Growth of gambling industry threatens public health, commission finds
The rise of online betting has led the commercial gambling industry to grow worldwide, posing a threat to public health, according to a report from an international commission of health experts.
The rise of online betting has led the commercial gambling industry to balloon worldwide, posing a significant threat to public health, according to a new report.
The report, published Thursday, comes from a public health commission on gambling convened by the medical journal The Lancet. The commission’s 22 members — academic experts from a dozen countries — reviewed existing studies and surveys on gambling’s prevalence, impacts and harms and determined that on a global scale, current regulations do not go far enough to protect the public and need to be strengthened.
“We’re not talking about people playing a game with cards around the table anymore,” said the commission’s epidemiology lead, Louisa Degenhardt, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “Many people might be really experiencing harms from gambling — we think that it’s probably around 72 million people globally. That number is likely to increase, as we are seeing the increase in commercial organizations targeting people to gamble more.”
Gambling is legal in some capacity in more than 80% of countries worldwide, according to the report. Based on their systematic review of research, the authors estimated that 16% of adults and 26% of adolescents who use online casino or slot products have gambling disorders and that 9% of adults and 16% of adolescents who use sports betting products have such disorders.
In the U.S., 38 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized sports betting since the Supreme Court struck down a ban in 2018, according to the American Gaming Association. Thirty states permit and regulate mobile sports betting. A 2022 Pew Research survey found that 19% of U.S. adults had placed sports bets either in person or online in the last year.
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