Ole Miss Approves Center To Address Gambling Among College Students

On a campus where football Saturdays are a ritual and college sports shape the daily conversation; the University of Mississippi is taking an unprecedented step in confronting a growing danger within that culture: gambling.Ole Miss officials announced this week the creation of the Center on Collegiate Gambling, a research and policy hub that founders describe as the first of its kind in the United States. The center is designed to study and address the “heightened risks” for college students and student athletes caused by the rapid growth of legalized sports betting and online gambling.“We’ve seen that it can impact the mental health of student-athletes who are getting threatened and harassed because people are losing money because of their performance during games,” Hannah Allen-King, one of the center’s founders said, adding, “We need to support students and athletes. There’s also a lot of work that can be done in pre-college and post-college populations.”Approved in February by the Mississippi Institutions of High Learning Board of Trustees, the center is expected to launch next month with an annual operating cost of roughly $700,000. It will be housed within the university’s William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing and will begin hiring staff in the coming months.The center’s creation comes following a statewide survey conducted by Ole Miss researchers that offers a snapshot that underscores both the scale of participation in sports gambling and the risks that accompany it.Despite Mississippi being one of the few states yet to legalize online sports betting, nearly 39 percent of Mississippi college students reported gambling in some form over the past year, and nearly 60% of those who gambled placed online bets using what they described as a “legal’ sportsbook.Among those who bet on sports, 6% met the criteria for problem gambling as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, while another 10 percent fell into a moderate-risk category.“Part of the issue right now is everybody is having a good time,” Daniel Dunkin, an associate professor of social work and one of the center’s founding members, said. “Look at the ads, gambling’s fun. Everybody’s doing it. The seriousness of the issues has not really come to the forefront yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”Ms. Allen-King, the executive director of the university’s William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing, said the center will promote evidence-based policies and programs to prevent harm, support student wellbeing and protect the integrity of college athletics. Eight university counselors have already received certification from a program developed at East Carolina University, and future counselors are being trained to identify and help students who are engaging in problem gambling.Much of the training is based on the research discovered in the survey. “From the research findings, we were able to say, ‘Here’s what we need to see on our campus in terms of prevention, education, policy, intervention and treatment for students that need it,” Ms. Allen-King said. “In the fall of 2026, we will have more of a dedicated campus plan to address gambling.”The center also plans to host an annual conference and a “Collegiate Gambling Awareness Week” to bring tougher researchers, policymakers and practitioners.Mr. Durkin said the idea for a center took shape two years ago when he heard an expert discuss the negative impacts of gambling. “I became very alarmed,” Mr. Durkin said. “We were seeing a developing gambling problem, and not a whole lot of people were actually doing anything about it.”A task force that included faculty from social work, public health, law and education was formed. That led to the creation of the survey, and ultimately the proposal for a new center.“When we started going to national gambling conferences, that’s where we realized that more direct efforts were needed in the collegiate gambling space,” Mr. Durkin said. “There was a need for a center focused specifically on collegiate gambling.”College campuses throughout the nation have become hubs for sports betting activity. A 2023 survey by the NCAA showed 58 percent of the 18 to 22-year-olds polled had engaged in at least one sports betting activity, and 67 percent of students living on campus are bettors. Perhaps more concerning, 6 percent of bettors had lost more than $500 on sports betting in a single day.“If a student shows up at the counseling center and is talking about this issue, the counselors will be able to provide brief intervention and connection to broader resources if needed,” Ms. Allen-King said, adding, “After all, you don’t want to graduate someone with a gambling problem into the workforce or into the general population. We want to address this issue and provide support while they are in our care on campus.”

Ole Miss Approves Center To Address Gambling Among College Students

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