Para leer esta historia en inglés, ¡haz clic aquí!
The rise of sports betting in Florida is leaving an increasingly visible toll among younger people. Recent data from the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling (FCCG) reveals that more than half of those seeking help for problems with online sports betting began gambling at age 20 or younger.
“At times I felt like I could make money from betting, but I always ended up losing,” says Carlos Montalvo, who first bet on sports at age 17 after borrowing a friend’s information to create an account on DraftKings.
Meanwhile, national data confirms early exposure to gambling: among youth aged 11 to 17, more than three in ten, or 34% of surveyed youth, have already bet on sports. This proportion rises to nearly 50%, or one in every two minors, by age 17, according to Common Sense Media’s 2026 report.
Although platforms like DraftKings do not legally operate in Florida, Montalvo’s case illustrates how age controls can be easily bypassed in the digital environment.
In Florida, online sports betting has been concentrated since its launch in 2023 under a single authorized operator, following an exclusivity model negotiated with the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2023, years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Murphy v. NCAA.
“If you have to drive to a casino and show ID, many kids probably wouldn’t be able to experiment with betting until they reach legal age,” said Marlon Benitez, a parent who warns his children about the risks.
Even with legal restrictions in place, online betting in Florida is hard to monitor, as young people remain constantly exposed to gambling content on social media and digital platforms. With the rise of prediction markets, about 15% of sports betting ads seen online in 2025 fell outside state responsible gaming regulations. By the first two months of 2026, that figure had risen to nearly half, according to a March analysis of the American Gaming Association, AMG, the leading trade organization representing the U.S. gaming industry since 1994.
“The ads are everywhere: on my TikTok algorithm, in the videos I watch on YouTube, on my favorite soccer team’s uniform, even on major sports channels like ESPN or FOX Deportes,” says Montalvo.
Sports betting platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel, which today should not be able to operate in Florida, led advertising spending on sports betting in the country with nearly $900 million in 2019 and continued to grow in 2020. The sector peaked in 2022, with close to $2 billion in advertising investment, and has since stabilized at around $1.1 billion annually, according to the sports betting and spending data, published in march by AMG.
Nearly half of teenagers surveyed in a Common Sense Media study reported seeing gambling-related advertising or content through algorithms on digital platforms. The report, titled “Betting on Boys: Understanding Gambling Among Adolescent Boys,” also found that those with greater exposure spent more on average: $72 compared to $33.
The link between the visibility of this type of content in digital environments and increased financial participation in gambling is not the only concern identified by experts. As sports betting becomes normalized online, “young people are at significantly higher risk of developing gambling problems,” said Heather L. Maurer, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, in a press release.
“When I won, I got carried away and wanted to spend more money, but I always lost everything in the end,” Montalvo recalls. “It’s very easy to get addicted to gambling.”
According to researcher John W. Ayers, the growth of online gambling has been associated with an increase in what studies call “problem gambling,” a technical term describing situations where gambling begins to have negative consequences in a person’s life, such as loss of control or impacts on well-being, even if it does not reach the level of clinical addiction. This finding is part of a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, which analyzes the relationship between the expansion of online gambling and mental health risk indicators such as anxiety and addictive behaviors.
Although there is no exact figure describing how many minors develop psychological disorders, adolescent gambling is closely linked to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and impulsivity; factors that tend to reinforce each other over time. This is shown in a 2025 study by Hyun Jung Lee and Gyungjoo Lee, based on research from multiple countries.
Carlos Montalvo, now 25, says the last time he gambled was in 2025. After losing a considerable amount of money, he decided to step away. However, he admits that he occasionally thinks about betting when attending or watching a game.
“I think the biggest problem is accessibility. Having it available 24/7 and being able to bet on anything makes it tempting and dangerous,” Carlos reflects.
Thus, the legalization of online betting in Florida has exposed a gap that is hard to ignore: as access expands and advertising bypasses safeguards, more young people are gambling and facing increasing risk.
