America’s gambling addiction: The Good, the bad, and the ugly

The fast legalization of gambling in the United States has led to millions of American adults being able to place a bet or play online casino games from their smartphones. Some 68.5m Americans bet on Super Bowl LVIII, the highest on record.

In the context of legislative push to legalize gambling everywhere in the nation, and expand existing frameworks – even Alaska and Alabama, two of the most hardliner states when it comes to gambling, are warming up to the idea – the question of gambling addiction remains.

First off, this is not a criticism of "how little" or "how much" lawmakers have done to rein in problem gambling across the country. Yet, the legalization of gambling and the expansion of existing rules should come with a question – how much is done for the millions of Americans who struggle with a condition that leads to anxiety, depression, indebtedness, and not least, suicidality?

Defining the Problem: Understanding Problem Gambling in the United States

Tracking the national average of problem gamblers and gamblers who are at mild or moderate risk of developing gambling addiction is a task left not to a centralized federal authority, but rather, organizations such as the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), which is also hosting Problem Gambling Awareness Month, and universities which are actively trying to collate data and better understand the level of gambling addiction.

Although these efforts predate the modernization of the gambling framework, which more or less arrived with the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, the 2018 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States’ in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, there can be more done to better understand the plight of what’s probably more than 10m people in the country.

According to NCPG, 1% of the American adult population, or 2.5 million adults, are now considered to be problem gamblers. Another 5-8 million are estimated to be at mild or moderate risk of developing a more serious problem with the activity. This is another 3% of the adult population.

The figures are important, as the United States sees 85% of its adult population gamble in one form or another. This may be something as innocuous as a lottery ticket – although they too can be addictive – or a sports wager on March Madness. The good news is that we already have a working understanding of the scope of the problem.

Organizations such as the NCPG and the American Gambling Association (AGA) have been determined to spread Responding to PGAM in 2024, regulatory commissions all over the country issued statements endorsing the campaign, and not least in places such as Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey.

So, What Are We Going to Do About It?

As this month’s PGAM puts it, "Every Story Matters." There have been many positive developments in the United States over the past several years. For starters, the expansion of gambling frameworks has always come with a debate about problem gambling and the treatment, prevention, and study of the issue.

With 38 states in the country and theDistrict of Columbiaoffering sports betting legally, this is an important achievement, and the groundwork for future progress in addressing the matter. Yet, defining the problem is very closely linked to addressing it.

To know how many problem gamblers there are in the country, you need to actually have money to conduct regular surveys and back organizations such as the NCPG. Not least, you need a concentrated effort to dispel stigma surrounding gambling and encourage individuals who suffer from the condition to seek help – which has historically proven difficult with usually a fraction of those affected reaching out.

Money earmarked for problem gambling has admittedly not been uppermost on lawmakers' minds passing gambling legislation. Rather, legislators are far more interested in what the tax windfall for their state would be every year.

NCPG Executive Director Keith Whyte has called this a "token amount," speaking about the money presently given to address problem gambling. The United States will have to realize that more money will need to be allocated to problem gambling, but the changes need not be just restricted to the gambling industry and its members alone.

Prevention and education has long been touted as the most effective way to promote responsible gambling and avoid ending up in financial blackholes that wreck entire lives. This move has already been taken up by organizations such as the NCPG and the AGA, which have launched their respective campaigns, PGAM and Have A Game Plan. Bet Responsibly.

Addressing problem gambling can be a difficult process that requires trained specialists, who are admittedly costly. Hence why using even limited funds to raise education and awareness seems to be a sensible approach and is generally agreed upon as cost-efficient by safer gambling advocates.

One of the other issues with treating problem gambling is that it is currently not included on disability support from the government. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not consider pathological gambling to be a qualifying condition. "Compulsive gambling" is specifically excluded, which means that gambling addicts are not protected under federal law from discrimination from their employers, and further compounds the broader issue.

The Bad Examples and Why We Need to Try Better

There certainly are bad examples of how problem gambling is addressed in the United States. This is not meant to vilify lawmakers, or any specific party, but rather to highlight the need for better understanding. For example, Rep. Michael Meredith sponsored sports betting legislation in Kentucky, but he didn’t actually include funding for problem gambling.

This is not to say Rep. Meredith was ill-meaning or wishing to create a framework that promotes irresponsible gambling, but it nevertheless points out that the plight of problem gamblers is not nearly well understood on a legislative level, which could hinder setting up a framework that introduces a failsafe from the very start.

While Rep. Meredith rectified this oversight, entire jurisdictions have taken far more controversial decisions. The District of Columbia has decided to scrap a $200,000 budget allocated to problem gambling resources. In fact, by March last year, DC didn’t use any of the money allocated to treating or addressing problem gambling.

This decision comes at a time when calls to helplines in DC have been increasing, and when an estimated 15,000 are suffering from addiction. These are still last year’s numbers; the actual figures may have increased since.

You may think that this is cherry-picking, but things such as the ADA failing to extend protection to compulsive gamblers or lawmakers not fully aware of the need to include funding for problem gambling speaks of a more ingrained lack of understanding of the issue.

This is partially because we live in a time of rapid gambling legalization and things are only coming to light. Yet, there are other cases in point as well.

For example, in 2016 a total of $24.4bn was allocated to drug and alcohol addiction treatment whereas only $73m went to treating gambling addiction. At the time, there were estimated to be four times as many people who abused substances than there were people who were problem gamblers.

The point is that although there were around 5.4m people with gambling addiction the 20m Americans dealing with substance abuse received a significantly larger chunk of the funding (approx. 338 times more), based on a Nevada Council on Problem Gambling excerpt.

If there is one bad example to speak of when it comes to problem gambling in the United States, this is a fundamental lack of understanding. But the good news are not far in tow.

Efforts Clearly Made to Make Things Better

Although there are clear shortcomings when it comes to both understanding and supporting problem gambling, raising awareness, and guaranteeing sufficient access to treatment resources, there are also good examples to be celebrated. Many of those have already been mentioned here.

State regulators endorse initiatives such as PGAM. Regulatory frameworks take a hard look at the available problem gambling resources, and even though these amounts may seem picayune on occasion, they may be the result of a lack of full comprehension of the subject matter or the pressing need to address it.

Some states, however, have been acting preemptively. Gamban, for example, has partnered up with Gamban, an independent third-party software that allows residents to exclude themselves from legal gambling. The availability of resources has been rather ample, too.

Although treatment and research are still lagging, state regulators have made it known that operators are to commit to responsible gambling practices and be held accountable for failing to do so. A big part of the effort is going into making sure that underage gamblers are not able to play on licensed websites.

Some states are already leading the way in the total amount spent to address the issue, including Iowa which allocated $15.6m to third-party clinics to help treat addiction in general.

Only $3m of this money was specifically earmarked for the treatment of problem gambling, but this is still a significant amount, coming to around $1 per capita in the state, and far above Pennsylvania’s gambling spending per capita which comes to half that.

Massachusetts introduced the PlayMyWay program which is designed to be cost-efficient, and it will simply notify players when they hit a certain milestone of their bankroll. These are just some of the examples. Allocating a bigger chunk of the windfall that states generate from gambling revenue is the most desirable outcome.

Spending it responsibly and in a cost-efficient manner is similarly important. However, there already seems to be a groundwork of advocates who can guide such spending in the most efficient way possible.

Not least, raising the percentage allocated to responsible gambling spending would require political will and justifying reducing tax income, something that is hard to negotiate, even when there seems to be evidence that if left unchecked, the costs of problem gambling could be too high.

In Connecticut, for example, half of the betting revenue is driven by problem gambling – too steep a price to pay, no matter how keen you are as a state to generate tax windfall. The good news is that we know this precisely because responsible gambling advocates are getting busy, and they are keen to point out these problems in public.

Rather damning gambling, we can use this evidence and also leverage it to argue the case in front of reluctant lawmakers to see the need for additional funding.

There are other private efforts as well. Mindway AI, for example, is conducting free screenings in March to help consumers and gamblers get a better feel for their gambling habits and seek early help and prevention.

What Else Can Be Done

There is clearly a lot more that can be done to benefit the current landscape of gambling harm in the United States. For one, private investment and initiatives are already paying off. Companies are spending consistently on responsible gambling efforts. Most recently, BetMGM and MGM Resorts International teamed up with Kindbridge to work on a series of initiatives.

Private investment alone, however, won’t be able to offset the harm of problem gambling, though, but the area where this matters is research. Treatment is cost-heavy, whereas understanding the root cause, requires a substantial financial resource to get the ball rolling.

Another thing that can be done is to have a debate about the use of credit cards for gambling. There are already good examples from Australia and the United Kingdom, but the United States seems to be a laggard for the time being. This doesn’t mean that commercial banks should not act.

To the contrary, they can already implement tools and request that gambling websites do not accept credit cards, or block payments thereof. It’s certainly not a popular idea given that half the population uses credit cards (53%), but it seems that many people own both types.

We inevitably arrive at the Gambling Addiction Recovery, Investment, and Treatment (GRIT) Act which is a piece of legislation hoping to use the excise tax currently slammed on sports betting operators in a bid to raise funds. The proposal was welcomed by NCPG and other responsible gambling advocates, but it was slammed by the AGA.

AGA explained that the tax itself was obsolete and it had to be scrapped altogether, and not repurposed or changed. Presently, at least 63 bodies dealing with gambling support the idea of channelling federal funds from the excise tax to help treat and address problem gambling.

In the meantime, there have been many private companies to vow their support, even those that are already levied by the excise tax and could see AGA’s point of view that the tax altogether has to be scrapped to boost competitiveness against the black and offshore market.

Conclusion

These are just some of the examples that America can do to address its outstanding problem gambling, which will evolve as the industry expands its understanding. Presently, the market is undergoing rapid changes, from sports betting becoming more firmly embedded, to the significance of the unregulated market lessening, to fresh efforts introduced to legalize online casinos, a considerably higher-risk product when it comes to problem gambling.

Yet, there seems to be no lack of momentum in addressing the associated issue of problem gambling and addiction, but admittedly, America’s growing pains in this area are real.

The good news is that there are both experts on the ground and lawmakers who are now beginning to see the need to move forward with a more comprehensive solution to a festering problem that is a formidable challenge even when addressed head-on. The future of overcoming gambling addiction in the United States is cautiously positive, but this doesn’t mean that the present isn’t fraught with dangers and setbacks. The time to act is now.

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