ESPN's Gambling Denial

Americans love gambling, especially gambling on football.  I would hazard to guess that betting on the NFL is more popular than betting on NCAA football, but the difference cannot be that much.  That being said, why don't big sports websites also highlight the lines when they have to know what a big part of the sport gambling is?

On ESPN's front page there is very rarely anything about the betting lines.  Even deeper into the site there is not much to be found for anything other than football.  When you go to the NFL and NCAA football pages the only link to the odds page is on the top menu bar.  They definitely need to make this more prevalent.  If it was more in the open I bet (see what I did there) it would be one of the more heavily clicked items on those pages.

The other odd thing is that for NFL football it is the 9th item in the menu bar versus 11th on the college football page.  Also, if you scroll over the NFL page you can get to the odds page in one click whereas with NCAA football you have to go to the front page first then find the tiny word 'odds' to get the lines.  Is this done out of some sort of homage for the holy notion of amateur athletes?  Are we supposed to feel bad about betting on college football, but not quite as bad as betting on the NFL?  Get it together ESPN, you say you are an entertainment network so give the people what we want.  What we want is gambling!

"I asked these girls how they would feel about ESPN adding more gambling information - just look at their reactions!"