On Super Bowl Sunday, ABC Sports reported an estimated 130 million Americans stationed themselves in front of a television set to celebrate the facing off of the two best teams in the National Football League.

Many Chico State University students thought they knew who would win -- and they were willing to bet.

"I put in on a pool," said Danny Lee, a first-year student. "It's like when you put your name in a box on a grid. Someone fills out the numbers randomly. It's pretty harmless, I think. I lost five bucks."

Gambling is not specific to Super Bowl Sunday. Long after the final score is determined, the trophy is awarded and the stadium is cleared, students continue placing bets, feeding slot machines and scratching lottery tickets. It seems everyone wants a piece of the action.

In an online California Research Bureau report by Roger Dunstan, gambling can be traced almost as far back as the country's founding. In 1665, the first race track was opened in the United States and early pubs were frequented solely for the opportunity to engage in dice and card games.

According to Dunstan, lotteries, possibly one of the most readily available forms of gambling, were originally established to raise revenues for the colonies. The report also said people gamble because "gambling activities are an extension of the risk and chance in life."

Alisa Early, a junior, admits to what she calls her "exciting habit" -- she buys scratchers every week.

"I love to play the lottery," Early said. "One time, I had $100 and bought 100 scratchers. I thought for sure that one of them would be the big winner. I won, but not as much as I spent."

Early said she has a hard time not feeding her fixation.

"I never know if that one scratcher is going to change my whole life," she said. "You just never know."

Las Vegas has long been considered the gambling hub of the United States -- and few Chico State students get in and out without gambling some money away.

"I gamble when I go to Vegas," said senior John Torres. "It's Vegas."

Torres said he likes gambling and occasionally goes to local Indian gaming casinos. He said that he prefers Las Vegas and goes there whenever he can.

A large part of Las Vegas' tourism can be attributed to Nevada's lax gambling laws.

Dunstan reports that gambling was made legal in Nevada in 1931, although illegal gambling had been flourishing since long before. State officials were worried that illegal gambling was "corrupting law enforcement" and making a gambling prohibition impossible.

They figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Whether gambling is legal or illegal, some people believe it's not always harmful.

"I don't think it's necessarily bad," said Diane Chatlosh, professor of psychology. "Some people do it for sport. It's problematic when it becomes compulsive. On slot machines, you never know when the next quarter will win."

The Northern California chapter of Gamblers Anonymous defines compulsive gambling as "an illness, progressive in its nature, which can never be cured but can be arrested."

Gamblers Anonymous also states that "compulsive gamblers are really very sick people who can recover."

Until recently, most Americans lived a long drive or plane-ride away from legal gambling, the distance possibly being a protection from becoming a compulsive gambler. However, over the past few years, online casinos have been surfacing all over the world, bringing gambling closer to home.

According to the Internet Gaming Commission, casinos get around gambling laws by locating their servers out of the country, in places like Grenada, Antigua and the Dominican Republic, while many of the companies who run the casinos are actually located in the United States.

According to an online report by Mike Brunker of MSNBC, Senator Jon Kyl is leading a movement to ban Internet casinos from operating in the United States. Brunker reported that Kyl backed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, written in 1997. The act, if passed, would land internet gamblers in jail for up to three months and require them to pay fines of up to $500, Brunker said.

The main problem with the bill is its lack of enforceability, Brunker said. He said that in order for the bill to work, law enforcement officials would need to prosecute offenders and critics did not know how that would be possible.

Currently, some members of U.S. government are pushing to make online gambling illegal on the grounds that it is in violation of the 1961 Interstate Wireline Act, according to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post reports the Wireline Act made it illegal to run gambling operations through any wired device; however, in 1961, that meant telephones.

Some students are taking advantage of the legality of online gambling now, before the government changes legislature so that it's no longer permitted.

"My friend just told me about it," said Ryan Herren, a sophomore. "I know that a lot of people do it, and the payoff is really big."

Other Chico State students agree about the benefits of online gambling.

"It's huge online," said senior Brandon Boyd. "I think you can really make a lot of money too."

Boyd said he enjoys gambling in Las Vegas and at local Indian gaming casinos. He said his payoff is usually pretty good, but he doesn't trust online gambling because all of the lines confuse him. He said he would rather stick to what he knows.

Online gambling can potentially give a small country's economy a big boost.

The Internet Gaming Commission said that some companies pay $100,000 for a license to operate a casino, and that the money goes directly to the government.

Many Chico State students are wary of purchasing anything online that requires the use of a credit card number, let alone about gambling. These critics argue that there is no guarantee that you'll get your money.

"I don't trust computer gambling," said senior Marty Trenouth, a computer programmer. "The online casinos use random number generators and they're not completely random. Most are based on seconds on a computer clock. Maybe I don't trust them because I'm one myself."

Some Chico State students have had negative experiences with online gambling.

"Online gambling sucks," said Hiroaki Yasuno, a sophomore. "I used to gamble online a lot, until one time that I won and the casino said they would send me a check. It never came."

Yasuno said he never followed up on the situation, but the experience was such a negative one for him that he will probably never gamble online again.

"Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose," Alisa Early said. "But Americans still love it, there's no denying that. And whether it's scratchers, slot machines or online sports gambling, it's all the same thing."

Allison Rhodes can be reached at arhodes@orion-online.net