A new study funded by the International Center for Responsible Gaming reports that people who gamble on sports are likely to drink much more heavily than their peers who don’t gamble on sports.
Joshua Grubbs, a researcher and professor at the University of New Mexico Center on Alcohol, Substance Use and Addictions (CASAA) led the research initiative that is being published in the prestigious journal JAMA Network Open.
“A lot of people are worried about what sports wagering is going to do to people’s finances and their money in gambling problems. To be clear, those potential harms are a real concern. But, with sports gambling there may be even greater overall risks because sports gambling, even more than other types of gambling, is linked to problematic alcohol use,” Grubbs said in the press release announcing the publication of his research.
Grubbs says that the research puts gambling and binge drinking hand in hand, and that sports bettors are the most likely to have problems.
“Gamblers that don’t wager on sports seem to be having slightly more frequent binge drinking episodes than the general public, but sports gamblers are higher than both, and considerably so,” he asserted.
He noted that he suspects sports gambling and drinking feed off of each other.
“You’re gambling on sports, you’re hanging out with your friends, you’re drinking and having what seems like a good time, and it creates a cycle where more alcohol makes it easier to bet more, which keeps you engaged and likely drinking more,” Grubbs said.
Grubbs pointed out that the U.S. has taken what he considers to be a “really unique” approach to sports gambling compared to the rest of the world, going from virtually no legal sports betting to a situation where the vast majority of Americans now live in a state where they can be on sports instead of rolling out the legal market carefully and over time as has been done in other countries.
Many of Grubbs’ presumptions consider the potential problem behavior occurring in a retail sportsbook or on a casino floor. He also suggests that the risks could be even more significant in states that allow online sports betting, but more research needs to be done in that regard.
“The general patterns that we know of are that people that bet online or via apps are riskier in a lot of behaviors," he said. "We have not yet examined if the people who are betting on their phones are drinking more than those who are betting in person at a sportsbook or via a gambling kiosk.”
Problem gambling in the news
It has not exactly been a banner year for the reputation of legal sports betting of late.
Just in the month of March, there were several stories that allege sports betting is smearing the veil of integrity in sports with major athletes like Shohei Ohtani embroiled in gambling scandals.
In response to these threats to the industry’s public image, seven major sportsbooks just launched the first-of-its-kind Responsible Online Gaming Association to actively promote a new industry-wide responsible gambling best practices charter and combat any narratives that legal sports betting is doing harm to society.
Grubbs hopes that his research can inspire better regulations that can address some of these potential issues head on before they get out of control. He said that he “would never, ever say that gambling is as big of a problem as the opioid epidemic or as alcohol use disorder, but it is a big enough problem that it probably warrants more systematic investigation.”
As the industry continues to grow, Grubbs would like to see messages about responsible gambling integrated with messaging around alcohol use when gambling is involved.
“Across the U.S., due to state regulations, there are a lot of responsible gambling messages and warnings that casinos and sportsbooks are required to share with people," he said. "But I think we need to consider whether or not there also needs to be messaging around alcohol use as well in those settings, especially if increasing access to sports gambling is bringing people into situations where they’re more likely to drink in dangerous ways, if we know that these things are going hand in hand, we need to think about how to minimize harm.”
