Last spring, an NCAA survey of 18- to 22-year-olds found that 67% of college students living on campus had placed sports bets. More than a third of them used a student betting shop. ESPN's Outside the Lines spoke with “Jack,” a former college athlete who said he became a bookmaker agent and took bets from 55 to 60 people, including more than a dozen athletes. Two of them, he said, went on to play professional basketball and football. “Jack,” who spoke on condition of anonymity, was a practice squad player for a Division I basketball program in a Power 5 conference from 2017 to 2019.
Here is his story in his own words.
I was introduced to betting in my first year of university. I thought that being an athlete, I had knowledge about sports, I had knowledge about personnel. I started betting on football, basketball, baseball.
I started small, $20, $40. I bet illegally online through a bookmaker. I had grown up with him. He was at a different school, he was also a former athlete. You get a line of credit, which is like monopoly money, and you bet it. At the end of the week, it is converted into real money. Whatever your balance is, it is what you owe or what you are paid. At first it was never a problem. I usually lost between $100 and $200 at most.
I started making money, so I thought, oh man, this is easy. I can do this. Then it hits you like a snowball. Before you know it, you're waking up, what are we drinking? What's live right now? Go to breakfast, exercise, watch a game, play a game on my phone just to stimulate myself. I even had parlays in classes. It's almost like surviving a car accident. You're in the car, your heart is beating and your body is in shock. That's the state of the game on a miniature scale. And I happen to like that feeling.
I started asking for more credit, between $2,000 and $5,000 at the beginning of my second year. It's like taking any drug. You build a tolerance. I wasn't getting high enough from small amounts of money anymore.
My sophomore or junior year, one of the guys I knew came up to me and said, “Do you want to do this? Get the guys together.” My role as an agent was to put people on my sheet and then collect money from them or pay them. I was probably last in line for the operation. Is that how it works. These big guys hire agents who can get a lot of people on their sheet, then give them a percentage and finance the book. I don't even really know the real boss.
I probably had 55 to 60 people on my sheet: students, athletes, and parents of students. I accepted many football bets from football players. They bet on their own team, other teams, basketball, football, whatever. I never bet on his own team losing. A starter on the basketball team bets on the team once or twice, once on the end and once on his team to win. He said, “I heard you're the go-to person. I had a boy in high school.”
In my third year and in my last year I bet on the team. They were spread bets, money line bets.
I started taking my own money and putting it into winnings opposite to what people gave me to bet on. It was definitely increasing my addiction.
I felt like I was a kid in a college town doing this. Who's going to catch me? The government probably doesn't even care. I never thought anyone would find out.
I stopped publishing the book my senior year just because it had done so well. I didn't want to keep up. Kids owe you money, you have to chase them. I didn't want to chase.
It became a problem for me once I stopped. They had extended me money to bet and I ended up losing a huge amount, over $50,000. Like I said, it snowballs on you before you know it because these guys know you're going to lose eventually. I went into debt and owed money to many people: friends; family; larger and higher-ranking bookmakers. Between $80,000 and $100,000 at the end of the day.
They must have threatened me. They called me at my house, they called my family, they called my friends. “I will hurt you, I will go to your house and tell your parents what is happening.”
I would wake up trying to gamble, trying to see how I could get money. I used all the books: DraftKings, Caesars, BetMGM, Barstool. He was not in a healthy state. I was not eating. He was taking money that he was supposed to use to eat, to try to gamble and pay people. It was an endless cycle.
I remember going down to a river where I used to live and walking and thinking: I have to make a call. Thoughts of ending my life too. This is so big, how am I going to deal with this kind of situation? I thought about hurting myself. I never planned it, but it was definitely a thought of just, “How can I come clean? What is everyone going to think of me? Where do I start to clean this up?”
About a year and a half ago, I called my family and told them I had a gambling problem. I owe people money and I can't get out of it. I don't know who else to turn to. I do not know what else to do.
I was in a treatment program for about 40 days. I haven't bet in a long time, probably more than a year. The kids send me screenshots of what they're doing, so I'm still in the loop. I just changed my mental focus. First, I don't have money to gamble. Two, if I play, it will consume me.
Betting has become more popular as applications and promotion have become more popular. Everyone knows what's going on. Athletes know what's going on. The athletes know the staff. It will always be something difficult to stop. It's like robbing a store with a cop waiting outside. Children are smarter than that. They will go and find someone, they will find someone like me, and they will put him there.
You can always find a guy.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and needs help, call 1-800-Gambler.
