Why Banning Sports Betting Isn’t the Answer

Since a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2018, sports betting has gained legal status nearly nationwide — in 38 states, plus Washington, D.C. This has been a boon for sports fans and recreational gamblers, allowing the establishment of legal venues for betting with consumer protections. However, in quasi-Newtonian fashion, this action has produced a perhaps not quite equal but certainly opposite reaction, as skeptics of sports betting have worked to dam up the tide of legalization — and to roll it back.

The concerns raised shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Skeptics worry that a world of legalized sports betting — especially online sports betting, which makes sports books ubiquitously available on the nation’s smart phones — is a poorer, worse-off world. They worry that individuals who gamble — especially the kind of impulsive young men attracted to gambling — will suffer grave financial losses, and that legalized betting causes other, more pernicious social dysfunctions. The term “gambling addiction” stalks the pages of anti–sports betting op-eds. Moreover, they say gambling threatens the very integrity of the sports on which wagers are being placed. However, conceding that these concerns should be considered seriously doesn’t mean they can withstand evidentiary scrutiny or close analysis. In the end, it seems clear that the right path forward is consumer freedom.

First, it isn’t clear that individuals in states that have legalized sports betting spend significantly more on their bets than those in prohibitionist states. “Comparing gambling expenditures in 2015 and 2023 across states that did not legalize sports betting, only legalized retail sports betting, and legalized both retail and online sports betting, suggests that legalization did not drive significant increases in gambling behavior,” a recent report from the American Consumer Institute found. “In fact, a weighted average of inflation-adjusted changes in per capita gambling expenditures shows similar increases in states that did not legalize sports betting and those that only legalized in-person betting, and far less in states that legalized both retail and online betting.” This suggests that increases in American gambling rates are not the product of legalization and, therefore, cannot be reversed by a return to prohibition.

On the matter of “addiction,” as the Taxpayers Protection Alliance recently reported, “the average monthly outlay for two-thirds of sports betters’ is less than $100, while only one in ten spends more than $500 per month and the vast majority spend less than $2 per quarter.” And as the Reason Foundation’s Guy Bentley has noted, the scant evidence available for addiction-level gambling rates pre- and post-legalization do not support the proposition that legalization drives gambling. Take the case of New Jersey: “In 2021, the latest year for which we have data, problem gambling in New Jersey was 5.6 percent,” Bentley wrote. “But in 2017, before sports betting was legal, New Jersey’s problem gambling rate was 6.3 percent.” Data from other countries, he continues, further support the claim that addiction doesn’t increase following legalization.

The fact that some sports betters gamble irresponsibly does not mean such activity is the norm. Stories of lives ruined because of gambling addiction are heart-breaking — as are stories of alcoholism — but with the larger context, they shouldn’t be taken as conclusive arguments for reinstating sports-betting bans.

Conservatives, especially, should realize that prohibitionist regulation is often not the best strategy to help those struggling with addiction. In a recent piece on gambling addiction, Ericka Andersen, recounting her own road to recovery from alcoholism, makes this case forcefully. “[T]he solution for me never centered on access to alcohol,” Andersen stated. “When I was in the worst phases of my addiction, no bureaucratic government ban would have convinced me to stop seeking another drink. The real battle was internal — mental, emotional and spiritual. I was wrestling with past trauma, dysfunctional relationships, and a growing disconnection from my faith.”

For the vast majority, sports bets — including inevitable losses — should be viewed not as addition or as a financial investment but as recreational spending. A sports fan might bet $30 dollars from his couch on a basketball game to raise the financial and emotional stakes of a game, or he might spend the same amount (or more!) on two beers at the stadium to increase his enjoyment of that same game. It’s about fun, not profit.

 Similarly, arguments that purport to show that gambling is correlated with problems such as increased rates of domestic violence aren’t as compelling as those who advance them believe. These studies usually suffer from methodological deficiencies or can be merely chalked up to the correlation-as-causation fallacy.

Critics of sports betting don’t apply the same logic to other expenditures as they apply to sports betting. Gamblers placed well into the 12 figures in bets in 2024 (a figure which doesn’t account for returns on successful bets). But for comparison, the average American spends $2,100 on coffee per year. This doesn’t mean that, to increase savings, jurisdictions should ban $6 Frappuccinos in an effort to get Americans to purchase more $3 black coffee, no matter how much doing so would increase savings. Likewise, the average aggregate price tag of Americans’ monthly subscriptions (for streaming services, gym memberships, etc.) is $77. That doesn’t mean that regulators should crack down on whatever subscriptions they think superfluous. Adults are free in this country to choose how to make use of their disposal income — as they should be.

Finally, if sports betting is truly posing a threat to the integrity of sport, leagues should deal with this threat internally instead of appealing to regulators. It is quite sensible that players should not be allowed to bet on their own sports, much less their own teams. But recent moves to legalize betting aren’t responsible for the siren song of gambling. Pete Rose’s machinations and the Black Sox Scandal occurred decades before 2018. It might be fair to say that legalization has, by making gambling far more easily accessible, added new pressures, but the obvious answer isn’t prohibition.

The answer to whatever problems or complications legalization has, in fact, introduced is for adults to take responsibility for their own actions and for parents to parent their children well. The modern world is very prosperous, which means, in a free society, that excess is more affordable and closer to hand. Almost anyone can afford to eat too much fast food and sugar or to spend too much time on social media or playing video games. Extending the logic of the anti–sports betting crowd to other parts of life would lead to full-scale paternalism. Hewing closely to the principles of freedom and individual responsibility is a far better path.