The University of Mississippi on Monday announced the upcoming launch of its new Center on Collegiate Gambling, which researchers describe as the “first of its kind in the nation” amid rising national concern about betting on collegiate sports.

The center was approved by the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees in February and will cost about $700,000 a year. It was conceived to study the “heightened risks” for college students and student athletes caused by the rapid growth of legalized sports betting and online gambling, its founders said. Researchers said the center will now begin hiring staff.

IHL’s approval of the center follows the release of survey results by University of Mississippi researchers showing that 39% of Mississippi college students gambled in a variety of formats in the past year. Of those who engaged in sports betting, 6% of Mississippi college students met criteria for problem gambling as defined by the American Psychiatric Association.

“We really think that this is an issue that affects Mississippi at large,” Hannah Allen-King, executive director of the university’s William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing and assistant professor of public health, said in a news release. “And so, we’re trying to work with our legislators as they debate policy change around gambling in the state.”

Commercial sports betting was effectively banned with a few exceptions until 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 1992 prohibition. Mississippi allows sports betting now, but only inside casinos.

After the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision, sports gambling companies launched a full-court press lobbying campaign to bring sports betting to tens of millions of mobile phones around the country, an effort reported to be the fastest expansion of legalized gambling in American history. The companies have poured money into lobbying state legislators, including those in Mississippi.

But Mississippi has remained one of the few holdout states, largely due to fears that legalization could harm the bottom line of the state’s casinos and increase the prevalence of gambling addiction. That hasn’t stopped a thriving black market from taking hold in the state.

In 2024, illegal online betting in Mississippi made up about 5% of the national illegal market, which is about $3 billion in illegal bets in Mississippi, proponents said that year. Supporters of legalization say people will place online sports wagers regardless of whether the practice is legal, so the state should regulate and tax it.

The state House has voted, for the third year in a row, to legalize mobile sports betting during the ongoing 2026 legislative session. But Senate leaders have said they plan to let the measure die again.

Nevertheless, college campuses have become hubs of activity for sports betting and, increasingly, gambling addiction. This has prompted calls for research into mobile sports betting’s growth and impact on young adults. The new center will aim to produce such research, which its founders say is lacking without a national research center in the U.S. dedicated solely to the study of collegiate gambling.

The academic research will focus on college student gambling behaviors ranging from card games to proposition betting and prediction markets. The center will also promote “evidence-based policies and programs to prevent harm,” including training counselors to help students struggling with gambling.

Eight University of Mississippi counselors have already received the certification to better equip them to identify gambling addiction in students, the researchers said.

The rise of collegiate gambling has also led to increased threats directed at athletes, whose performance is now closely tracked by gamblers.

“In a state like Mississippi where we don’t have a lot of professional sports teams, college sports are such a big part of our culture, and a large part of our state population follows and cares about college sports,” Allen-King said. “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.

Daniel Durkin, an associate professor of social work who is also one of the center’s founding members, said raising awareness of sports gambling’s prevalence on college campuses will be a central goal.

“Part of the issue right now is everybody’s just having a good time,” Durkin 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.”

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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.