Is There Danger Ahead for the US Sports Betting Industry?

For all suppliers and operators in the US sports betting has been mostly a huge success story, however clouds are gathering over the resumption of online and more importantly sports betting in the US.

A recent report showed that since 2018 when the high court passed judgement that online gambling and sports betting was legal a total of $245 billion have been wagered by US gamblers and in 2022 alone $12 billion has been placed in bets.

The report from the Financial Times newspaper says that the amount spent in advertising is pushing up problem gambling in the 34 states along with Washington D.C that sports betting is legalised.

According to a recent study by the New Jersey attorney-general’s office 6% of those questioned said they were problem gamblers and some 20% showed signs of possible problem gambling.

In Pennsylvania another report showed that 36.7% of those questioned felt they showed signs of problematic gambling. This has prompted legislators in nine states now to review and consider increasing regulations to operators to stem the increase in problem gambling with measures such as blocking partnerships with college sports teams and banning advertising on free or bonus bets in commercials.

With the expanding online gambling industry and most notably sports betting comes more issues related to problem gambling and it is certain that more states will look to increase regulation to stop the potential of problem gambling.

One thing operators do not want is a cap on spending or going back to the possibility of prohibition towards online gambling and sports betting which the US have a history of introducing if they see a growing and uncontrollable problem.