From Picks to Posts: How Social Media Normalizes Sports Betting for College Athletes

This study examined how prominent sports-betting accounts frame betting on social media and how college athletes encounter, interpret, and respond to such content. Using a mixed-methods design, this study combined a large-scale social media content analysis ( n = 38,925 posts from X) with semi-structured interviews ( n = 17) with current National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes. Findings indicated that betting-related content is highly concentrated among a small group of high-volume accounts and is frequently framed around opportunity, strategy, and entertainment, with comparatively little emphasis on gambling-related risk. Interview data revealed that college athletes experience pervasive, often unavoidable exposure to sports-betting content that contributes to perceptions of betting as a normalized component of sports culture despite institutional prohibitions. Integrating framing theory with normalization scholarship, the study proposes a feedback loop in which content production, engagement, algorithmic amplification, and repeated exposure reinforce the visibility and cultural legitimacy of sports betting. The findings have implications for college athletes’ well-being, media literacy, and responsible communication practices among media companies and sportsbook operators.