The fastest-growing industry in the sports world is not any particular sport or professional league. In fact, an hour spent watching most sports programs points to an obvious answer.

The fastest growing sports industry is the industry of sports gambling. You can’t watch a game without seeing ads for gambling apps on screen, and not just during commercials.

Betting can range from placing money on who will win a game to whether a pitcher throws a strike or a ball on their first pitch.

In South Carolina, only betting on a player’s performance is legal. But the range of bets are extensive on most platforms.

Importantly, not all bettors, particularly those using sports betting apps, are nice. Some post messages on social media that bash student athletes, or they directly message them threats.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2024 partnered with Signify, a group that monitors online abuse, for their “Draw the Line” campaign. 

The data showed that 80% of abusive messages were targeted at student athletes during March Madness, the weeks-long collegiate basketball championship tournament.

Twelve percent of the abuse was related to sports betting. And women’s basketball student athletes were three times more likely to receive abuse compared to their male counterparts.

It’s not just a few people betting and being abusive.

The ancient Egyptians placed the first known bets on chariot racing and board games. The ancient Greeks placed money on their favorite athletes in the early Olympic games. The Romans welcomed sports gambling on holidays.

But no other period of time matches the exponential growth of sports gambling seen today. 

University of South Carolina professor Dr. Stephen Shapiro, a professor of sports and entertainment management, has done research on consumer marketing and behavior, including sports gambling.

Shapiro thinks smart marketing powered the growth of sport betting companies such as Draft Kings, BetMGM and FanDuel.

“The demand was there,” Shapiro said. “Once (sports gambling) got legalized, that created an avenue for it to be promoted and marketed, and I think that led to the explosion.”

A subset of the growth in the industry comes from young, typically male college students.

A 2023 NCAA survey found that 58% of people aged 18 to 22 participated in sports betting activity.

Two USC seniors, Jack Harrington and Liam Sullivan, say they have gambled. Harrington said he used sports entertainment betting apps, while Sullivan’s activity centered on fantasy sports.

“I like sports a lot, and I like to gamble,” Harrington said. “So if you put the two things together, sometimes you feel like you have a competitive advantage.”

Sullivan believes the activity enhances the sports-watching experience.

“I enjoy it because I think it’s a really unique idea and it makes the games on Sunday more entertaining,” Sullivan said.

Both students said they’ve never gone on social media and razzed an athlete.

Anyone who would is “a loser with no friends,” Harrington said.

During March Madness, the most-watched spectacle of the NCAA, the tournament and student athletes participating receive great attention.

In a 64-team tournament, one team is victorious, but most fail prior to the final hurdle.

USC’s women’s basketball team has had great success in the tournament. They have reached the Final Four stage of the competition for each of the past five seasons.

Steve Fink, USC’s senior assistant athletic director for communications and public relations, said he doesn’t recall South Carolina’s women’s basketball players facing that kind of abuse.

The abusers are the ones posting the messages. But Shapiro said sports betting platforms also are responsible for the abuse faced by student athletes.

“I put some of that responsibility on them to extend that (responsibility) to protecting student athletes,” Shapiro said.

That “would help the NCAA and athletic departments deal with this,” he said.

Student athletes face great pressure to perform well inside the classroom and on the field, for academics and for their possible future careers, Shapiro said.

Receiving that kind of hate can heavily impact athletes’ mental health and their ability to perform at the highest level.

The threat of abuse prompted the NCAA to release yet another campaign called “Don’t be a Loser,” which includes a video highlighting and condemning the online hate.

Some irate sports fans have taken a unique additional step: demanding money. 

A few student athletes have received money requests through Venmo, a cash exchange app, from unsuccessful bettors, demanding compensation, along with hateful messages. The NCAA and Venmo in response partnered in late August to curb the online harassment of student athletes. 

The partnership features a hotline for athletes to directly report online harassment and a monitoring of social media trends by Venmo’s security team.

David Szuchman, the senior vice president of PayPal, Venmo’s parent company, told ESPN that while the monetary requests were infrequent, they were still “unacceptable.”