Worker Wellness Blog: Sports Gambling
Date Posted: April 2, 2024
Posted In: Discussion, Workforce,
by Dr. John Gaal
Editor’s Note: Each week, Dr. John Gaal, director of worker wellness for the Missouri Works Initiative, a non-profit workforce formed by the Missouri AFL-CIO, collects and comments on news and trends in workforce wellness and life balance. Construction Forum carries the Worker Wellness & Well-Being Blog as a regular feature.
The MO Works Initiative focuses on creating healthy and recovery friendly workplaces; connecting laid-off workers with job-search or upskilling resources for future employment; and collaborating with community partners to offer innovative points of entry to traditional apprenticeship opportunities.
This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog highlights how Metal Health stigma is now being referred to as “silent discrimination”; to how loneliness is affecting workers; to the need to comprehend the human and economic impacts of the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore.
This week I would like to highlight the unintended consequences of sports gambling. In spite of Pete Rose’s MLB betting scandal several years ago, a 2018 US Supreme Court decision paved the way for the ubiquitous online gambling at the college and professional levels that we see today.
Whether it is a pitcher’s interpreter skimming funds or players shaving points to cover their own debts, since this blog focuses on worker wellness, I would be remiss not to mention that gambling can be addictive—not much different than alcohol or cocaine—because it triggers the part of our brain that releases dopamine…also known as the “pleasure” hormone.
As I explained in a previous blog, contemporary science suggests that the young adult brain does not fully form until one is 25 years old. As such, I think the WSJ article linked below serves as the canary in the coal mine.
Why? Allowing an addictive habit to enter our college campuses for the sake of making money to offset administrative expenses may—in the long run—end up being more detrimental to our society than the current student loan debacle.
Case in point, please consider how “prop” bets have changed the nature of merely betting on a game. Not to mention, if federal and state legislators do not soon install much-needed guard rails (i.e., disallowing players to bet on their own sport, coaches & staff banned/jailed for leaking inside info, etc.), sports we currently trust to be “unscripted” will eventually sink to a level of believability to that of the WWE.
Please check out the rest of this week’s blog: moworksinitiative.org/blog
Sources:
https://www.wsj.com/sports/ohtani-sports-gambling-scandal-927fdd22