By Kerry Gallagher
In the fast-evolving online gambling landscape, many apps that look and feel like sports betting are actually classified under different legal frameworks. For parents, understanding these distinctions is key to recognizing what might be on your child’s phone.
The 4 Types of Betting Apps Kids Are Seeing
- Traditional Sportsbooks: These are the most well-known. Users bet directly against a company that sets the odds.
- Examples: DraftKings and FanDuel
- Prediction Markets: These apps allow users to bet on the outcome of real-world events like sports, politics, traffic, and weather. Instead of betting against a house, users trade against each other at prices that reflect probability.
- Examples: Kalshi and Polymarket
- Daily Fantasy Pick’ems: These platforms focus on individual player stats with in-play bets or microbets (e.g., “Will this player score over 6 points in the 4th quarter?”) rather than game outcomes. Sometimes these in-play bets are stacked into parlays. They are legal at younger ages than traditional sportsbooks in some states.
- Examples: PrizePicks and Betr
- Social Sweepstakes: These apps use a sweepstakes model where users play with virtual currency that can sometimes be redeemed for real cash prizes. The sweepstakes model allows them to bypass many traditional gambling laws including age restrictions, which makes them especially attractive to teen users.
- Example: Fliff
3 Tips for Building Proactive Awareness
- Expose the Hidden Math: Use this video from Dr. Steven Rose, a gambling addiction counselor, to explain that these apps are designed to guarantee that, over time, the platform makes money and the gambler loses money.
- Discuss the Dopamine Loop: Explain how the small quick rewards in these apps are scientifically designed to hook developing brains. Watch this TED-Ed video with your child to start the conversation.
- Audit the “Free” Offers: Many kids are drawn in by “risk-free” or “social” play that doesn’t use real money initially. Use this as a teachable moment to discuss how these “free” modes are often grooming tools to transition users to real-money betting later.
Discussing how these apps manipulate users and generate revenue can help demystify the experience.