Gambling is everywhere now. When does that become a problem?

Gambling trends have exploded periodically throughout history, but its latest peak may be now, in the period following the 2018 Supreme Court decision to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The federal law barred most states from authorizing gambling on competitive sporting events. 

Seemingly overnight, advertisements for sports betting companies became unavoidable. Viewers can now expect to see them not only in sports broadcasts, but also other programming, and any place ads are found online. By the five year anniversary of the decision, Americans had bet over $220 billion on sports, and 2023 was also the third-straight year commercial betting revenue broke records. Today, 38 states, including D.C., allow sports betting in some shape or form.

With an explosion in sports betting, high profile cases have hit the headlines. Last week, the NBA banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter for life after an internal investigation found he had bet on basketball games. Last month, the MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers abruptly fired the star player Shohei Ohtani’s translator for gambling; U.S. officials have accused the translator of stealing more than $16 million to fund an illegal sports gambling habit. Celebrated broadcaster Craig Carton returned to the air after jail time—and has started a show discussing the realities of problem gambling.

Once considered to be a symbol of immorality, gambling has become significantly less stigmatized over the last decades, says Jeff Derevensky, director of McGill University’s International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-risk Behaviours. “They turned gambling from sin and vice into a socially acceptable recreational form of entertainment,” he says. “As a result of that social acceptability, you don't have to hide.” 

Gambling is more accessible than ever. This makes it easier for individuals, including youth who have difficulty setting and maintaining limits, to fall into severe addiction. Since 2018, there have been more high-profile reports of teens falling into severe gambling addiction, and experts have reportedly noticed a number of adolescents migrating to gambling through the medium of video games, likely because they satisfy similar psychological needs.  

Between 2018 and 2021, the risk of problem gambling grew by 30 percent, according to the National Council on Problem Gaming, a non-profit that aims to minimize the economic and social costs associated with gambling addiction.

The industry is only poised to grow from here, not only in revenue, but also likely expanding legal gambling legislation to still-untouched areas of the country as well. 

“When people ask me who's most addicted to gambling, I usually say it's the government,“ says Derevensky. “They're addicted to the revenues that are being brought in by the gambling industry.”

Gambling, anywhere and anytime

 Casinos have long been the face of the gambling industry, but when it comes to sports betting, today’s high-rollers aren’t necessarily resigned to having to trek to the nearest gaming hub or rustle up a trustworthy bookie to play the odds—they just need a smartphone. 

“It used to be that you had to actually transport yourself to a gambling venue,” says Lia Nower, a professor and director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University. “Now you have gambling 24/7 on your cell phone. You have a sports book or a casino in your pocket, and you can be sitting there eating dinner with your family, gambling away the house.” 

Still, while some individuals may choose to never roll the proverbial dice, others may only need to be persuaded to give it a try. Simple online sportsbook services like BetMGM or DraftKings make it easy to sign up and start betting, going so far as to offer an array of payment options through various banking platforms like PayPal to ensure both easy payments and quick withdrawals.

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But those unfamiliar with the lay of the land could find themselves losing more than expected. Features like microbetting, which involves playing the odds on specific or smaller aspects of a game, or same game parlays, bets on multiple events within a single game, are attractive incentives to both newcomers and seasoned gamblers, though each risky in their own ways. Same game parlays, for instance, tend to rely heavily on your powers of prediction, and if a single leg in the bet is wrong, the entire wager is lost. 

“The overall majority of [the] sports betting handle is taking place online,” says Joe Maloney, the senior vice president of the American Gaming Association (AGA), a national trade group that represents the U.S. casino industry. “Obviously that's reflective of operators in the legal and regulated market meeting consumers where they are increasingly in today's society.” 

The ubiquity of virtual betting doesn’t mean in-person gambling has gone away—in fact, more than ever, opportunities can be found almost anywhere you spend free time—including bars, bowling alleys, and sports venues. Even restaurants have since opened their doors to popular kiosk-style gambling machines, all hoping to get in on the action. 

Who is gambling—and when does it become a problem?

The majority of sports bettors tend to be young male adults, but according to the AGA, the market has been quickly diversifying since the repeal of PASPA. 

In 2023, according to the association, 6 percent of sports bettors were between 21-24 years old, while 34 percent were between 35-44 years old. The same data suggests that 64 percent of sports bettors in the same year were male.

Gambling has long been considered a male-dominated hobby, and has historically fostered social connection. Today, modern gambling is about entertainment and bringing people together through competition, says Timothy Fong, a clinical professor of psychiatry and the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program. The uptick in social betting may also pave the way for males to be more likely to develop severe gambling addictions. 

“You don't gamble once and become addicted or hooked,” says Derevensky. “It's a progressive disorder. It takes time.“

Now categorized as a chronic mental health condition in the DSM-5, problem gambling can be hard to diagnose because of how easy it is to hide. It’s estimated that it affects about 1 percent of Americans, but just like any addiction, long-term gambling can alter the way your brain works, and many problem gamblers have reported feeling stress, anxiety, and depression at the height of it. 

“A lot of times people don't want to admit that they have a gambling problem,“ says Fong.

Oftentimes, he says, patients have no idea they have an addiction and boil down their losing streaks to merely bad luck. Even if they acknowledge a problem, problem gamblers often contend with shame and avoid asking for help. A lack of research funding makes data on gambling addiction even more hazy.

As the industry continues to skyrocket, experts suggest gamblers be responsible with their decisions and regardless of the outcome, to try learning from the experience. 

“Losing is part of the gambling experience, part of life, and figuring out how you respond to losses on things that matter to you are really, really critical,” Fong says.