Sydney Sweeney’s Novig Ad and the Growing Normalization of Gambling for Teens
Actress Sydney Sweeney's new ad for the sports prediction market Novig — in which she appears nearly nude, assuring viewers it's "just sports"—is drawing sharp criticism, and rightly so, from female athletes and others who argue that its sexualized imagery diminishes women’s sporting achievement. But the controversy also points to a larger issue too: how quickly gambling and “prediction markets” are being normalized as entertainment, especially for teens and young men.
The campaign pairs celebrity culture, sports, and provocation with an invitation to put money on an outcome. That framing matters because it makes wagering look less like a financial risk and more like a playful extension of fandom. While the ad is not aimed specifically at minors, young people are active participants of our media environment. They see celebrity endorsements, sports content, influencer promotions, betting and gambling language circulating across their social feeds every day.
Teens, Games, and Gambling
Ask a room of eighth graders whether any of them gamble, and most hands will stay down. Gambling, in their view, is what grandparents do in Las Vegas.
Then ask how many of them have ever opened a loot box, bought a case, or traded a skin in a game. That’s when the hands go up.
The mechanics are often strikingly similar, just delivered through a different platform: pay, take a chance, hope for something rare. One version carries the word “gambling.” The other is embedded in games, social spaces, and digital economies that young people experience as ordinary play.
For many teens, the path towards gambling begins in video games, through loot boxes, randomized card packs, casino-style mini-games, and other systems that encourage players to spend money for the chance of receiving an uncertain reward. Those mechanics blur the line between gaming and gambling, which makes the later step toward sports betting or a prediction market feel like something they already know how to do.
Research has found an association between adolescent exposure to simulated gambling and later gambling behavior—and one longitudinal study of German teens found that the move to real-money gambling was predicted by two things in combination: simulated gambling at home, and heavy exposure to gambling advertising. That is not a claim that video games make gamblers. It's a claim that by the time a young person sees an ad like the Sweeney one, both ingredients are already in place.
That is why the conversation should extend beyond the ad’s imagery. The question is also what young audiences are learning when gambling is continually marketed as sexy, social, skillful, and inseparable from sports culture. Protecting teens means teaching them to recognize when “play” is designed to encourage repeated spending, risk-taking, and the pursuit of a payoff that may never arrive.
What we're launching—and why
This week, we're releasing two new lessons in our Digital Health and Wellbeing curriculum: Playing to Lose: What Is Gambling? and Is It Gambling in Disguise? Each runs about 50 minutes, and is recommended for grades 8–12.
In the first lesson, students learn a four-question test:
Did I put something real at risk?
Does luck decide the outcome?
Is there something real to win?
Is this designed to keep me going?
They then apply the test to familiar real-world games. Students also take part in a loot-box activity using a deck of playing cards—deliberately designed to drain their “gems—before discussing the psychological techniques that kept them playing: scarcity, uncertainty, near-misses, social status, and the hope that the next try will be different.
The second lesson takes those same questions beyond games and into sports-betting apps, fantasy leagues, prediction markets, meme coins, lottery tickets, and more. Students discover why some activities feel like gambling even when they are not labeled as such. They analyze gambling-adjacent advertising as persuasive media, identify warning signs of problem gambling, and learn what to do if they are concerned about themselves or a friend.
Like all of our lessons, these are discussion-based and screens-down for students. The only screen in the room is the teacher’s. The loot-box activity works with nothing more than a deck of cards.
Our goal is not to declare, for students, that every loot box or prediction market is gambling. Our goal is to teach them how gambling works—then let them test those mechanics against the products and platforms already in their lives.
That is why the Sweeney ad matters beyond its troubling imagery. “Just sports” is precisely the kind of phrase students need to learn to question. When a system asks them to put something of value at risk, promises a reward they cannot control, and is designed to keep them coming back, they deserve the vocabulary and digital literacy to recognize it for what it is.
They may still choose to play. But they will be far less likely to mistake a system built to extract their money and attention for harmless fun.
Diana Graber is the founder and director of Cyber Civics and Cyberwise. She is also the author of "Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology"
