A recently released, though somewhat outdated and limited, study of the association between gambling and mental health of college students should strengthen the resolve of Mississippi lawmakers to reject the idea of making sports betting easier than it already is.
The researchers at the University of Mississippi, based on surveys of more than 1,800 students at the state’s eight public universities, confirmed that not only is gambling prevalent among college students but also that those with gambling problems — about 7% of the total student body — were more likely to report problems with their mental health. Since these surveys were conducted in 2021, when the explosion in sports gambling was just taking off, it’s a good bet that the ratio of problem gamblers on campus is even higher now.
What the researchers could not tell, though, is which comes first, the mental health issues or the gambling problems. Are students with mental health issues more prone to become addicted to gambling? Or does the gambling addiction cause the mental health problems?
Although the answer to that proverbial “chicken or the egg question” is worth knowing, it should not matter as far as Mississippi’s public policy toward legalized gambling is concerned. Mental health problems are on the rise among young adults, and the state should do nothing that either increases the likelihood of mental illness or makes its manifestation worse.
During the 2027 session, the Mississippi Legislature is expected to again consider whether to legalize mobile sports betting. State law presently dictates that the only place where sports bets can be legally placed in Mississippi is on the grounds of a casino.
State-sanctioned expansion of the vice would be a mistake, even though there’s no denying that plenty of gamblers get around the current on-site restriction by placing their bets offshore, by disguising their IP address or by using the largely unregulated prediction markets.
To give into this trend would send the wrong message to college students, especially males, who tend to be the most susceptible to sports betting’s seductive lure.
As with most addictions, gambling is more likely to become a problem if it is indulged in when a person is young and before the brain has developed the ability to control impulses. That brain development doesn’t fully occur until a person’s mid-20s, thus making the college years an especially fraught time for poor and risky decisions.
Proponents of legalized mobile sports betting claim it will generate $50 million to $100 million in tax revenues for the state annually. Even if those estimates weren’t suspect, the revenue would not be worth the cost of dealing with greater numbers of young adults with a gambling problem.
