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Inside New York’s Teenage Betting Epidemic: How Sports Gambling Apps Are Rewiring the Brains — and Bank Accounts — of High School Boys

By: Russ Spencer

It was supposed to be a carefree night — friends, football, and junk food. But for Max, a 17-year-old senior at a private Manhattan high school, this year’s Super Bowl party felt different.

“It used to be about the experience,” he told The New York Post, “but this year it wasn’t. It was everybody betting. The theme of the party was essentially betting.”

As Max looked around the room, he saw not the familiar chaos of chips and soda cans, but clusters of boys glued to their phones — scrolling, wagering, shouting about spreads and parlays. That night, he said, he realized sports betting had transformed from a game-day pastime into an obsession among his peers.

“Kids take money out of savings accounts or bar mitzvah accounts for betting,” Max said. “I know kids who stay up super late and sacrifice their grades to watch sports across the country, just because they can bet on it.”

Legally, New Yorkers must be 21 to place a wager, but as The New York Post reported on Thursday, underage gambling is becoming a full-blown epidemic. According to the New York Council on Problem Gambling, nearly 90% of high school students have gambled at least once in the past year — a statistic experts say mirrors the rise of slick, addictive mobile betting platforms like FanDuel and DraftKings that have seamlessly fused sports fandom with financial risk.

At Max’s school, FanDuel and DraftKings are as ubiquitous as Instagram or Snapchat. He estimates that 80% of the boys in his class have placed a bet and that 40% gamble regularly, often using their parents’ accounts.

His own father, a Manhattan finance executive, opened a FanDuel account using his Social Security number and banking information before turning it over to Max — a casual act of compliance that has become shockingly common among well-intentioned parents.

“We’d be saying, ‘Oh yeah, it’s not a big deal,’” Max recalled. “‘You know, we all have it, and we’re not betting a lot of money.’”

His father told The New York Post that he saw no immediate harm: “I said fine. I just didn’t think anything about it. It was something that he and his friends were all doing.”

But what begins as $5 or $10 bets can escalate quickly.

“At school, it’s all kids with their gambling apps in class,” Max said. “And it never stops because it’s football season, then basketball, then baseball.”

He’s watched classmates spiral, betting away hundreds or even thousands of dollars, some raiding college funds or savings accounts. “Some of them are 100% addicted,” he said.

The youngest gambler Max knows is just 11 years old.

“I know kids in middle school who are starting to gamble,” he told The New York Post. “The younger kids — it’s all they talk about now. It’s crazy.”

Experts say this pattern isn’t accidental — it’s neurological.

“The part of their brain that governs risk and reward and decision-making is not fully matured,” said Keith Whyte, President of Safer Gambling Strategies, in an interview with The New York Post. “Now that gambling is so accessible and unregulated forms of sports betting are so easily available, those two things combine into a toxic cocktail of risk.”

According to Whyte’s research, teenage boys represent the fastest-growing segment of online gamblers. Nearly 5% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 already exhibit clinical symptoms of gambling addiction — four times higher than two years ago.

Gambling, he explained, hijacks the brain’s dopamine system. “It creates the same neural feedback loop as substance abuse — anticipation, reward, crash, repeat,” Whyte said. “Except here, it’s being marketed through something as socially acceptable as watching sports.”

To Max’s father, who works in finance, gambling initially seemed like a harmless extension of his son’s interest in sports statistics. Now, he sees it as “teen-boy kryptonite.”

“They all think there’s a level of skill and knowledge that they have,” he said. “They feel like they have some sophistication and can beat the system, beat the man. It’s the mindset of teenage boys — they feel like, ‘I’m smarter than adults, I can figure this out.’”

He believes the companies behind the betting apps know this too.

“If you get someone when they’re young, it’s almost like a rewiring of their brain,” he said. “It’s not by accident that all these teenage boys, who are under 18, are on these apps all the time. It’s clearly part of the business strategy, even though the apps won’t say it.”

In response to The New York Post’s questions, a spokesperson for FanDuel insisted that customers are prohibited from sharing accounts and that anyone caught doing so “will be permanently banned from our platform.” The company also noted that its sign-up process requires verification of name, date of birth, Social Security number, and address — ostensibly to prevent underage use.

FanDuel pointed to its parental education initiative, Conversations About Betting, which warns users about underage gambling and the risks of account sharing. But insiders told The New York Post that enforcement is lax and that minors often circumvent age restrictions through VPNs or by using cryptocurrency to access offshore, unregulated betting websites.

“James,” a 17-year-old from New Jersey, said he used a family friend’s FanDuel account to bet without his parents ever knowing. “I was like, ‘Hey bro, can I use that?’” he told The New York Post, laughing nervously.

He began small, wagering profits from his online clothing resales. “It was appealing — like, I don’t know, it looks fun, and there’s the huge potential upside to it,” he said. “I wasn’t gambling thousands of dollars, so the risk didn’t seem huge.”

But as with many gamblers, the thrill came not from winning but from the next chance to win. After a few months, a friend introduced him to FanDuel’s online casino — slot machines, roulette, blackjack.

“If you’re betting on an NFL game, it’s three hours,” he explained. “You don’t have that boom, boom, boom experience. Once I moved over to the casino thing, that’s when it became an addiction.”

Over two years, James said, he wagered more than $18,000 of his own money, ultimately losing about $2,000. His wake-up call came when he saw his bank statement: an entire week’s worth of FanDuel transactions. “It became more stressful than fun,” he said. “I was doing it every day.”

Attorney Benjamin Schenk, who is representing complainants in an upcoming lawsuit against several online betting companies, told The New York Post that cases like James’s are “the tip of the iceberg.”

He said his clients include children as young as 12 who were “groomed through influencer gambling culture” on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, where popular streamers broadcast their own bets.

“They look at gambling as a positive expression of masculinity,” Schenk said. “It’s marketed as being cool, competitive, and financially savvy — and that’s incredibly dangerous.”

Schenk has encountered teenagers who lost their savings, borrowed from friends, and even self-harmed after devastating losses. “They get embarrassed, try to win it back, and when they lose again, they spiral,” he said.

The phenomenon isn’t confined to the U.S. The New York Post report highlighted the story of Lewis Bigmore, a 29-year-old from the United Kingdom, who placed his first online bet at 16 using his father’s name. He won £64,000 — roughly $85,000 — on a soccer match.

His father cashed out the winnings and locked them away, insisting the teen save it. But when Bigmore turned 18, legal age to gamble in the UK, he couldn’t resist the temptation to chase that early high. Within three years, the money was gone — squandered through betting apps and payday loans.

“I never spoke to anyone because that was an uncomfortable conversation to have,” he admitted. “Like, how do you get addicted to losing money?”

Bigmore has now been “clean” since January, his longest streak without placing a bet. “You think it’s a game,” he said, “but it consumes you before you realize what’s happened.”

One of the most insidious aspects of teenage gambling is how normalized it has become. The New York Post reported that betting ads have saturated virtually every medium of sports entertainment — from ESPN broadcasts to sports podcasts, where nearly every show has a DraftKings or FanDuel sponsorship.

This omnipresence, says Isaac Rose-Berman, a 25-year-old professional sports bettor, is conditioning teenagers to view gambling as a natural extension of fandom.

“When I talk to high school boys, I tell them: ‘I hire PhDs to run my models. You’re not doing that. If you win, it’s luck — you’re basically getting fleeced,’” Rose-Berman told The New York Post.

He says he’s “shocked by how many kids” he encounters at New York City schools who are already using betting apps. “They’re watching ESPN, they’re seeing DraftKings logos, and every podcast they listen to is sponsored by a betting company,” he said. “What that does is normalize the activity.”

DraftKings, for its part, told The New York Post that it uses “advanced Know Your Customer technology — trusted by the financial industry and law enforcement — to verify the age and identity of our customers.” The company claims that any use of its platform by minors “is strictly prohibited,” and that accounts are closed if unauthorized activity is detected.

But even with these safeguards, teenagers continue to find workarounds. The real issue, experts say, is cultural normalization — the subtle messaging that equates gambling with confidence, strategy, and male identity.

Despite mounting evidence, only 2% of American parents believe their teen has used an online betting platform, according to a 2024 University of Michigan poll.

That disconnect alarms experts like Schenk. “The gulf between what is actually happening among high school students and what parents suspect couldn’t be wider,” he told The New York Post. “If you think your kid isn’t engaging in this behavior, really question yourself.”

In Massachusetts, the Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into youth gambling harm, while Virginia recently passed a bill mandating gambling addiction education in schools — a first in the nation. But advocates say that policy is struggling to keep pace with technology.

“Every kid has a phone. Every phone has access to an app store. Every app store has betting ads,” Whyte said. “We’ve created an environment where gambling is as accessible as texting.”

The consequences extend far beyond adolescence. Economists warn that early gambling exposure can lead to chronic addiction, financial instability, and even criminal behavior later in life.

Research cited in The New York Post report suggests that problem gamblers exhibit brain patterns similar to substance addicts, with dopamine receptors becoming desensitized over time — requiring bigger risks to achieve the same thrill.

That’s exactly what worries Max’s father. “If you get them hooked early, they’ll stay hooked,” he said. “And the industry knows that.”

The irony, The New York Post report noted, is that online gambling was sold to regulators as a safer, more transparent alternative to illegal bookmaking. Instead, the industry’s gamified design — complete with push notifications, personalized promotions, and instant payouts — has created a generation of minors gambling in plain sight.

Attorney Schenk says accountability must start with the corporations profiting from it. “These companies spend billions on marketing, but pennies on prevention,” he said. “Until they face legal consequences for facilitating underage gambling, nothing will change.”

For Max, the change has already happened. He says he still places small bets but mostly to avoid feeling left out.

“It’s not about the game anymore,” he told The New York Post. “It’s about who wins the bet.”

He’s watched friendships fracture over debts, classmates lose focus, and 15-year-olds talking about point spreads like hedge-fund traders. What used to be harmless competition has turned into something darker — a ritual of risk that defines his generation’s weekends.

His father, once indifferent, now worries constantly. “They’re being manipulated,” he said. “It’s a perfect storm — technology, testosterone, and temptation.”

The house, as always, wins. But this time, the players aren’t adults in smoky casinos — they’re boys barely old enough to drive, chasing a dopamine high that could cost them far more than their allowance.

And as The New York Post report observed, the crisis isn’t waiting for them to grow up — it’s growing up with them.