Social media is wonderfully effective at delivering the content which captures interest, maintains it long enough to get people engaged and directs attention to a specific outcome.
Over the past few years, one of the topics that has been increasingly floating past the eyes of young men on their socials is sports betting.
There are a multitude of sports betting options – AFL, cricket, horse racing, car racing and soccer are all available as betting options as well as simply being a sport to watch for its own sake.
It’s easy to access a screen to watch a sport and receive a healthy dose of sports betting advertising at the same time, and noticeably difficult to avoid it.
In Australia, there is a distinctly gendered aspect to sports betting, and social media plays into it very effectively.
In Australia, men gamble more often than women, they gamble with larger amounts of money and they are more likely to participate in gambling which they perceive as having a skill-based component to it.
When it comes to online sports betting, many of the features we see in this form of gambling are particularly problematic for young people:
- A fast speed of play;
- The ability to make repeated bets;
- A short event time;
- Being able to vary the stake amount;
- The ability to bet large amounts; and,
- Continuous availability and easy access.
Some young men perceive themselves as being able to use their skills to win against the system, believing they can make choices that will lead to wins rather than losses over time.
As young men reach the end of their formal schooling years, they can be highly susceptible to gambling related harm.
One recent research paper found that as many as 70 per cent of young men were at risk of or already experiencing gambling related harm.
Young men are at a time in their lives where they are likely to engage in risk taking activities, they identify strongly with perceived ‘masculine’ traits such as capability, strength and emotional restraint, and they begin to earn money which is available as discretionary income.
At the same time, many still lack the financial literacy that can help them make more informed choices about sports betting and other forms of online gambling.
So, what can schools do to tackle the problem and support their young students to make smart choices about sports betting, now and in the future?
One of the first steps is to make talking about sports betting and its associated risks and potential harm something that is an option at school.
Encourage clear, open conversations which don’t blame or admonish but instead seek to offer support and information.
Young men who feel they can talk to someone who will not make value judgements about their decisions are more likely to share problems and look for support to find solutions.
Talking about how online and sports betting combines with alcohol, boredom, influencers and peer pressure help young people make conscious choices rather than simply responding to situations as or after they happen.
In the classroom, sports betting can be a topic which is explored carefully and purposefully so that students learn about odds, probability and the deceptively difficult maths that sits behind sports betting.
The fact that young people tend to believe they can use their skill to win when they are betting can also be used to highlight just how difficult it is to win in the longer term.
Learning about stakes, odds, probability and win to loss ratios can help them make choices about gambling. So too can learning about marketing strategies, so they are more able to view sports betting advertising through a lens of marketing awareness.
Learning how advertisers use attention, interest, desire and action, and employ the engagement skills and profile of social media influencers can help build in those few minutes of conscious decision making that are needed to make a different choice.
It's difficult now to imagine a sporting world which does not involve gambling, but as teachers we are in a powerful position to equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need to think about their decisions before they make them.
