Eight years after the Supreme Court cleared the way for states to legalize sports betting, critics increasingly describe it as a public-health crisis requiring broad restrictions on how adults can wager, fund their accounts, receive advertising, and use betting products. Rather than broad restrictions, lawmakers should focus on identifying and helping the small proportion of problem gamblers.
Problem gambling is real and can be devastating. But that does not mean the typical sports bettor has a gambling problem or should be regulated as though they do. Recent research finds little evidence of population-wide harms from legalization and finds that negative effects are concentrated among a relatively small group of high-risk bettors. Even a 2026 JAMA Health Forum article advocating a public-health approach acknowledges that most people bet responsibly and that loss of control affects only a small share.
That narrow risk should inform policy. Instead of restricting millions of responsible bettors, lawmakers should require legal sportsbooks to identify and assist customers showing credible signs of losing control. A 2026 study of 1,470 online sports and race bettors found that machine-learning models could identify high-risk customers using just 30 days of routine account data, including deposit frequency and average wager size. Adding limited self-reported information improved the models further.
Automated systems could use validated indicators to consistently flag betting behavior associated with problem gambling. When credible warning signs appear operators can respond with warnings, voluntary limits, self-exclusion tools, or treatment resources while leaving responsible bettors alone.
Yet states are increasingly considering restrictions that make no such distinction. New York has proposed a $5,000 daily wagering cap. The state has also proposed banning betting on specific events or player statistics during an event, limiting customers to five deposits per day regardless of size, and banning sportsbook advertising between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. and during live sports.
Illinois has similarly proposed a five-deposit-per-day limit and would require the sportsbook to conduct “affordability checks” for customers depositing more than $1,000 in a day or $10,000 in 30 days. Colorado, meanwhile, has enacted six-deposit-per-day maximum. These rules automatically treat seven $50 deposits as more problematic than four $10,000 deposits, regardless of a bettor’s finances or actual behavior.
The proposed SAFE Bet Act would impose many similar restrictions nationally. Their basic flaw is the same: they use deposits, quantity wagered, or the type of bets as a proxy from problem gambling rather than looking for evidence that an individual is showing signs of problem gambling.
The research instead suggests that risk in concentrated among particular bettors. A 2026 study found that online sports-betting legalization was associated with increased calls to problem-gambling hotlines, with the effects concentrated among young, unmarried, and less-educated men. But concentration is precisely the point. Evidence that some groups face greater risk does not establish that millions of recreational bettors should face the same restrictions. And increased hotline use does not necessarily mean legalization created the underlying gambling problem. Moving bettors into a regulated markets where treatment resources are visible should itself make it easier for people who already have problems to seek help.
The broader research further undermines the case for treating sports betting as a population-wide emergency. A nationally representative 2026 Urban Institute survey found that 65 percent of bettors reported no financial impact from sports betting. Just 3 percent reported missing a bill because of betting, and 3 percent reported borrowing from friends or family. Most people also bet infrequently and in relatively small amounts.
A 2025 study comparing bettors in states with and without legal sports betting found that legalization did not significantly predict problem-gambling severity after accounting for demographics. Younger age and lower educational attainment were better predictors. A separate two-year longitudinal study likewise found no statistically significant legalization-related increase in problem-gambling severity.
Most strikingly, a 2026 study using data from more than 4.6 million adults found no detectable effect from online sports-betting legalization on poor mental-health days, depression diagnoses, binge drinking, marijuana use, suicide mortality, or alcohol-related mortality, including among several groups considered particularly vulnerable.
None of this means problem gambling should be ignored. It means the evidence supports targeting identifiable high-risk bettors rather than imposing blanket restrictions on everyone.
Legal markets make that possible in ways illegal sportsbooks do not. Legal sportsbooks can be required to monitor for signs of problem gambling, honor self-exclusion rules, provide treatment information, and follow consumer-protection rules. Illegal offshore sportsbooks face no comparable obligation. But excessive restrictions on legal sportsbooks make illegal ones more appealing.
Lawmakers should build on that advantage. Basic protections such as age verification, truthful advertising, clear odds and promotion disclosures, anti-fraud rules, voluntary betting limits, easy account closure, and self-exclusion should remain. But when a bettor displays credible warning signs such as rapidly escalating wagers, repeated failed deposits, chasing losses, or other validated indicators, legal operators have tools in place to identify the behavior and respond.
Problem gambling deserves serious attention. But taking it seriously does not require treating every bettor as a gambling addict. Legal sports betting and modern technology provide tools prohibition and black markets never did: the ability to identify risky behavior consistently and reach people who are actually losing control. Policymakers should use those tools to help the minority who need intervention without turning adults recreational betting into a public-health problem of its own.
Justin Leventhal is a Senior Policy Analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization that advocates for consumers through evidence-based analysis and data. Follow Justin on X @JustinLeventhal