Last week, I came home to find my 17-year-old son in front of the TV, jumping up and down. Looking closely, I found he was watching live horse racing.
'I thought you gave up betting?'
'I did, but I only bet $10,' he said. 'I won $800!'
From the moment their children are born, every parent's instinct is to protect them - but even under the most watchful eye, some dangers arrive before we ever see them coming.
As a mother of two sons, the other a 20-year-old college sophomore, I am no dummy when it comes to the risks and realities of underage gambling.
Not only have I witnessed gaggles of teens sitting in my living room, screaming about who won the coin toss at the Super Bowl (50/50 odds, mom!) or what color Gatorade would be poured on the coach when they won, but according to a study by Common Sense Media, 36 percent of boys age 11 to 17 reported gambling in the past year.
And that's just the ones who admit it. The fact is, I know my kids are doing it, even though my husband and I never formally allowed it - and I feel powerless to stop it.
Save shutting them in their rooms, closing down their bank accounts and taking away every device they own, I don't know how to stop my kids from online sports gambling.
Tobey Grumet Segal has two sons who engage in online gambling
She admitted that she doesn't know how to stop her kids from betting on sports online
Anyone who has raised children in the aughts can tell you that no matter how hard we try, it's nearly impossible to keep up with digital culture, and the tech companies simply do not help.
Like the inception of social media before this, betting is a whack-a-mole. As parents, my husband and I agree that we'd rather keep an open communication on this matter than attempt to shut them down with overbearing judgment, which usually ends in lies.
My husband is English, and while he raised the boys primarily on Premier League soccer, they are obsessed with all sports - including horse racing. Who doesn't love a good Kentucky Derby party?
Like most kids, my sons started with fantasy betting and nobody batted an eye. I mean, I participated in fantasy football at work, and we even did a neighborhood fantasy league as a family for March Madness. So how could we tell them no when they did it on their own?
Video games are also a common gateway to betting. I remember finding random charges from Microsoft in my bank account, only to call and find out that my kids (much younger at the time) were purchasing virtual items within Minecraft. Roblox is also notorious for offering gambling-like 'loot boxes' to children.
For the uninitiated, online sports gambling began pervading our culture in 2018 when the Supreme Court legalized sports betting in the US. According to the Legal Sports Report, revenue from sports betting was close to $16 billion in 2025.
Unfortunately, even though it's illegal for anyone under 21, finding loopholes to get started is relatively easy. My younger son admitted that he bets through a friend whose father created an account for him.
Some kids allegedly use fake IDs, some use their parents' IDs and some even use offshore betting or crypto gambling outfits. To make it even more appealing, many of the betting apps offer a 'betting bonus' up to $200, which gamblers receive when they win their first bet.
I know this because my son still hasn't used any money from his bank account, which he thinks should make me worry less. My sons both use a platform that gave them $150 when they placed their first bet. One of them used that initially, then he cashes a certain amount out when he wins, and leaves some in so he can use that to bet more.
Unless you live under a rock, you've seen the gambling platform ads on TV loaded with celebrities (Jamie Foxx, Ben Affleck) and sports stars (Charles Barkley, Tom Brady). Add to that the barrage of content from creators and social media algorithms pushing videos through YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and you don't have to wonder too hard how these kids get sucked in - and why they think it's no big deal.
Oh, and don't even get me started on predictive market betting.
None of this sits well with me. The more I found out - both about my sons' involvement and the betting economy at large - the angrier I got. But every time we went on a tear and threatened some manner of shutdown, our children just stopped talking to us about it.
And because none of this is in their names (they both go through friends), and I don't see any activity in their bank accounts - which I check regularly - I don't even have specific evidence to cite.
According to the Common Sense Media study, nearly a third of the teenagers who gamble report negative effects. Among those is conflict with parents, which I clearly understand. The excitement, peer pressure and FOMO may drive them, but once locked in, they have to deal with the very real, adult feelings of stress - especially if they lose.
As far as I know, neither of my boys has lost money (yet) - while they have lost bets, their bank accounts haven’t taken any sort of hit - though this is its own problem for those who do. But trust me, they still get upset if and when they lose.
If they win, they have two choices: cash out or let it ride and use the money for their next bet. If they win big, which is usually between $800 and $1,200, we encourage them greatly to cash out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they say they will and then they never actually do it.
In the end, the worry is not so much the winning or losing, but how it affects them as they get older and more independent. In the UK, where legal betting has been around for decades and online sports gambling was legalized in 2005, a study shows that a whopping 50 percent of adults are gambling. The NHS reported double the number of gambling addicts needing treatment in 2024.
Nobody needs to tell me how peer pressure and FOMO affect kids. I see it every day, and it's only enhanced by concerns about social media, AI and the very real addiction to phones in general.
In a perfect world, the tech firms and the government would take more responsibility for our kids' mental health - but I think we all know that ship has sailed. Which means that it is up to us to police all of this as best we can.
It's obvious that my kids do not see this as an existential threat. They're not stupid. They know it can have negative consequences, and they do fear losing real money, which is all good. But with the majority of their friends doing the same thing, and the consistent ads and targeted content, they also see it as generally harmless.
Gambling by teens may be pervasive and dangerously under-regulated, but as parents, we still have a responsibility to confront it head-on while creating an atmosphere for honest communication.
If it were up to me, I'd make the entire industry disappear tomorrow.
But I've learned the tough way that the harder you push, the faster they pull away, and that feels even worse. Soon enough, these kids will be adults and able to legally make their own decisions.
All we can do in the meantime is stay on top of it, keep discussing the very real concept of addiction and hope that our love, respect and constant parental annoyance allow them to make the right decisions before the stakes become dire.