A House subcommittee heard warnings on Nov. 11 that colleges are ill-equipped to prevent or treat gambling harm among students, even as sports betting and prediction markets make wagering easier to access. Four witnesses said campuses need more education, screening and dedicated support services, while urging restrictions on individual college-athlete proposition bets.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner cited 2023 NCAA survey results showing that 67% of students living on campus had bet on sports. Sixteen percent displayed behaviours associated with problem gambling, such as chasing losses or betting more than intended, and 6% had lost more than $500 in a single day. He said the figures were likely higher by 2026.
The House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development heard from Lindsey Mortenson, Daniel Durkin, Jordan Maynard and Cindy Clouner. The hearing followed the Supreme Court-era expansion of sports wagering since 2018, a development the panel examined earlier Wednesday in its preview of the session.
Mortenson said gambling disorder was a “hidden addiction”: it has no obvious physical symptoms, clinicians do not routinely ask about it, and students may be reluctant to disclose it. She said gambling problems can coexist with alcohol-use disorder, depression, anxiety and ADHD, making them easier to miss. Only one in five people with severe gambling problems seek treatment, she said, and the condition goes untreated for an average of nine years.
The Rutgers University Center for Gambling Studies’ 2026 National Prevalence Study found that 61.3% of current undergraduates and 68.2% of graduate students had gambled in the previous year. It also found that 43.1% of undergraduates showed some degree of gambling-related risk.
Durkin said demand for help may be far larger than campus counselling records suggest. The University of Mississippi counselling centre had received six gambling-related referrals by Nov. 5, mostly from parents, but students may seek care elsewhere, fail to identify a problem or hesitate to ask for help.
A 2026 pilot study found that only one in three higher-education institutions in Ohio had a problem-gambling prevention programme. At campuses without dedicated health-promotion staff, witnesses said prevention was often absent or limited to passive messages and ad-hoc events.
Maynard, of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, pointed to research in which 71% of Massachusetts participants ages 18 to 25 reported betting on sports. A Boston University School of Public Health study found that 34% of college students nationwide who used sportsbook apps were under 21, despite legal age restrictions. Massachusetts’ age-verification system has blocked at least 11,000 attempted account registrations by people under 21.
Maynard said underage students can use VPNs or their parents’ accounts to access betting sites. He also argued that prediction-market platforms, including Kalshi and Robinhood, permit participation from age 18 without safeguards required of licensed sports-wagering operators in Massachusetts. The state has separately barred advertisements on college campuses, individual college-athlete prop bets and most betting on Massachusetts college teams.
All four witnesses supported eliminating individual college-player proposition bets, saying the step could reduce gambling harm and online harassment of student-athletes. NCAA research cited in Maynard’s written testimony found that 51% of Division I men’s basketball players had experienced abuse connected with sports wagering.
