Brendan Sorsby bet more than $90,000 on games while rooting for the Indiana University and University of Cincinnati football teams. Court records show that he began gambling in high school at casinos with friends and began experimenting with sports betting apps that allowed him to bet on his phone before he turned 21—the legal age. Sorsby said he was lured by introductory offers that allowed him to deposit a few dollars and get hundreds in free betting credits.
When he got to college, Sorsby said he placed bets between $5 and $50 on his IU team to win. Soon he was betting thousands, often on random events he didn’t follow, such as Turkish basketball games and Romanian football games. “What started as a seemingly harmless activity with friends gradually turned into an uncontrollable compulsion,” court documents say. Now the player, who transferred to Texas Tech in 2026, has been diagnosed with a gambling problem.
Sorsby’s story is no different for college students. Researchers estimate that 6 percent of college students have a serious gambling problem, and men are more affected. A survey from the American Institute for Boys and Men found that 26 percent of young men ages 18 to 24 have used a sports betting app, daily sportsbook, prediction market or other gambling platform in the past six months, compared to 14 percent of the general population. Although there is no evidence that such users will develop gambling addictions, psychologists who study gambling note that without the brains of fully grown adults, college students are less impulsive and risk-averse when they gamble. Age restrictions do little to prevent young people from gambling: Nearly two-thirds of adults report participating in at least one form of gambling before turning 21. Meanwhile, the betting markets—which are increasingly seen as addictive as gambling—are accessible to 18-year-olds.
Gambling platforms and market forecasts also strongly point to this population growth. The growth manager of the predictive market app Polymarket took an interest in the faculty of Arizona State University earlier this year, offering members a “chapter partnership opportunity” where they will receive branded sales, free credits and money in exchange for promoting the app on their social networks, placing a Polymarket flag outside the private house and giving company repeaters the opportunity to speak 15-minute chapters during chapter speaking sessions.
In accordance with The Wall Street JournalPolymarket also reached out to fraternities and social clubs throughout the University of California, Berkeley, offering the company beer pong mugs and up to $1,000 in party favors. And predictive market apps could become even more mainstream—Mark Zuckerberg reportedly directed a team to develop one to take on Polymarket and Kalshi.
The Sorsby case caused reputational damage to higher ed and its gambling status. Texas Tech wanted to keep him on the field, despite his clear violation of the NCAA’s anti-gambling rules. Only when colleges in their conference, the Big 12, filed a lawsuit in federal court, did Texas Tech direct Sorsby to end his college playing career and apply for the NFL’s supplemental draft. Earlier this week, the NFL denied his request.
Texas Tech’s support of Sorsby, combined with gambling ads and sponsorships at every NCAA game—from commercials, on-field ads and signage between screens to stadium naming rights—means it has some work to do to regain credibility in the fight against gambling addiction among students.
Solutions will have to come from institutions. Legal oversight is unlikely anytime soon: Gambling fills the coffers of 38 states, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets, is looking to expand what types of exchanges are allowed on social media.
James Borchers, president and CEO of the American Council on Athletic Health and chief medical officer of the Big Ten Conference, has argued against the program’s accreditation of athletic departments for health, safety and wellness. But what about runners? Many organizations have developed institutional action guidelines to incorporate awareness of gambling addiction into their policies on alcohol and drug use. They also provide frameworks to educate students about the dangers of gambling and connect them with recovery support—Sorsby checked himself into residential treatment for his gambling addiction.
Sorsby’s story brought the problem of gambling on college campuses into the open. But thousands of other low-achieving students who don’t participate in athletics struggle with the same compulsion. With so much attention on the scandal, higher ed can use this time to raise awareness of the insidious threat of gambling to the entire student body and take action to combat it.
