Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, legal sports betting in America has been expanding. Thirty-eight states and Washington, D.C. have legalized the industry and 33 of those have legalized online sports betting in addition to retail settings. But as Americans move their betting to a safe and legal market and states rake millions in tax revenues, some policymakers are itching to slam the brakes with heavy-handed federal regulations. That’s a terrible bet.
Contrary to claims, legalized sports betting isn’t causing a gambling apocalypse. It’s not destroying household finances or turning every Super Bowl party into a gateway to ruin. In fact, recent analysis from the American Consumer Institute, using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows that gambling expenditures actually grew slower in states that legalized both retail and online betting than in those that didn’t. Legal sports betting hasn’t triggered a national gambling frenzy—it’s just shifted activity from shady corners to legal and regulated platforms.
The idea that people suddenly become reckless gamblers the moment you slap a legal stamp on a sportsbook isn’t just wrong—it’s a statistical fumble. Most of the research pushing the financial-doom narrative relies on correlation, not causation and ignores that households betting online on average invested more money in savings than those who didn’t. Hardly the image of reckless behavior.
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Justin Leventhal is a senior policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, follow on Twitter @ConsumerPal.