March Madness is upon us, which means about a third of Americans — almost 100 million people — will be filling out brackets to compete at the office, among friends, or even just with family members.
College basketball tournament brackets have been a cultural phenomenon since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, but the advent of the internet made filling out brackets and tabulating results much easier, driving both increased participation and tournament viewership.
Now, not all of these bracket pools involve money; in fact, only about half of office pools do, and most family ones do not. Still, it would be safe to say that millions of Americans have had at least a little money riding on March Madness for a long time. The average office pool entry fee is about $30 today.
But ubiquitous legalized online gambling is changing all that, with millions of fans now betting not just on individual game outcomes, but also on individual player performances, down to granular stats including points scored or steals.
Legalized gambling is not only changing how Americans interact with sports, but also who they root for.
Sacred Heart University recently conducted a poll of 1,500 American adults on sports gambling, and the results show a nation conflicted about the rapid normalization of what was once considered a vice.
The top-line results should please Big Gambling. More than half of Americans (53%) have at least a “somewhat” positive perception of sports gambling, up slightly from last year. An identical 53% believes the sports gambling industry in their state behaves at least “mostly responsibl[y],” and another 54% believes sports gambling should be legalized nationwide.
But there are some warning signs in the poll as well. Three in 10 Americans report knowing at least one person personally whose well-being was damaged by sports gambling. And more Americans (45%) believe sports gambling has had more “negative effects on society overall” than positive (38%), while 60% believe sports gambling creates incentives that compromise competitive integrity, and 66% are at least somewhat concerned about corruption in sports caused by gambling.
Most interestingly, at least to me, 57% of respondents said they found themselves rooting against their favorite team because of a bet they had placed. Maybe it is just me, but while I can understand betting on a game where you are otherwise indifferent about the outcome, why would anyone pay money to root against their favorite team?
In a world where our interests are already atomized and community bonds are weakening, do we really need another force pulling us apart from our local communal bonds?
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In a world where young men already report that “not enough money” is the No. 1 reason they don’t date women, do we really need another commercialized vice preying upon them?
I will be filling out a March Madness bracket this year. Unfortunately, none of the teams I regularly root for made the tournament. But I do hate Duke University. And while I think they have a strong chance to win the tournament, I will never pick them. No amount of money is worth rooting for Duke. #NeverDuke.
