Undergrads Under Pressure | Jeremy Dixon and Guy Caprio from Loyola University Chicago

Navigating the impact of sports wagering among College students and athletes is a bit tricky these days. Jeremy Dixon and Guy Caprio join Wager Danger to share firsthand how the expansion of legalized gambling affects the interactions among the students, athletes, and the fanbase at Loyola University.

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Are you Really Winning?

GUY CAPRIO

If a student wants to limit their use. The problem is everyone around them isn’t. So you kind of fall back into that behavior.

SHANE COOK

Hello everyone, and welcome to Wager Danger, a podcast where we discuss gambling addiction and recovery. I’m Shane Cook, gambling disorder program director at Gateway Foundation. And on today’s show, we’re talking about college athletes and gambling on campus. Joining us from Loyola University in Chicago are Jeremy Dixon, associate athletic director, and Guy Caprio, a therapist from the campus wellness center.

Both Jeremy and Guy share some interesting insights on the impact that expanded legalized gambling has had on student athlete compliance and the importance of educating students in general on the potential for gambling harms, now that access to gaming and gambling has become so ubiquitous. From recent gambling scandals to the impact of NIL and revenue share money that flows to the student athletes.

Our conversation cuts a wide path in the gambling landscape, and we’re fortunate to have Jeremy and Guy join us to help us make sense of them at all. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

JEREMY DIXON

Thank you. Happy to be here.

GUY CAPRIO

Yeah. Thanks, Shane.

SHANE COOK

Good to be here. Absolutely. I’m looking forward to this. I had the opportunity to listen to a couple of student athletes. I believe your men’s soccer coach and one of the associate athletic directors. A few months ago at a conference that we had. And, it was a really good conversation and really was impressed with the student athletes and their understanding of how gambling is impacting collegiate sports.

So I thought it’d be a good opportunity for us to get on and talk a little bit more about what’s going on with the Loyola’s program. How you approached this particular topic. And, and we can hear from a couple of different angles with both of you. So, Jeremy, I’m going to kick it off with you, if you wouldn’t mind just sharing with us a little bit about your role and how gambling is impacting the student athletes today.

JEREMY DIXON

Yeah, so I oversee the compliance office and the athletic department here at Loyola. So the main thing that I do is make sure that our student athletes, coaches and our athletic department operates well within our conference, which is the A-10 and the men’s volleyball conference. Make sure that we operate all well with bylaws in which they provide to us and oversee.

And when it comes to gambling, is making sure that we adhere to what the NCAA has determined to be permissible and not permissible from educating our student athletes to knowing what is and and not okay, and also just kind of giving them advice as best as we can, to advise them and really advocate for them and their need to be successful and want to be champions.

SHANE COOK

All right. Perfect Guy, how about you? How is how is gambling affecting the counseling services on campus there?

GUY CAPRIO

So, I’m a therapist for Loyola College students. We have therapists that actually work directly with the athletes. But I think there still is definitely some some crossover there. So while gambling, or let’s call it problem gambling, is not a specific issue that many students have come in directly for. I also kind of put it under that umbrella of something that is impacted by high levels of impulsivity.

So there, there is there is a crossover, right?

SHANE COOK

For sure. Okay. So, I mean, I’m going to come back to you a little bit here, Jeremy, in terms of the education that the athletes are provided. What does that program look like and and how often does it repeat

JEREMY DIXON

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think a repetition wise is, we hit it at the beginning of the year. We hit at the end of the year, but then we also hit it when we have like big sporting events that are coming up. So when we got March Madness, Super Bowl, Sunday, National football championship, and then all the other little championships that fall within that space there.

So we try to put out information as much as we can in that, but also anytime we get updates, with what’s happening in that space. And because of some things that have happened in the recent, I guess, weeks or months we’ve been putting out a lot more content than we normally would in this space, just based on what or what the NCAA was deciding to do, what it was just not decided to do.

And essentially we end up going back to the old rules anyway. So that’s like a bigger topic, a whole hard headache that we’ve had to deal with. But when it comes to educating our student athletes, we try to do as many things as possible. The main thing is engagement, right? I think a lot of people, when I think about athletic compliance, at least from a student athlete standpoint, they think of either someone who’s policing them or anyone as student athletes.

Think about it. They think they’re going to go sit in a room for an hour and a half, be talked at, anything like that. So we try to do things that are more engaging from playing, jeopardy with them to doing hoops games, which is like something they could play with on their phone, which is kind of like a Family Feud style type game to things that they actually interact with so that we can keep them engaged and also understand, like the seriousness of it, but also at the same time we discuss what’s happening in the real world from things that happened at either other institutions, other coaching staffs, sports things from a professional

standpoint, collegiate high school or everything. You name it, we try to make sure that they understand it’s real life, but we also try to make sure that it’s engaging in something that’s going to stick with them, and not something where they just went and sat in a college lecture hall for an hour and a half, and someone just talked to them about a particular topic, that it’s going to go in one ear and out the other.

SHANE COOK

Right. I want to come back to something that you mentioned, and that was a recent decision that was made by the NCAA. And I want to talk about where it was headed from them. But from the get go and what ended up happening.

JEREMY DIXON

Yeah, 100%. So, about a year ago maybe, probably more around like Covid timeframe, a proposal was floating around about allowing student athletes, coaches and people who currently work in athletic departments to wager on professional sports. There’s kind of been more of an open ear to it, especially because it’s wagering and gambling has become, I want to say, not necessarily more socially acceptable, but more, access has been granted to wagering in sports, gambling across the whole board.

I mean, we still have a lot of states that still don’t allow it. So that’s one thing or things in that space there. But just because the social access to it has become bigger, they just kind of stepping more into the space of it. So this past summer, it was voted on by the Division one council to allow for college athletes, students, staff, anyone involved with the athletic department to go ahead and wager on professional sports because it was a common proposal.

I think it was was kind of what the stance is. It had to be accepted by both Division one, Division two and Division three in order for it to be accepted as a whole. So since Division one approved it in the summer, Division two and Division three had to approve it when they met here in October. So Division two individual three both agreed to allow for pro sports wagering to occur on October 22nd.

And at that point, some schools and some conferences came out and said, we don’t necessarily agree with this. We think this should be rescinded. So they enacted, a 30 day clause that ended on November 22nd, where institutions were allowed to decide to either rescind their vote or change overall. And we needed 241 votes and we got 241 of those votes.

So now sports wagering has gone back to the old rules where professional sports is no longer permissible.

SHANE COOK

All right. So it sounds like that was, dodging a little bullet there.

JEREMY DIXON

It was a little bit of a roller coaster. And it’s crazy to think that, what’s happening kind of right now in this space is like, we we see the NCAA being, a lot more loose and a lot more forgiving with a lot of things that are happening in space because they’re trying to catch up with the times.

A lot of these rules that have been in place have been in place for 50, 60 years, and society has grown and student athletes have changed. So I think they’re trying to catch up with what’s happening today with allowing from, I think ten years ago we couldn’t feed students. Now, today we can feed them as much as we want.

So it’s just like, how do we catch up and stay ahead of the game? And I guess also reduce on the amount of lawsuits that are happening as well in the space.

SHANE COOK

Yeah, guys, from your perspective and with the Wellness Center, Jeremy touched on overall access to gaming and gambling is that something that you’ve noticed an impact with or you mentioned it’s not too prevalent, you don’t see it a whole lot, but I think there’s probably students on campus that are engaging in the practice.

GUY CAPRIO

Or there’s gambling and I think typically think of like sports gambling, but there’s also gaming. And maybe people are are wagering on on those things as well. There’s something as simple as lottery tickets that people don’t think about in terms of gaming or, you know, I was in a Cubs game a couple months ago, right? The 5050 raffles or or very prevalent.

So I think when we think about gambling, obviously we’re thinking more about sports gambling for the nature of of this podcast. But I think it’s really factored into so many different aspects of our society that we don’t even think about it as, as gambling anymore. So, you know, I know students play poker or play card games, but really the, the, the personal like doing this with each other is one thing.

I think the real challenge is doing this, like electronically. And that’s where the real risk, I believe, lies. Because, you know, I look back at myself when I was in college or even shortly out of college, if I wanted to bet on on a sporting event, I had to either have a bookie, which, you know, it wasn’t hard to find in New York City or, or wager with a wager with a friend next to me, and I, I’d actually get the hundred dollars out of my account and go meet someone and hand them that that money.

I think today, for young people, it’s much easier to gamble when all you’re doing is seeing a number move from one account to another. There’s not really the impact of having to get it and pay it. It doesn’t feel like like real money. Right? And then you’re you’re factoring in, I don’t want to name any specific, website, but, you know, you get a certain amount of money for signing up, then you can, like, get a bonus for betting on this game or for that game.

So I think it might start with like, what Jeremy was saying, where we get more education around the Super Bowl or the World Cup or these things that are big events that the typical person that wasn’t really that interested in sports might gamble on. It starts with that. And then before you know it, you’re, you know, you’re looking at, you know, a random basketball game on a Tuesday night that you don’t really care about, but there’s action on.

So you’re going to you’re going to wager on.

SHANE COOK

Yeah. I heard somebody, described that one time as getting deeper and deeper into gambling and found themselves at 3:00 in the morning betting on Yugoslavian women’s dog sledding or something, something crazy like that. So, well.

GUY CAPRIO

You know, the the NCAA did, a survey like in 2023, I think about 78% of people are more likely to gamble on a sporting event they’re watching. So it’s just a natural progression.

SHANE COOK

Right? Right. And at this great point, too, about how frictionless it is become to engage with these apps and and with the gambling platforms that are available today. And I think that that just creates an easy path for people to engage with the practice. So let’s talk about another little friction point that can exist. And and we’ve heard about it.

And on other college campuses where, some of the student body may be betting on a particular, game or individual, performance. And then it starts to attack that person. We’ve heard that. I know Illinois is different because you can’t bet on the the colleges in the state, but we’re also close enough to Wisconsin that somebody could cross the line at the state line and place a bet and then come back.

And had either of you heard of these issues, does it occasionally come up? How does it impact the students? But the student athletes themselves being attacked in class? And when I say attacked, I’m not talking necessarily physical, but verbal attacks.

JEREMY DIXON

It’s typically right around the same way that of contact oftentimes is that we have fans reaching out to our student athletes via the most successful, whether they can, which right now is social media. So whether they’re direct messaging them or commenting something about them. And now our athletes have to deal with that. And trying to figure out exactly what that means.

I think we try our best to, to limit how much access a lot of the fans actually have to the student athletes, just on their own safety standpoint. But there are some times where, like a fan will figure out how to get in contact with them in that space there. And oftentimes plus a student athlete brings it to our attention.

We can either discuss it with our general counsel to figure out if there’s any legal ramifications that we need to take care of from that standpoint, from sending cease and desist letters to getting restraining orders, or just trying to figure out exactly how to protect the student athlete and sometimes their family, because sometimes they, their parents will get messaged or something like that, or if they have a sibling and it’s some yeah, it can get kind of crazy out there right now.

I mean, you got to think like some of these people are wagering five, $10 a bet right now on little things, but those five, $10 bets they add up. I was actually just talking one of my coaches earlier today, where he had a recruit that was caught in the Iowa scandal, and he was telling me that when he first recruited that the athlete, the athlete told him, yeah, I was only doing $5 bets.

So it wasn’t that really big of a deal. So he didn’t think it was too much of an issue. Come find out those $5 bets. That actually equaled up to almost $10,000 worth of wagering over a three year period. So when you’re wagering that kind of money and people aren’t performing the way you would want to, you could assume at some point they’re going to start reaching out, trying to contact.

And, hey, can you do this better here? And of course, like us as like sports fans, we always think that we could do something better than someone else when they’re out there. I mean, this guy, I think that’s kind of reason. Why was it Pat McAfee’s got the field goal kicking before college games. Got these people thinking they can kick your goals better than the actual people out there doing it.

And you know, someone’s always going to think that they can do something better. And so when they don’t see that someone is performing the way that they would like to perform, and then there’s money on the line, then they’re going to kind of want to reach out and contact those people and say, hey, you’re doing a horrible job and explicit, explicit, explicit, you name it.

So oftentimes it’s just us trying to advocate for the student, trying to make sure that they have the protection, connecting with people like Guy who can help them with staying mentally engaged, and that this is socializing themselves, and also understanding that the people around them will help, will just need to know what’s happening.

GUY CAPRIO

Just to just to touch on what Jeremy was saying real quick as well. Yeah, there’s there’s the threats, I think usually anonymous. Almost always probably anonymous. Right. But but I think even just having athletes staying off social media in general, or limiting what they’re reading about themselves or what they’re reading about the programs because from a mental health perspective, I think the more you’re reading it, I think people generally are posting negative things.

It’s like, you know, you see a movie, you know, like, or you go to a restaurant, a service was a good you’re much more likely to write something about it than you are if you had a really good meal. So, you know, I think even just, just just educating student athletes around, limiting their exposure of being more mindful around the detrimental effects of being too, online in a lot of ways is.

SHANE COOK

Yeah. Are you starting to see that from the general student population that they’re, I guess, limiting the amount that they spent, time that they spent, or is they still absolutely no.

GUY CAPRIO

Absolutely no. Look, I’m the first one to admit, I mean, I’m a 56 year old, middle aged white man. So when I’m sitting with a 18, typically to 22 year old student, I mean, for me to lecture them or to talk to them about, you know, social media, there’s not a lot of street cred there. I understand people’s lives are are lived online that a lot of ways.

But I also think just just from a very basic perspective of, of our attention span, let’s say. Right. So you know, how many students can, can sit down and read 30 pages now without checking their phone multiple times or responding to a text or changing the song on their Spotify playlist or whatever. They know what’s going on in the world in the news.

So, you know, I think and that’s not just students. I think that’s probably all of us as well. Right. So I think but I trace it all back to the easy accessibility of communication and of information. And I think it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to kind of rewire our brain to be able to get ourselves to a position to where we can focus and and function at a level where we would actually really want to.

So it’s it’s if a student wants to limit their use, the problem is everyone around them isn’t. So you kind of fall back into that.

Into that behavior and just kind of add to that. I think we try to remind, tell our student athletes that the internet isn’t a real place. So we try to keep them in my in that space. So I think the other part to it too, is like we’re starting to see a new generation of athlete where a lot of these athletes, their only interaction with people for 2 to 3 years and probably 2 or 3 years of very important time space for them.

JEREMY DIXON

High school junior high was during the pandemic, which they didn’t get a lot of person to person interaction. So all they had was internet interaction. So for them, it may be a little bit more personalized, where for someone like myself, where I was an athlete before the pandemic, when literally I went outside and met with people. While I might be kind of towards the tail end of people going outside meeting with people in my age group, but I think because there’s so much weight and and thought that goes into how people perceive what happens on the internet.

You have to try to remind them that it’s not a real place and you can always disengage from what’s actually happening there.

SHANE COOK

Yeah. Do you find the student athletes are responsive to that?

JEREMY DIXON

I think I think they try, I do okay, but I think especially in a sport like basketball, where we see a very player friendly space, where people actually want to connect with them. I think with that, I think they care more about their social media platform than maybe some other sports do. I think, at least for me, when I look at of football, because of the disconnect of, like not knowing who the person is with the helmet on versus the helmet off, not necessarily knowing one difference or the other when it comes to basketball, like their whole persona is as well as connected with their face, as well as the jersey that

they’re wearing.

SHANE COOK

Right? And let’s face it too, I mean, that’s something that’s part of a marketing strategy to to utilize social media in that way and to highlight some of the players to bring in more spectators, to the games. Right?

JEREMY DIXON

Yeah, yeah, I remember I think we do see it as an all time high, I think just two nights ago. And Zach Levine got into it with a guy in the stands. And so we’re seeing that like, fans are, are getting a lot more aggressive when it comes to their displeasure. And I think even the guy who got into it with Zach Levine actually and came online and posted a video saying, oh, I said, what time was that?

He needed to play defense. I paid good money to come watch him play. So you need to play defense and that that’s something to buy a ticket. So I can only imagine what I’m saying when the wagering.

SHANE COOK

Yeah, I kind of feel like that guy. You might have a comment on this, but I think that is a societal issue in general that we’re seeing across the board. It seems like everybody’s temperature is elevated and everybody’s living on edge. And at any given moment, somebody could, you know, display that kind of behavior.

GUY CAPRIO

I went to University of Alabama for undergrad. I know what it was like being at football games. And this is going back in the, you know, the late, the late 80s of of what crowds were like. I think as tickets have exponentially gone up in price for, for many events. Yeah. Many people feel like they, they have a right to say and do whatever they want at the game.

Or, you know, I always I go back to the old adage of, you might type in on, on Twitter or X to somebody or you might, you know, you might yell it from, from the balcony. If you were on the court, I wouldn’t be saying that to Ron Artest. Yeah. So I think that’s, you think about back at the, you know, the situation that happened, happened with the Pistons.

So, yeah, for for a lot of people, it’s I paid my money, I’m going to come here and I’m going to say this to this person. But you know, you’re also speaking to a human being that has feelings and emotions and, you know, potentially a temper. And, these things escalate, escalate pretty quickly. Go back to one one more thing with the fan stuff.

So I just read, I think it was yesterday, a couple days ago, the the Philadelphia Eagles, their their offensive coordinator. I think, you know, there are people. Yeah. They were like throwing eggs at his house after, after the last game. Right. So I mean, these these things, it’s, you know, someone’s just just doing their job.

You work your whole life to get to this point. You’re doing your job, and, you know, the season maybe isn’t going is as you want. And it starts out with someone throwing eggs at your house. It maybe ends up with something a lot more more serious and than that. Right. You know, personal safety, bodily harm.

JEREMY DIXON

As a it’s it’s Philly and Philly fans are are notorious for for the support level that they have for their teams.

SHANE COOK

So hey let’s talk a little bit about it. This was something we talked about a little bit pre show is the effect of NIL money on student athletes and opening up access to that kind of money that maybe they haven’t experienced in the past and how that leads to some potential. What’s the word I’m looking for bumpy situations ahead.

For those individuals.

JEREMY DIXON

Yeah. I mean I, I even kind of, kind of more clarify that a little bit more. So we got NIL now and we also have rev share right. So rev share something that came out this past summer through the house settlement. And essentially that says that institutions are allowed to share the revenue that they generate with the student athletes.

As long as we’re providing up to a particular number and falling within a cap of $20.5 million. So now schools are essentially taking money out of the rev share and providing it to their student athletes directly to for anything that they’re producing. Right. So most institutions you only see it with probably the revenue generating sports, even though they’re trying to get it across the board.

It just isn’t necessarily possible for all schools at this moment. So you really only see what the revenue during sports, which is typically like your footballs, your basketballs, baseball, softball, soccer’s depending on how good of a of a soccer team or program you have. And then they try to provide and generate money for other schools, I mean other sports as well.

And then you have NIL, which is just regular name, image, likeness, which is more of like student athletes generating contracts with third party organizations on their own and getting paid for showing up to events, signing off on things. I think all in all, I think we have a generation of athletes at the moment that are experiencing new money for the first time, especially when you think about how many first generation student athletes are out there that don’t necessarily have access to money.

And I think the other part, too, I think this is more of a society thing rather than like an athlete thing is like we have a really low awareness of financial literacy in our country right now where people don’t understand necessarily, my debt to income ratio, they don’t necessarily understand taxes and how to how to take care of that.

So now we have to worry about educating our student athletes to make sure they understand how to take care of everyday things with rev share and and NIL money. But now we have to worry about them going out here and using that money to wager and earn some type of income from their or lose money and not necessarily know what it looks like to go out and do $1,000 bet and then be like, oh, well, I got $10,000 left in my account.

Not realizing that they spent $1,000 here, $3,000 there, and that thousand dollars bet. You’re going to want to continue to reciprocate. And I’m pretty sure Guy can speak more to that. Once you start building those habits, we’ll start getting access to things you don’t necessarily have before, like, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of our student athletes grow up with the mindset, you fake it til you make it, and now they feel like they’ve got a little extra money in their pocket.

So now they essentially made it. But now they’re trying to live up to that lifestyle in which they essentially put, and they don’t understand the dangers that could come with that.

GUY CAPRIO

Once you feel that rush of that thousand dollar bet, you’re not going to go back to 50. It’s just that it’s it’s just not the same. And I think it becomes a slippery slope from there. And then again, I’m not an expert in the mind of an athlete. I know it’s much more your area, Jeremy, but I think, you know, there’s always this thought of, I’m going to win or I’m good at this, or I’m an expert in this game.

So I’m going to win over, over time. And we all know it doesn’t. It doesn’t work out.

SHANE COOK

Yeah. Too many, variables that, can pop up that people don’t think about. And we’ve been we’ve had other guests that we’ve talked about this in the competitive nature of an athlete, and gambling, it’s a really bad mix because they do believe, I know this game. I know the ins and outs for this game. But what, you know, chance happens, right?

Some guy has, has a bad meal the night before and wakes up with food poisoning. Right. So not going to be an optimal performer that day. I mean, those are things that happen all the time.

JEREMY DIXON

And I think, Shane, I think you mentioned in the pre-show that, a lot most of the people who do well in wagering are the ones that probably know the least amount about the sport itself. So now we’ve got a lot of these people out here. I think they’re experts in the sport going off there, filling in their gut and what they think and not knowing that like variables do happen.

SHANE COOK

Anything that we haven’t covered yet that you would suggest we talk about.

JEREMY DIXON

I think for me, I’d be more interested to kind of learn from Guy. I have a little bit of a warning signs to kind of pay attention to, to. So I know exactly what I should be looking for with my athletes.

GUY CAPRIO

To me, when I think about gambling, like, you know, I mean, it’s an old adage, but I think it’s just everything in moderation, right? Going into it with a plan, if somebody is going to be gambling on what’s or it can’t even be professional sports now, let’s say, because you’re not allowed to do that, but if you’re going in, you’re going to be gambling, you know.

Yeah, you have your $100. How do you want to gamble? That’s right. Is it, you know, ten, $10 bets. Is it a parlay? And having an understanding of what these things actually mean, and understanding what the kind of the risk reward is of of what you’re doing, and then being able to walk away from that once you’ve lost your $100.

Or on the flip side, once I’ve won $100 or $200, whatever that is, be able to kind of take that, take that off the table. So, you know what? For me, the the the real challenges, the impulsivity perspective, everybody gets caught up in the action or the activity. That’s why I think, you know, going back to that NCAA survey, I think 60% of people that were that were surveyed are betting live.

And you can do this through the, you know, through the apps now. And, number one, I the one thing I think about it, I have YouTube TV, which I’m, I’m happy with, but there’s definitely a good 30 or plus second lag on the action. And when, you know, when I’m looking at the when you’d be looking at the live the live betting number one, the the vig, let’s call it for that as well.

They’re taking a big chunk of your money, you know, based on what you’re even if you, you win the, the aggregate, you’re betting 130 to to win 100, so to speak. And I think the idea of, of always betting over and over and over again, it’s, you know, you’re not just betting once on the game. Now you can bet every single play or everything, every single pitch.

So you know, that’s again increasing our impulsivity, increasing the risk of potentially losing keeping us there, which is what they actually want us to do. The algorithm of of having our undivided attention. And then before you know it, it’s, you know, we know, like any casino, if you’re the longer you sit there, eventually you’re, you’re going to lose.

So, you know, be being aware of your own predisposition as well. I mean, not, not to label anybody, but I think there is very high the, the, the word we use in therapy is, is comorbidity. So maybe folks that struggle with attention deficit disorder, which is a lot of people, can have an increase in impulsivity, which makes them more likely to potentially struggle with, with impulsive gambling, or other activities.

I think the same thing with, with substance use disorder, there’s a correlation with substance use disorder and what I’ll call problem gambling. I think the number of people that are in substance use disorder treatment, I think about 20% of them also can struggle or do struggle with with gambling related related issues. And when you think about treatment for these things, I think the amount of money spent on gambling treatment is like under 1% of what you see for substance use treatment, but it’s still, a prevalent issue.

So, you know, again, I think when we think about the risk factors, just something Jeremy was talking about is kind of knowing, knowing yourself, knowing your own levels of impulsivity, thinking about family history or the people you’re, you’re kind of hanging on with, you know, at your fraternity house or on your team or in your friend group.

Is gambling something very prevalent? It starts out as. Yeah, I just, I bought a square for the Super Bowl or, in the, the NCAA pool, and and it once you kind of get the feel for that, it can turn into something, something much bigger.

JEREMY DIXON

And we talk to our students about like Super Bowl squares because most of them don’t even realize that’s wagering. Right? I mean, like they thing. Oh yeah. It’s just my family does every Super Bowl. So everyone’s just put in $5. I don’t even understand like that. That’s sports wagering. That’s not permissible from the NCAA standpoint.

GUY CAPRIO

Look, we live in a time now where we’re kind of flooded with the news, right. So I think maybe over the last month or a couple months, three different universities, you know, students were in trouble for gambling related issues, whether it was somebody asking them to throw a game or, you know, kind of manipulating their performance or giving information for, you know, injuries or things along those lines for somebody.

But then I think back to when I was a kid, let’s go to the early, might even have been the early 80s Art Schielstter at at Ohio State I remember was a good quarterback that got himself in trouble and kind of derailed his career. Rick Newheisel, I think it was 2003. Was fired from University of Washington for being in a neighbor’s NCAA pool.

I mean, that guy had a great career. I mean, I listen to him every now and again on, on, on Sirius XM. So, you know, over time, there have been warning signs of people that I don’t want to say threw away, but, I mean, they were negatively impacted their their personal and professional reputations for things. And now we’re just viewed as commonplace.

JEREMY DIXON

And it’s it’s hard to put a job at Ole mater. But I mean, the Alabama baseball coach just two, three years ago.

GUY CAPRIO

Absolutely.

SHANE COOK

Yeah.

GUY CAPRIO

Absolutely. I think they’re better off without it. But you are 100% correct. That was that was screwed up pretty crazy.

JEREMY DIXON

Crazy Iowa investigation a year and a half ago. Everything that’s happening with Fresno State and San Jose State that’s going on right now with student athletes betting on themselves, as well as betting on their teammates and how well they’re going to play. So now they’re dealing with that. All those that we’ve had, about 7 or 8 cases in the last two months get disclose.

We had the think it was BYU or I see the BYU or it was Boise. I can’t remember exactly which school it was. But the tennis coach that they had there was wagering using his partners, name an account and bank account. He would put money in her account and use her account to wager. And then they had a falling out and she went and told his institution.

And then it just kind of went downhill from there.

SHANE COOK

Wow. I didn’t hear that one. Yeah. So that’s the first.

GUY CAPRIO

Point, is I think, yeah, BYU and I don’t love the gamble in general, I don’t think anyway. But the point being these things are so prevalent now. Like these don’t even make the, the front page of the news anymore. There’s so many, you know, problems kind of bubbling up or issues bubbling up.

SHANE COOK

Yeah, yeah. That’s crazy guys, I really enjoyed this conversation. Tons of useful information. So I appreciate that just in general. I want to tee this helping get your thoughts on where do you where do you see betting going and its impact on collegiate athletes, programs, etc. over the next 5 to 10 years?

JEREMY DIXON

I recently watched, a movie about the whole, GameStop thing that happened a few years ago. And, I think one of the words that, the lines that kind of stuck with me was, to the moon. So I feel like when it comes to sports wagering is as right now I think it’s going to go to the moon, but I don’t think there’s really a ceiling on it, on where it’s going to go and how much access we’re going to provide to it.

I think the fact that we rescinded the ability to vote on or wager on pro sports right now, I think that’s a minor hiccup in the road. I think what’s going to happen is that eventually it’s going to become permissible to probably going to put some more guidelines around it or, or I get a little bit more structure involved with that piece there, because in reality, there’s really no real way to monitor who’s wagering and who isn’t on anything.

And a lot of these spaces outside of the few things that are out there at the moment, but I honestly, I feel like what’s going to happen is as more organizations get involved in in sports wagering and more those same organizations are getting involved with sports as a whole, I think you’re going to see more of a blended connection.

I think a lot of that’s going to happen. I mean, right now we have a thing on the proposal to talk about sports branding on jerseys and games. So what’s what’s to stop like one of these get fantasy game sites from trying to purchase local or on a court, or on the name of a stadium or an arena, or as well as Jersey space now.

So it’s like once you start opening that door of like that space, now you’re going to start saying, well, we don’t really have too much of a blend or a separation when it comes to the wagering space. I mean, look at tobacco and marijuana and alcohol and think about how as, as a society has started to say, well, this is okay.

It may have taken some time for it to just be globally accepted as a whole. But like, I think it’s starting to see a lot of the same signs where as society, we’re we’re more we’re getting more and more comfortable with it being involved in particular areas, in particular people doing certain things. So I think sports wagering is probably following one of those same patterns where we think, I think it’s really going to be more ingrained in our day to day operations than maybe it is today.

And I think it’s going to take a lot of heavy lifting to make sure that everyone involved in it is educated, and understands the ins and outs and the good and the bad that comes with that. And I think it’s going to come to a lot of institutions to really have support, from having people like Guy on their staff to, to, to help with the mental aspect and anguish of that, but also making sure that, we have the appropriate legal teams, attached to make sure that we’re not doing anything the wrong way.

GUY CAPRIO

Yeah. If there’s money, I, I agree with everything Jeremy said. There’s money to be made. Then. That, that answers the question right. I think, at the end of the day, we look at kind of use the word like the, the degenerate economy, right. It’s cryptos traded 24 hours a day, I think, Robinhood now you I think you could trade stocks 24 hours a day.

There’s a there’s a market for it. Futures 24 hours a day. Sports, gambling, the same stuff. So ultimately, I think this is this is the future. The question to me is one, how do we regulate it? And what is the kind of the, you know, the fallout from this because there’s always going to be fallout from it.

You know, at the end of the day, with all the money that is going to be made, does that trickle down to the institutions and the athletes that are actually the ones performing? So I mean, hopefully that’s the case. But but yeah, I don’t I don’t there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. I think that society people want this and that, that it’s only going to it’s only going to grow.

SHANE COOK

Yeah. All good points, gentlemen. I appreciate you joining the show. Again, it was fantastic having both of you learned a lot. And, look forward to continuing our discussions at a future time. And maybe we can, revisit this in a couple of years down the road and see how things have changed.

JEREMY DIXON

Sounds good. I appreciate you for having us.

GUY CAPRIO

That’ll be great. Yeah. Thanks a lot for having us. Yeah, we appreciate it.

SHANE COOK

Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. We love hearing from you. So please take a moment to like, share and comment on our podcast. You can reach out to us directly via email at Wager Danger at Gateway foundation.org. Look for us on Facebook and Twitter, at Recovered Gateway, on LinkedIn at gateway Dash Foundation, or through our website at Gateway foundation.org.

Wager danger is supported through funding, in whole or in part through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Division of Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery. And remember, recovery is a lifelong process. If you are a family member is struggling with a gambling problem, call gateway at (844) 975-3663 and speak with one of our counselors for a confidential assessment.