, but also that there’s help out there.”
Contact editor Christina A. Samuels at 212-678-3635 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.
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