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The U.S. is “completely misguided” about the balance between the economic benefits and harm from gambling, said a keynote speaker for an academic conference on gambling harm.
Professional sports in the U.S. are almost “another religion” in the U.S., and the betting industry has become its partner since legalisation in 2018, said Brianne Doura-Schawohl, an American health care and problem gambling lobbyist.
She was speaking yesterday (October 10) at the second annual conference of the Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research in Bristol, England.
As the biggest American gambling conference, the Global Gaming Expo, came to an end yesterday in Las Vegas, Doura-Schawohl said she was looking to highlight the “woefully inadequate system to address harmful gambling” in the U.S.
Despite the fact that the National Council on Problem Gambling estimates there are 9m Americans addicted to gambling, there is no federal funding for gambling addiction problems, she said.
The lack of federal funding comes despite billions spent on drug, alcohol and tobacco addiction, as gambling addiction is considered a matter for the states, Doura-Schawohl said.
But too many states look at sports betting primarily for tax revenue, without dealing with the downsides, she said.
The average per capita U.S. spend on problem gambling is 54 cents, with eight jurisdictions spending nothing, she said.
Only five states ban gambling by credit card, even as the more mature online gambling markets of Europe moves away from it, she said.
Countries such as the UK and now Sweden have banned gambling by credit card, on concerns that they facilitate gamblers going into debt to feed their habit.
New Jersey is by some estimates the world’s third-largest online gambling market, but problem gambling prevalence studies suggest that about 6 percent of adults are problem gamblers, she said.
“A flourishing market at the expense of whom?” she asked. “Six percent of the public.”
Online gambling is dominated by “vast global entities” but regulation is done nationally or regionally, and self regulation is “sporadic and rather piecemeal”, said Agnes Nairn, co-director of the Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research.
The centre, which funds gambling research internationally, is looking to “join up” efforts to minimise harm, she said.
Researcher Maria Moxey cited the University of Bristol study which found that gambling messages during the opening weekend of Premier League football matches almost tripled this year over last.
Despite a voluntary industry whistle-to-whistle ban on gambling ads, the academics found nearly 30,000 messages in 2024, compared to 11,000 in 2023, she said.
The impressions came in glimpses of gambling logos on jerseys and elsewhere, including logos around the perimeter of the field visible during broadcasts, Moxey said.
