The Josh Innes Show - Sports Betting Problem For College Aged Dudes

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

I was reading a story about how 18-22 year old dudes are becoming full blown sports betting addicts. I can see where this stuff will consume you. I get it. But, just like any vice, you can't let the issues of some spoil the party for the rest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I got a tweet from somebody a little while ago and I'm recording this at about noon. I'm a little bit behind today because for some reason my dog decided to sleep in, which never happens. Usually Ross gets up at like 6 30 and then we'll go outside and then maybe sleep for another half hour and then it's up. We're up for the day. Today homeboy was in bed till damn near nine o'clock. Then I had to walk him for an hour.

Then I had a scare with him because we're walking in the park. We're trying to walk past a couple of people and Ross jumped up to try to play with this older dude and this dude was like petrified and I'm like oh god did he bite him or something which he didn't but then his wife was like oh can we pet him and this guy's like no we're not and I'm like shit I'm sorry like he just he likes he this dog is super athletic it's crazy when I adopted this dog they were like oh he's very chill very laid-back whatever yeah because he was starved and emaciated now he's fed and looking good and this dog is super athletic like can jump out of the gym it's nuts so like when he plays

if he gets really going he'll jump up and try to jump up to you and I think that's what he was trying to do to this guy as we walk by and I'm like Jesus that's the last thing I need is Ross doing something to somebody and then it's a whole deal. All the other shit I got going on but this guy was not having it. Like usually if that happens with me and the dog seems harmless I'll be like yeah it's okay but this guy was fucking pissed. We took Ross to a bar, not a bar, we took him to a restaurant for the first time on Saturday at a little outdoor patio and he was really good.

It's weird because Luther was just, I mean Luther was a non-threat. Like he was never going to do anything to anybody and that's not to say that Ross is a threat but I will say that like he will play more aggressively and he's a little, he's bigger than Luther so like he likes to jump up on people and I worry about that sometimes but first Voyage was pretty good for him. He's a good boy but I was worried about that today. I didn't want to be in one of those situations where some guy gets really bent about something and then before you know it I'm getting knocks on the door because you got the guy called the animal people on me. But that's the things I worry about. I always think

of the worst case scenario, which I guess in some instances is good, but some instances it's like, what's really gonna happen here, Josh? But either way, he's a good boy and he didn't hurt the guy or anything, but I've never seen him do that to someone before. We were just walking by and he just kinda jumped up,

but sometimes he just gets the vibe to wanna play and that's, I think, what he was. And he's a loud vocal player. He's got a big bark, you know. Anywho, let's play a couple commercials and let's read this story. It's got an interesting headline, something that appeals to me. A college kid, 25,000, and an out of control craze among young men. I think we got ourselves a sports betting, one of

those after school special sports betting type deals here. So let's read this story after these words. Alright, so the headline is Inside the High Stakes, High Risk World of Sports Betting and How It's gripping young men. That is very true, by the way. Like I talk about how I'm broke, you know, and it is 100% factual that if I wouldn't have wasted so much money sports betting, then I would probably be in a better spot. But I do enjoy doing it. You know, like that's the weird thing. And I tell you guys this all the time. There have been times I have been way the fuck up, like way up, but then I never actually cash out and then before you know it I've lost it.

I don't know what the block I have is. Like I don't understand why I can't just say, shit Josh, you've got, you know, you started with 200 bucks, now you've got 12 grand in here, take out like five grand or whatever. I can't allow myself to do it. It's almost like there's some sort of rush in seeing that big number in my account and I don't know why. But that's just how I am, you know? And I've been doing this shit. I told you the first time I ever made a sports bet was on one of these janky ass, you know, Panamanian apps, websites. And I've been on an LSU Mississippi State Thursday night football game

and I'll never forget. And I won it, I think, I won, you know, 100 to win 90 bucks, LSU minus six or something like that on a Thursday night game, probably 2012, I think it was. And I remember my boss at the time, Gavin, was like, you know, you should take that money and never do that again. I'm like, okay, whatever. Before you know it, I had taken that 100 bucks I put in there and turned it into like $3,000. And I never took that $3,000 out and eventually lost that $3,000. I got to a point once where I had an account get all the way up to $20,000. That's when I discovered the live bets on like

foreign basketball and shit. And I was putting like $1,000 each time on these things. And I was putting like $1,000 each time on these things. And I got up to like 20-something thousand. Well, that was the second time. Actually, another time I got up to 20,000, I've been like, I just get up, get up. And then I just never take money out of it like a total putz. This past football season, I had like 13 grand in a betting

account and then just eventually started making these giant bets. And then boom, went away. So obviously I try to scale back on that shit during football season. I love it because it's fun and I enjoy doing it. Now I sound like my grandma when I'd ask her when she was dead broke why she kept playing bingo and lottery and she'd say, shit son, because it's fun. And I'm like, yeah, I guess so. I guess that's where I get this from. But I enjoy doing it. And if I, well well the good news is this throughout all the football season I continue

to have so much money in my account that I never put any in so that was the good part the bad part is by the time I needed the money I pissed all the money away I took some of it out and paid some bills but like I pissed the rest of it away you know like I can see where this is a dangerous thing but before I even read this story I will tell where this is a dangerous thing, but before I even read this story, I will tell you this that I tell you all the time about sports betting. You know what else is probably not good for you? Casino betting. You know what else is bad for you? Cigarettes. You know what else is bad for

you? Booze. You know what else is bad for you? Prescription drugs. All this shit. Texting and driving. All these things are bad for you, yet while there are laws against texting and driving, everybody these things are bad for you. Yet, while there are laws against texting and driving, everybody texts and drives. Well, there's warnings on alcohol, but people continue to drink it and get addicted to cigarettes. There's warnings, but people get addicted. My point being is, like, I can't just circle sports betting and go, we've got to do something about sports betting because some people are out of control with it. And as someone who's been out of control with it, you would think I could be someone that would be like, hey, we

need to put a stop to this. And I'm like, no, because people need to learn how to control their own fucking shit. You know, now some people are just kind of predisposed to being addicted to certain things, right? I get that. But look, if you want to outlaw everything, outlaw everything. But I'm against that, because that punishes people who know how to do shit without going over the top on it. You can't just look at shit and go, well, there are some people who can't handle this, so we can't do that. There are some people who are just going to

eat way too much, so we have to get rid of fucking McDonald's. Well, some people can go to McDonald's once a week and get a Big Mac and fries and be fine with it. Some people go every fucking day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can't do things based on what the most extreme of people are going to do. You can't change everything, get rid of shit, outlaw shit because of what the most extreme people are going to do. Now, there's no guarantee that sports betting will kill you. We have things like cigarettes, which if you do it long enough, will fucking kill you. There is truly not a which if you do it long enough will fucking kill you. There is no, there is truly not a positive about smoking cigarettes and there really isn't a positive about drinking alcohol

other than the fact that I like myself a lot more when I drink it. But other than that and I'm very nice and sweet and cordial to people when I drink some alcohol and sometimes cry watching country music videos on Sunday nights when I drink alcohol. But other than that like there isn't really a positive that comes out of those things, you know? But look, some people do them, some people... Like honestly, while I'm saying this, there's really no reason for cigarettes to exist. Like, why do cigarettes exist? What is the positive that comes out of smoking cigarettes? Like, well, what if you only smoke one or two a day? Who the fuck you know that only smokes one or two cigarettes a day?

People get addicted to that shit and they get addicted to it hard and it will kill them. Those are things that I'd say, why? What is the positive that comes out of that? Like at least the positive of gambling is, hey you might actually win at it at some point and make some money. Cool, right? You know? Like there are certain things that there are positives that come from. I don't really know the positive in smoking cigarettes and truly there is no positive that comes out of drinking alcohol But you can drink alcohol in moderation and not be fucked up I don't know a human that smokes cigarettes that's like I smoke them in moderation Like there's just not a good thing that would come out of that for you

But anyway, that's a different argument for a different day. But anyway, let's get into this story It was game five of the Western Conference Let's get into this story. It was game five of the Western Conference 2018 finals. The Houston Rockets were looking to take the lead in a tied series with the Golden State Warriors. With just over a minute left in the game, Eric Gordon hit a clutch shot. Rockets win 98-94. When Gordon scored, the room erupted and Saul Malek's suburban Houston home. The win was exhilarating for the then 20-year-old, a lifelong Rockets fan, but it was also terrifying. He joined his twin brother and dad leaping up from the couch and cheering. Unbeknownst to them, he was panicking. He had bet $1,500 on the Warriors

to win and now he owed money he didn't have to his bookie. It would be the first of many times he went into debt due to sports gambling addiction that ruled his life for two years at his lowest point he recalls being down 25,000. I will say this, I would not fuck with bookies at all. Like at least when you're dealing with a fan duel or something, like you're putting in money, you're not taking out a marker or anything. Like I remember one time a buddy of mine got me in with some guy doing local sports betting because we couldn't do it online

unless it was on like a site like kind of a janky site and obviously we couldn't use Fandle or anything. This is back in 2017 or something and I didn't really fully understand how it works. So he said, listen, this guy is going to give you you know $3,000. Once your $3,000 is up, you owe him. So in my mind, I'm like, well, as long as I got like 100 bucks in this account, I'll never have to pay this guy. Unbeknownst to me, much like this story, I was unaware that I had to pay even though I still had a hundred bucks left.

I had no clue. So I met up with the guy one time, gave him three grand, and I'm like, you know what? I'm never doing this shit again. Like in my mind, hey, if I'm using my own fucking money and I don't owe it to anybody, like it's just like I went out and bought a t-shirt or something, you know? But when you're doing it with money that you're going to then owe somebody, that's when that's no good. You don't owe money, because like you can go to a booking and be like, hey I'll put in X amount of dollars on this and whatever, then they come to collect and you don't have it, then they break your fucking legs. That's not a world that I want to live in, you know? But then you could argue that having these fan duels and draft kings thus make it easier

for people to throw their lives away gambling. So whatever. We continue. My life was centered around gambling. If I wasn't placing a bet, I was thinking about the next one. He says following sports betting's legalization in 2018, 67% of all college students are betting on games according to a 2023 study from the NCAA. Gambling experts believe that number is likely even higher now, thanks to the prevalence of apps in the growing market that has captivated more young people. It's a craze that has swept college campuses, and for some young people, it leads to complex,

debilitating addictions. The problem, addictions say, is widely misunderstood. For Malik, betting was always a way to invoke the same feeling he got the first time he won his middle school fantasy baseball league, blah blah blah. So I get the basic gist of this story. So look, I'll tell you what I always say about this shit. It's fun, I enjoy it. Some people like my wife can put in $5 on a five leg parlay and love it. My sister apparently, you want to talk about, you know, my sister, she does this shit too.

Like again, she does it on a very small scale, much like Jilly does. Whereas I have blown thousands and thousands of dollars doing this shit over my lifetime. Now, I've also taken money out. Like I make it sound like I've never taken money out. I certainly have. But you know, like I've blown tons of cash doing this, right? And I get to a point where it like it consumes me at times and I have to kind of step away from it. My freaking sister, she sends this parlay on Sunday that she had played with all these underdog college baseball teams like who even fucking knows who plays college baseball. My sister puts in this bet that's plus 4000 or some such shit, puts in like five bucks on it and wins a hundred bucks. Then Jilly's jealous, you know, because

like they can do that. Like they can sit there and just enjoy themselves by putting five bucks on something. Me, I'm over here like shit, like I gotta put a hundred here, a hundred whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. And then the fact that we're in a place where you have to drive to go put in bets, it makes it even worse because you have to like kind of force bets on a Sunday instead of just watching shit play out Whatever you got your own problems all I would tell you about that is this just like any sort of vice this shit can be really bad for you if You don't know how to control yourself if you allow yourself to get taken down in that way, which I have at times You know there are times that I'll be like, Holy shit, I've

just blown through a bunch of shit. Like I have fucked up. I get it. But at a time I had the money to do that. So it wasn't like, Oh, boy, this was terrible. I had the cash and it was what it was. But I would tell people in this world that you need to be smart about the way you do it and you know be smart. Jillie is the smart one. She loves to bet. She loves, she's a she's brilliant with prop bets but she's never gonna be someone that puts in like 50 bucks like for her 50 bucks is gigantic for 10 bucks is gigantic you know and that's

good I wish I could do that but me it's like I don't really have that in my brain. My brain's been warped for doing this for like 13 years that I just I can't You know, but it is what it is But then again like I can go but this how I am with anything, right? And I think I don't know if this would be like an addictive personality or whatever I could eat the same thing for lunch ten days in a row and it doesn't bother me, right? but I'm one of these kind of people that If you give me like one or two days of not doing something, I can go 100 days without doing it. I'm just

one of those guys that needs to start it. I'm like if I needed to go to the gym 100 days in a row, it would be the first two days that would be a killer. But once I've done two days and I'm like, well, now I've done two, let's go do three. Once I see that something's happening, then I'll go. I don't know what that means about me. Maybe you guys do maybe you fully understand it. But that was that was me. Like, that's how I operate.

Like, I don't know if that's addictive personality. I don't know what that is. But like, if I'll go, but then if I'll go and I'll go bet for some shit, then like, I can live. Like, if I go 20 days without doing it, they'll go put in one. I'll be like, OK, fine, whatever, you know? But that's just kind of how I am. I don't know what that means about me, how to explain what I am,

what it means, but that's how I operate. So I would continue to tell you that I don't believe sports betting is bad. I believe just like anything, things are bad if they are done to the extreme and some people are going to do these things to the extreme, but that shouldn't ruin it for people who can. Me being a fucking dipshit shouldn't ruin it for people like Jilly who just enjoy doing it when they make 50 bucks. It's a huge fucking deal, you know, it shouldn't matter like it like we can't operate in that world. That's not the way we need to be as people. So, but anyway, more to come.