New data has linked the spread of legal sports betting in the United States to a sharp rise in diagnoses of gambling disorder. According to ABC News, the figures come from Epic Research and are based on the records of nearly 200 million Americans, offering a large-scale look at how diagnosis rates have shifted as more states have opened up to wagering.
The headline finding is a clear divide between states. According to the data, the rate of diagnosed gambling disorders rose by 61% in states that have legalized sports betting, while it fell by around 29% in states where gambling remains illegal, a contrast that researchers highlighted as striking.
The backdrop to the trend is the rapid expansion of legal betting. Ever since the Supreme Court paved the way for states to legalize sports betting in 2018, 39 states and Washington, D.C. have done so, transforming what was once a tightly restricted activity into a widely available one across much of the country.
The data also broke the picture down by age. Adults between 30 and 49 had the highest rates of being diagnosed with a gambling disorder, with the rate rising from 4.1 to 5.8 per 100,000 people, marking this group as the one most often identified with the condition.
The steepest jump, however, was among younger adults. According to the report, the largest increase came in the 18 to 29 age group, where the diagnosis rate more than doubled, climbing from 1.5 to 3.3 per 100,000 people and underlining concerns about the impact of betting on younger people.
Researchers were careful to qualify the findings. They said the trends cannot be attributed to any single legal event, because legalization has been staggered across different states over several years, and they noted that gambling disorder is widely under-recognized in clinical care, meaning the true scale may be larger than the diagnoses suggest.
The data adds to a growing debate over the consequences of the fast spread of legal sports betting in the United States. For anyone struggling, ABC News noted that free and confidential help is available through the National Problem Gambling Helpline, as the numbers sharpen scrutiny of how quickly the industry has grown.