The Cincinnati Bearcats were suing quarterback Brendan Sorsby for breach of contract after the 22-year-old signed a new $5 million contract to play for the Texas Tech Red Raiders next year. The Bearcats claim the buyout clause in their multiyear agreement with Sorsby entitled them to $1 million.
But now neither team will enjoy Sorsby’s football services this fall after Sorsby checked himself into a residential treatment program for a gambling addiction. Apparently, Sorsby has been placing thousands of online bets on multiple sports, including on his own team while playing for the Indiana Hoosiers. Sorsby was so addicted to mobile sports gambling that he was reportedly betting $1-$3 per pitch at Cincinnati Reds games.
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Read that again. Sorsby wasn’t betting on the Reds to win or lose games. Thanks to mobile sports gambling, he was betting on individual pitches. Back-to-back. Hundreds of times in a single game.
The NCAA does not allow athletes to gamble on any sport. Violations can cost a player up to 30% of one season of eligibility. Betting on your own team, however, which Sorsby allegedly did, would constitute a lifetime ban.
Now, the same greedy lawyers that have eviscerated every other NCAA athlete eligibility rule will probably beat this one, too, and Sorsby will play college football again. But for now, the Red Raiders need a new quarterback, and Sorsby is trying to piece his life back together.
And Sorsby is not the only one.
University of Oklahoma economics professor Tyler Ransom has put together one of the most comprehensive presentations detailing how mobile sports gambling has been a complete and total disaster for everyone but greedy sports teams and broadcasters.
In the span of 22 pages, Ransom documents how mobile sports betting has undermined faith in all sports because of gambling scandals such as Sorsby’s, caused a 10% increase in bankruptcy filings, shifted consumer spending not from other forms of entertainment, but from savings, caused more domestic violence, and distracted a generation of men away from real life and into their phones.
“For an alcoholic, [mobile sports gambling] is like being forced to carry a flask in their pocket 24/7,” industry insider Zvi Mowshowitz is quoted as saying in the presentation, “They by default get notifications asking if now is a good time for a beer.”
And that comparison to alcohol is a good one. Both alcohol and gambling are vices, vices that have been with us since the dawn of civilization. But legalized mobile sports gambling is new, and a completely different beast than the regulated gambling of Las Vegas and Atlantic City, New Jersey. It is one thing if you have to travel thousands of miles for one weekend of bad decisions. It is quite another to have a device connected to your bank account tied to gambling apps 24/7.
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And at least alcohol has a well-established history of bringing people closer together, through religious ceremonies, drinking with friends, or even sharing a glass of wine with a romantic partner. Mobile sports gambling has none of those upsides. It only drives us further away from interactions with real people and deeper into our phones.
Hopefully, Sorsby will recover from his addiction and return to the football field, whether it is for a college team or a professional one. But very few young men are as lucky as Sorsby was to receive offers for free tuition at nine different colleges in exchange for playing football, and mobile sports gambling is ruining many of their lives.
