Sports Betting is a Scam

“Bro, I just placed a bet for the Blue Jays to win Game 7 of the World Series.”

Those were the last words I heard from my friend before he went quiet for the next week. No, he’s not dead. He’s just depressed that the Blue Jays lost—and honestly, so am I. But what I want to focus on isn’t the Blue Jays’ heartbreaking losses, but rather the betting itself.

Nowadays, I can’t scroll through YouTube without seeing ads from BetMGM or FanDuel, or browse Instagram without getting bombarded with reels of people celebrating wins on sports betting apps. And it’s obvious these ads are laser-focused on young people like us. So why is everyone suddenly obsessed with parlays and prop bets, and more importantly, how does the economics of sports betting actually work?

Sports betting isn’t some revolutionary new invention—it’s been around for centuries. In the UK, betting on football matches at the local bookmaker has been part of the culture since the 1960s. Walk into any pub on match day and you’ll find people casually placing bets, treating it as just another form of entertainment alongside their pints. The same is true across much of Europe, where sports betting has been legal and relatively regulated for decades. The key difference? It was contained, normalized, and didn’t have the aggressive digital marketing machine behind it that we see today.

The real turning point came in 2018, when the United States Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, making America one of the last developed countries to legalize it nationwide. This opened the floodgates. Suddenly, companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM could legally operate across most states, and they wasted no time expanding aggressively into the market. In Canada, single-event sports betting was legalized in August 2021 through Bill C-218, ending decades of restrictions that limited Canadians to parlay bets only.

The numbers tell the story of explosive growth. The global sports betting market was valued at approximately $83 billion USD in 2023 and is projected to reach $182 billion by 2030. In the United States alone, over $119 billion was wagered on sports in 2023—just five years after legalization began. Canada’s market, though smaller, is growing rapidly, with an estimated $14 billion wagered annually as of 2024.

This industry expansion explains why you’re suddenly seeing betting ads everywhere. These companies are fighting for market share in a gold rush, spending billions on advertising to convert casual sports fans into active bettors. And their primary target? Gen Z and young millennials scrolling through social media.

The ugly truth is that sports betting companies aren’t in the business of making you rich—they’re in the business of making themselves rich, and the math is entirely in their favor.

Sports books make money through what’s called the “vig” or “juice”—essentially a commission built directly into the betting odds. When you place a bet, you’re not getting true odds; you’re getting odds that have been adjusted to guarantee the house makes money regardless of the outcome. This commission typically ranges from 4.5% to 10% depending on the type of bet and the platform.

Here’s how it works in practice. Imagine a coin flip, which has true 50/50 odds. If betting was fair, you’d wager $100 to win $100. But sports books might offer you -110 odds, meaning you need to bet $110 to win $100. If they get equal action on both sides of the bet, they collect $220 in total wagers but only pay out $210 ($100 winnings plus $110 returned stake), pocketing $10 regardless of which side wins. Multiply this across millions of bets, and you can see how profits accumulate.

The data on who’s betting reveals an even more concerning picture. Young men between the ages of 21 and 34 represent the most active demographic in sports betting, with research showing that approximately 60% of bettors in this age group place three or more bets per week. In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, nearly 1.4 million people have registered sports betting accounts since legalization—roughly 9% of the province’s population.

Gen Z is absolutely driving this growth. A 2023 survey found that 19% of Canadians regularly bet on sports, but among those aged 18-34, that number jumps to 31%. And we can’t ignore the social media effect: TikTok and Instagram are filled with content creators showing off their “winning” bets (conveniently omitting their losses), creating a dangerous cycle of FOMO and perceived easy money.

In Canada, hockey and basketball dominate betting volume, but baseball has seen significant growth, with approximately 29% of sports bets placed on MLB games during the season. And you can bet that number spiked whenever the Blue Jays were in a crucial game—misery loves company, and apparently, so does gambling.

The profit margins for these companies are staggering. DraftKings reported revenue of $3.7 billion in 2023, while FanDuel’s parent company Flutter Entertainment reported North American revenue of $9.5 billion in the same year. These are massive corporations extracting wealth from mostly young, mostly male bettors who believe they can win.

The demographics of sports betting reveal uncomfortable truths about human psychology and who’s most vulnerable. Young men with disposable income and relatively stable employment are the prime targets, and there’s a reason for that. Research shows this demographic tends to be less risk-averse, more impulsive, and more susceptible to the dopamine-driven reward systems that betting apps are specifically designed to exploit.

Clinical research has found that sports betting, particularly through mobile apps with instant gratification features, activates the same neural pathways as traditional gambling addiction. A 2023 study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that young adults who engage in frequent sports betting show similar patterns of impulsivity, reward sensitivity, and loss-chasing behavior as those diagnosed with gambling disorders. The convenience of mobile betting—the ability to place a bet in seconds from your couch, during a commercial break, or even during the game itself—accelerates this addictive cycle.

The financial impact is harder to track but increasingly evident. While individual bets might seem small—$10 here, $20 there—they accumulate rapidly. The average sports bettor in Canada loses approximately $1,200 per year, according to 2023 estimates. For young people early in their careers, that’s money that could go toward rent, student loans, emergency savings, or investments. Instead, it’s transferred to massive corporations’ bottom lines.

Financial counselors are increasingly reporting that young clients are struggling with debt directly tied to sports betting, with some cases involving thousands of dollars in losses in just months. Credit card debt, payday loans, and drained savings accounts are becoming more common, all fueled by the belief that the next bet will recover previous losses—a classic gambler’s fallacy.

There’s also the broader economic impact to consider. Money spent on sports betting is money not being spent in the productive economy. It’s not going to local businesses, it’s not being saved for future investment, and it’s not contributing to economic growth in meaningful ways. It’s simply being transferred from individuals to corporate shareholders, with no value created in the process.

I’ll be honest—I’ve gambled on games before, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thrilling. The adrenaline rush is real. I remember my attention on the game increasing tenfold, every missed shot or successful play suddenly mattering on a personal level. If I had bet on the Blue Jays, my sports depression might have needed professional intervention.

In that regard, I get the appeal. Sports betting can genuinely add entertainment value to watching games. There’s a reason it’s been part of sports culture for centuries. The problem isn’t the existence of sports betting—it’s the industrialization, gamification, and predatory targeting of it that’s new and concerning.

For many young men experiencing disposable income for the first time, the combination of biological impulses, social pressure, and aggressive marketing creates a perfect storm for bad economic decisions. That small thrill of placing a bet can quickly spiral into an expensive habit that drains your finances and warps your relationship with sports.

And as with all economic decisions in life, there’s always a tradeoff. You need to figure out for yourself what balance makes sense—how much entertainment value are you actually getting from betting, and what’s it costing you in real terms?

Here’s my advice: before you place another bet, go look at your betting history. Actually calculate how much you’ve won versus how much you’ve lost. Check your bank account. Look at the real numbers, because numbers don’t lie—but your feelings, your impulses, and definitely those targeted Instagram ads absolutely do.

The house always wins in the long run. The question is: are you okay with being the one paying for their victory? Because every dollar you lose is a dollar they gain, and the economics of this industry are designed with mathematical precision to ensure that, over time, money flows away from you.

Anyway, I do hope you hit that parlay though. Just remember the odds.

Thank you for reading the Americano.

November 12th, 2025.