If you live in Bowling Green long enough, you know March and April mean two things: Hoops on the TV and traffic on Scottsville Road. But lately, there’s a third thing creeping in between tipoff and young men heading class: betting apps lighting up phones across campus.
We’re not just talking about Vegas tourists or your office bracket pool anymore. A CNN investigation shows the gambling boom is targeting young men, especially those who already live and breathe sports.
In a college town like ours, that matters. STAT reports that today’s sports betting apps are engineered for constant action: live bets, micro-bets, push notifications that buzz like a group text from your buddies. NPR recently detailed how online betting addiction is rising among young people nationwide.
This isn’t pearl-clutching. The research has been flagging this for years. Early exposure to gambling-style environments correlates with higher risk behaviors later. Responsible Gambling explains why young adults are especially vulnerable to impulsive decision-making, exactly what these apps monetize. Add in the blurry line between gaming and gambling, and you’ve got a culture where “just for fun” can quietly turn into rent money.
Professor Scott Galloway, author of Notes on Being a Man, has warned that many young men today are isolated and searching for status and belonging. Betting apps offer a fast, flashy illusion of both. In a college town, that illusion can spread fast.
So what do we do in Bowling Green?
1) Make it normal to talk about it. Parents, coaches, and campus leaders, bring gambling into the same conversation as alcohol and social media.
2) Teach real money skills. Budgeting for books, rent, and gas beats chasing parlays.
3) Create guardrails. No shared credit cards. Bank alerts on. Transparency beats secrecy.
4) Double down on community. Intramurals, student orgs, church groups, live games at Houchens-Smith Stadium or Diddle Arena. A real connection beats solo scrolling.
5) Know the red flags. Mood swings after losses, secrecy, borrowing money, “just one more” thinking.
Bowling Green prides itself on being a community town, not just a college town. Let’s keep our young people cheering for the Purples, Spartans, Dragons, Gators, Raiders, and Tops. Not quietly betting against their own future.
Before you scroll on, there’s one more thing worth your time.
If you want to understand how we got here, how sports betting went from smoky back rooms to polished apps on every student’s phone, watch a recent investigation by More Perfect Union. It lays out how DraftKings and FanDuel now control 67% of the sports betting market, how the odds have quietly shifted against everyday bettors, how aggressive promos are designed to keep you losing longer, and how frequent winners can get limited or cut off entirely.
They trace the story from America’s earliest gambling roots to the modern sports betting boom, and they ask a simple question: if this is supposed to be entertainment, why does it feel so engineered?
Whether you’re a parent, a student, or just someone who loves football without needing a parlay attached to it, the video gives helpful context. It’s not anti-sports. It’s not anti-fun. It’s about understanding the system you’re stepping into.
Bowling Green deserves informed fans, not just active users.
Watch it. Talk about it. Then decide what kind of culture we want in Southern Kentucky.
It’s also worth noting that several gambling-related bills filed this session, including proposals to raise the betting age to 21 and limit proposition bets, have seen no movement in committee. There’s been no push from either party to revisit the structure of sports wagering, and no visible executive action to tighten oversight.
That doesn’t mean crisis. It means the responsibility lands closer to home. If policy isn’t changing, culture will. And culture starts here.