The legalization of mobile sports betting in many states has led to widespread worries about negative financial, social, and emotional impacts of easy access to sports gambling that cannot be ignored by policymakers. In particular, problem gambling is an issue that needs to be monitored and addressed, including filling in education gaps in a new category of discretionary spending and ensuring that there are support resources for those affected by gambling disorders. We examine several aspects of the socioeconomic impact of sports gambling. First, we find that even as net spending on legal sports betting rose from $920 million in 2019 to $13.7 billion in 2024, overall spending on gambling has stayed flat as a share of consumer spending. Based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), gambling accounted for 1.04% of personal consumer expenditures in 2024, compared to 1.07% in 2017. Given the inherent uncertainty of economic statistics, that’s effectively no difference.
Second, we look at the impact of sports gambling on consumer finances. We find no sign of a tidal wave of bankruptcies or consumer credit downgrades in states that were early adopters of mobile sports betting. Indeed, quite the opposite: Early adopter states showed a 40% decline in consumer bankruptcies between 2019 and 2024, compared to a 34% decline nationally, and a 36% decline for all states which legalized mobile sports betting. When we compared state-level credit scores in 2019 and 2024, we found a 1.8% increase in credit scores for early adopter states, roughly the same as the national average.
Third, we make the case that legalized sports betting serves as an economic innovation that generates positive consumer benefits and costs akin to other discretionary “experiential” spending
categories such as foreign vacations, live entertainment, and appearance-enhancing surgery. We show that it’s not uncommon for consumers to take on debt to finance outlays in these areas, yet the government does not step in to control individual behavior.
