By Aubrey Tarbox

Over her six-month-long ESPN Research Fellowship, professor of athletic leadership at the College of Education and Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute (RHBSSI) faculty fellow Sarah Stokowski, Ph.D. studied how collegiate student-athletes are affected by sports betting content on social media.
The fellowship was awarded to a total of four faculty worldwide by the University of Nevada Las Vegas International Gaming Institute.
“With Clemson’s Social Media Listening Center and access to college athletes who have always been incredibly supportive of my research, it felt like a great opportunity to take my work in a new direction,” Stokowski said.
Alongside colleague and RHBSSI faculty fellow Chris Corr, Ph.D., they analyzed over 38,000 X posts and interviewed 17 current NCAA athletes. The betting content found emphasized sports betting opportunities, strategies, free bets, boosts and entertainment. Meanwhile, only 2.9% of the posts explicitly referred to risk, loss or responsible gambling.
Stokowski and Corr chose X as their main social media platform to focus on because it’s where the majority of real-time sports conversations occur. However, they are looking to conduct further research on other platforms.
“What was interesting was that the athletes described encountering betting content across their social media environments, including Instagram and Snapchat, even when they weren’t intentionally following betting accounts,” Stokowski said. “That tells us the next step is expanding this research to platforms like Instagram and TikTok so we can better understand how the experience differs by platform.”
As sports betting is increasingly promoted across many platforms, its exposure becomes unavoidable for student-athletes.
“The bigger issue is that sports betting has become so integrated into sports media that it can be difficult to separate being a sports fan from being exposed to gambling,” Stokowski said. “What surprised me most was the contradiction these athletes are navigating. They’re prohibited from sports betting, but they’re surrounded by betting content and are themselves the subjects of bets. I was also struck by how aware many of the athletes were of what was happening. Some were skeptical of promotions and recognized that things like ‘free money’ weren’t necessarily what they appeared to be.”
With the findings from their research, Stokowski aims to create a toolkit for athletes and athletic departments to use.
“The goal would be to give athletic departments something they can actually use with athletes – not another long document that gets handed to them once a year,” Stokowski said. “Athletes certainly need to know the rules, but they also need media literacy. I envision something practical that uses real examples to explain free bets, boosts, parlays, influencer picks, advertising tactics and how algorithms amplify content. I’d also like to address betting-related harassment and provide resources for athletes who need support.”
Stokowski and Corr also propose athletic departments implement a feedback loop to help explain how betting content becomes normalized.
The process begins with accounts producing content, and then users engage with that content by spending time on the post, liking it or commenting on it. When that happens, the algorithm amplifies it, repeatedly exposing users to similar messages.
“Athletic departments obviously can’t control social media algorithms, but they can teach athletes how that process works,” Stokowski said. “Gambling education needs to go beyond ‘you aren’t allowed to bed.’ We should be teaching athletes why this content keeps appearing, how promotions are designed to attract engagement and how repeated exposure can make betting seem more normal without necessarily causing someone to gamble.”
With sports betting becoming an integral part of the sports industry, Stokowski remains committed to helping student-athletes through her research.
“I want to thank everyone who participated in these studies,” Stokowski said. “Recruiting athletes for research can be incredibly difficult, and they gave us their time and were willing to share their experiences. I think many of them understood that their responses could help shape the future of sport and improve the experiences of other athletes. I’m really grateful that they trusted us with their perspectives and chose to be a part of this work.”




















