A new study out of Northwestern University shows that betting on sports is having a devastating effect on lower-income families as they gamble away their savings in the hopes of a big payoff that never comes. Michael Jonas of CommonWealth Beacon writes:
The study found that legalization of online sports betting has not led people to divert money from other forms of entertainment to this new sector, but has instead led them to overextend their budgets at the expense of saving money through investment accounts, especially among the most financially vulnerable households.
The study linked sports betting to “a large decrease” in deposits to brokerage accounts, accompanied by “decreased credit availability, increased credit card debt, and a higher incidence rate of overdrawing bank accounts.” In all, say the researchers, access to online sports betting “exacerbates financial difficulties faced by constrained households.”
Elected officials’ ever-expanding pursuit of easy tax money has led them to ignore their responsibility to the public welfare. The state lottery goes back to the ’70s, but there was no need for it to add addictive games such as scratch tickets or — coming soon to a digital device near you — allow online gambling.
Legalizing casino gambling was a massive mistake, and sports gambling is worse. But such are the times we live in.
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And in other news, the sun rises in the East.
Fake news!! 🙂
Wait’ll the Spotlight Team gets hold of this one. It’ll be a multi-part “takeout”, along the lines of their series about how Boston traffic is horrendous.
I think gambling will follow the trajectory of alcohol. Over the next 50 or so years we will spend enough on gambling education that the people who get addicted will become a smaller more ignorable part of the citizenry.
Thinking about it more as I typed, I’m now guessing it will go faster than alcohol did since, IME, gambling addiction is a much easier addiction to get under control.
On the plus side, where are those revenues going? Would prefer pols have the courage to tax properly. At least only 8% of households are affected by online gambling, according to the study.