New Study Reveals 'Dramatic' Increase in People Seeking Help for Gambling Addiction Due to Legalized Sports Betting

To get at the effect of the significant expansion of online betting platforms since 2018, Ayers and his colleagues looked at internet search terms that indicated people are struggling with gambling addiction. People are Googling phrases like "Am I addicted to gambling?" and "Help me find help with gambling addiction," Ayers says. "And we see that those searches nationally increased about 23 percent since the Supreme Court case legalized sportsbooks," Ayers says. Researchers could see that these kinds of search terms increased in states immediately after they opened sports betting, and they found that the impact was significantly greater than the opening of brick-and-mortar gambling establishments.

Millions of Americans have sought help for gambling addiction in the wake of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed states to legalize sports betting. That's among the key findings in a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday. "Sportsbooks have expanded from a single state to 38 states, with hundreds of billions of wagers, mostly online, coinciding with record-breaking demand for help with gambling addiction as millions seek help," study senior author John Ayers said in a news release. He's deputy director of informatics at the University of California San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute and a scientist at UCSD's Qualcomm Institute. His team reported that sports wagers rose from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023. Almost all of these bets -- 94% -- are now placed online.

Gambling addiction has soared since the legalization of sports betting in most American states, reveals a new study. Researchers found a “dramatic” increase in sports betting and gambling addiction help-seeking since the landmark Murphy v. NCAA Supreme Court decision in 2018 paved the way for states to legalize gambling on sports. Since the ruling, researchers from the University of California San Diego Qualcomm Institute and School of Medicine found a “staggering” growth in the sportsbook industry. The number of states with operational sportsbooks grew from one in 2017 to 38 last year while total sports wagers skyrocketed from US $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023, with 94% of wagers during 2023 placed online.

Online searches for gambling addiction-related terms have surged in recent years across the U.S., especially in states that have legalized online sports betting. Since the Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association Supreme Court decision allowed states to legalize sports betting in 2018, there were 23% more searches nationwide.

A new study by University of California San Diego medical researchers shows there has been a dramatic increase in those looking into help for gambling addiction since a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2018. The study found that the legalization of online sports betting had a substantially greater impact on gambling addiction help seeking than the opening of traditional brick-and-mortar sportsbooks.