Which teams will make it to the NBA finals? Which college team will win the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament? Which movie will win Best Picture at the Oscars? Who will win the 2028 U.S. presidential election?
These are all questions anyone can bet money on online, and many adolescent boys are getting in on the action, according to a Common Sense Media report examining boys’ experiences with gambling published in January as part of a series of reports on boys’ digital behavior.
More than a third of boys (36%) participated in gambling activity in the past 12 months, according to the report, which draws from a nationally representative sample of 1,017 boys ages 11 to 17 in the United States surveyed in July 2025. The percentage varies by age; for instance, 24% of 14-year-olds said they gambled in the past 12 months, while 51% of 16-year-olds said the same, the report found.
Boys participated in a variety of gambling activities, the report says, including online gaming-related gambling (such as exchanging money for random, chance-based rewards in games), traditional gambling (such as poker or lottery tickets), and sports-related gambling (such as fantasy leagues).
Gambling has become increasingly visible to young people and more accessible as states have legalized new forms and gambling apps have proliferated, reshaping the environments where children and teens learn, play, and socialize, according to the report.
“There’s so much more exposure and entry points,” said Michael Robb, the head of research for Common Sense and one of the authors of the study, in an interview with Education Week. “These activities that either encourage gambling or have gambling-like activities can increase the risk of later problems of gambling, basically through normalization.”
Gambling has become more accessible to young people
Digital spaces can expose boys to gambling long before they seek it out, the report suggests. A majority of boys see gambling ads on YouTube (61%) and social media (60%), but high numbers also see them during sports broadcasts (57%), while streaming or watching live TV outside of sports broadcasts (50%), and on gaming websites (43%), the report found.
Nearly half of adolescent boys who gamble see online material that promotes gambling, most of which is delivered through algorithmic recommendations, the report says. Boys who view this material tend to spend more money on gambling than those who do not, according to the report.
Tony Cattani, the principal of Lenape High School in Medford Township, N.J., said he and his staff have noticed that students are talking about gambling-like activities more often.
“I hear kids talk informally about the gambling they’re involved in,” Cattani said. They’re talking about the betting odds, “rather than focusing on the actual outcome of the game and rooting on their teams,” he said. He’s even heard of student-athletes talking about the potential odds in their own games.
The problem is that gambling is so much more accessible now, Cattani said.
“It’s on ESPN. They have shows about it. [The betting odds] are on the bottom ticker. It’s being embedded in the culture of our society. It’s bleeding into our youth to where that’s what they talk about on a regular basis,” he said.
Kaya Henderson, the executive vice president and executive director of the Center for Rising Generations at the nonprofit Aspen Institute think tank, said it’s concerning that these activities are seeping into environments that look like normal digital entertainment. (The center focuses on youth civic engagement and leadership development.)
“The reality is that this is unfolding right under our noses,” Henderson said. “It’s not happening in the shadows. It’s happening in classrooms, in cafeterias, on the playground, and in group chats after school. Students are comparing bets on sports games, experimenting with betting apps, or watching influencers promote gambling platforms, often without adults realizing it’s happening.”
Schools can help bring awareness to the problem
Experts say it’s time to bring more awareness to this growing problem.
“This isn’t fringe behavior,” Henderson said. “It’s something many students are encountering and it’s a signal that schools, families, and communities need to start having much more open conversations about it.”
The Common Sense Media report recommends that schools:
- Integrate financial and digital literacy across curricula to help students develop critical thinking about money, risk, and online platforms’ persuasive designs;
- Partner with families to amplify prevention messages and provide resources for recognizing gambling-like behaviors and discussions about gambling; and
- Address peer influence; the No. 1 predictor of whether someone will gamble is whether their friends gamble, Robb said.
Acknowledging the problem makes it easier for students to ask for help, said Carter Bennett, a high school junior in Wayne, Maine. He’s seen and heard firsthand classmates discussing the stress of losing bets.
Carter created Project Gamechangers, an initiative addressing teen gambling through peer education and prevention, with support from the Center for Rising Generations.
“This problem is not going away, and schools can play a vitally important role,” Carter said. He suggested schools provide training to staff to watch out for signs of gambling problems and integrate gambling education into health and finance classes.
At Lenape High School in New Jersey, students learn about risk-taking, addiction, and decisionmaking in their health classes, Cattani said.
But there needs to be “more open conversation,” he said. He plans to meet with other principals in his area to brainstorm ways to help students navigate the new gambling landscape.
