The 2027 fiscal year Executive Budget Proposal for Arizona was released to the public from the office of Gov. Katie Hobbs on Jan. 16. Among the various aspects of the proposal was a targeted adjustment for the sports betting industry, raising state fees for large sports betting operators from 10% to 45%.
Sports betting was first legalized in Arizona in April of 2021, and since that point, sports bettors in the state have wagered over $31 billion, according to a press release from the Arizona Department of Gaming.
Aaron Hernandez, the Executive Director of the Allan "Bud" Selig Sports Law and Business Program, said that the massive amount of money wagered in sports betting makes it a lucrative area for government taxation.
"One of the big reasons that states are so willing to legalize sports betting, and there's been this kind of rush to do it, is it generates new streams of tax revenue," Hernandez said.
Even before the implementation of Gov. Hobbs' proposed sports betting fee increase, Arizona had already been accumulating substantial revenue from the sports betting industry. The Arizona Department of Gaming said in a recent press release that Arizona took in approximately $53 million in sports betting tax revenue in 2025 alone.
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However, despite the benefits for governmental revenue, the increase in sports betting within Arizona has also brought impacts that some perceive as detrimental, especially toward younger, college-aged individuals.
When Saurabh Dusane, a graduate student studying computer engineering, started using a sports betting app, he noticed how the system was structured to hook users.
"Initially I had three consecutive wins, and the fourth one was where I lost the money," said Dusane.
Dusane also noted that sports betting often requires the bettor to be "sharp" about the games they are betting on — possessing knowledge of the sport and players in order to place bets they are confident in.
He said he has already observed the impact of this with classmates neglecting their academic work to instead focus on their knowledge of the sports they will be betting on.
For some, additional dangers for college students in sports betting lie in how prevalent and easy to access the sports betting applications are.
"You wouldn't feel comfortable as a college student walking into a casino, right?" said Paisley Benaza, a graduate student studying journalism and mass communication. "But sports betting, it's whoever has access to the app. You might not even be a fan; you just heard, 'I can make money easily if I just place this bet.' So the accessibility is cause for concern, especially with students."
Hernandez also said that the mere fact that the betting is tied to sports makes it easy to market and appeal to young men, especially through deals with sports betting operators and companies like ESPN.
Another source of concern with sports betting lies in where the money used to place bets stems from.
Building on the financial harms, Dusane said that low-income students were a demographic particularly at risk, as they were incentivized to utilize the apps to make quick cash, and continued to increase their wager size after each win.
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"There's a perception among our age demographic (millennials and Gen Z) that we can no longer achieve financial stability by the means utilized by previous generations," Hernandez said. "We're increasingly willing to gamble in the hopes of hitting big as an alternative means of generating wealth."
For some students, sports betting carries more of a negative stigma, causing shame when money is lost.
"I have seen many international students who do not speak up, who have lost upward of $10,000, and do not speak up because they fear of being labeled," Dusane said. "It has been mentioned all around that these are scams, and even when you're educated, still you unwittingly become part of (that) scam. So that stigma hurts a lot."
Beyond the risks present for those actually placing the bets, Hernandez also said additional harms could emerge for the student athletes competing in college sports that were bet on.
The NCAA reported in November 2025 that 36% of DI men's basketball student-athletes reported receiving sports betting-related social media abuse, and 29% reported physical interactions on campus with students who had bet on their team.
Hernandez said that he had seen this harassment spread to student athletes playing lower-profile sports, like tennis, at smaller schools as well.
With sports betting only growing more popular and wagers only getting higher, Benaza and Dusane both agreed that increased education is essential moving forward.
"Everybody needs to be more educated now that it's become so mainstream," Benaza said. "It's the way that you consume sports, and betting is just so much a part of that. If we are concerned about taxes and making money off it, we should be concerned about who it's getting advertised to."
Edited by Jack McCarthy, Henry Smardo and Pippa Fung.
Reach the reporter at sluba@asu.edu and follow @samluba6 on X.
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Sam Luba is a Senior Reporter with the State Press, focusing on longer form news stories and breaking news coverage. He is a Sophomore studying political science and justice studies, and is a competitor with Sun Devil Mock Trial. He was the Editor-in-Chief of his high school news magazine. He is in his 3rd Semester with the State Press, working previously as a Part-Time Political Reporter.
