John Maynard tells Guardian the US must consider new rules on betting ads as operators lobby against federal crackdown
  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    10 hours ago

    https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/09/04/long-term-gambling-consequences/

    Poor people getting poorer

    As their numbers demonstrate clearly, gambling is leaving a trail of destruction in its wake — especially for those who are already poor.

    • 3-4 years after legalizing online sports gambling, the likelihood of declaring bankruptcy increases by as much as 25-30%.

    • During this same time period, debt collection amounts also increase by 8%.

    • Auto loan delinquencies increase by 5%.

    Another paper by business professors from BYU, Northwestern University and the University of Kansas found that the money for sports betting did not come from other forms of gambling. For example, people are not spending their lottery money on sports betting, but rather money from household and other investments. For example, legalization of sports gambling is associated with a 14% decrease in investments in the stock market.

    Betting specific to sports also leads to more betting in other ways, with low-income households affected especially dramatically, these business scholars once again found. “Following the legalization of sports betting,” they write, “low-savings households increase their credit card balance by about $368 relative to high savings households, which is an increase of about 8% relative to the mean.”

    For desperate families living paycheck to paycheck, $368 is huge.

    It has been known for a long time that the lottery, for example, hurts struggling people the most, with The Economist reporting that “the average adult living in the poorest 1% of zip codes spends almost 5% (or $600 annually) of their income on lottery tickets.”

    “There is definitely a ramping up period after legalization as people start to engage more in sports betting,” he said.

    “After individuals place their first bet, the probability that the individual makes another bet is over 50% in each quarter for the next 3 years. Furthermore, those bet sizes tend to increase over time — 3 years after the first bet, these individuals are depositing 8x the size of their first quarter bets.”