This week, ESPN published a lengthy feature telling the story of a 20-year-old who developed a debilitating gambling addiction while at college. The article itself was a well-written cautionary tale about the pitfalls of sports gambling and how young adults can be particularly vulnerable. However, it also drew criticism for the inescapable irony that ESPN, which openly partners with DraftKings and endorses sports gambling, published the article, forcing one of the writers to address the issue himself.
The article, which Elizabeth Merrill and David Purdum co-wrote, details the events that led a 20-year-old student at the University of Cincinnati to fall into a gambling addiction and his subsequent recovery. In addition to telling the specific story of Amit – an alias for the anonymous subject of the article – it also highlighted concerning statistics about young people and gambling and included some relevant expert commentary.
All in all, it is quite thorough, thoughtful, and timely, coming just days before the start of the college football and NFL seasons, which is the busiest time of the year for sportsbooks and sports gamblers alike. But there was one problem: it was published on ESPN.
Over the past several years, ESPN has fully embraced sports gambling, even trying (and failing) to launch its own sportsbook. Now, ESPN is partnered with DraftKings, which holds exclusive rights as the sports network’s official sportsbook and odds provider. You can find DraftKings odds all over ESPN’s network, app, and website, and you can even access the sportsbook directly through the ESPN App.
On the ESPN family of networks, it’s impossible to escape commentary and analysis that involves gambling, from experts making picks against the spread to betting lines showing up alongside every game during pregame discussions.
So when ESPN then published a piece detailing how sports gambling ruined the life of a young college student, many were quick to point out the irony.
If you look at the replies and quotes of the article on X, you’ll find several sarcastic reactions, with quite a few of the “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” hot dog memes sprinkled in, highlighting the hypocrisy of ESPN publishing such a piece while directly feeding and profiting from the problem.
The piece even addressed the concern that ads for sportsbooks and discussion of betting odds could trigger a relapse for sports gamblers, with Amit specifically requesting that there be no betting ads in a story written about him. While ESPN did technically adhere to that request, the article is published in the “sports betting” section of the website and shows tabs for “Today’s Top Odds” and “Beginner’s Betting Guide” while you read the piece about devastating gambling losses. Additionally, the very next article in the scroll is for college football betting odds and storylines.
It’s quite a juxtaposition, and it led to some understandable criticism. But while Purdum understands the backlash and the jokes, he also defended the decision to write the piece, even given the optics of it appearing on ESPN alongside all the gambling references.
Every time I write a story on the potential consequences of gambling—addiction, athlete harassment, betting scandals—people get upset and make jokes about this article being brought to you by such and such sportsbook (for the 10,000th time).
I get it.
But wouldn’t it be worse…
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) August 28, 2026
“Every time I write a story on the potential consequences of gambling—addiction, athlete harassment, betting scandals—people get upset and make jokes about this article being brought to you by such and such sportsbook (for the 10,000th time),” Purdum wrote in a post on X.
“I get it,” Purdum continued. “But wouldn’t it be worse if I didn’t write stories about the bad aspects? I’ll keep trying to cover the entire sports betting world, good, bad, ugly, the best I can.”
The truth is that Purdum and Merrill did what was within their power to write a thorough and thoughtful piece underscoring the unfortunate consequences of gambling. The piece itself was well-written, compelling, and informative, and they can’t really be held responsible for the overall ESPN ecosystem or how the content is displayed on the Worldwide Leaders’s website.
At the same time, while it may not be their fault, that doesn’t make the overall criticism any less fair or the hypocrisy any less real. ESPN has put itself in uncomfortable spots before with its coverage of gambling-related scandals and its gambling partnerships. This is just another example, and people will keep calling it out every time it happens.
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