Across the U.S., a growing number of publicly-funded problem gambling programs are facing financial challenges as states increasingly legalize sports betting. Only three of the eight states that have legalized sports betting have expanded funding for gambling addiction services. Not one of those states, nor the other 15 and the District of Columbia that introduced sports betting legislation in 2018, have followed the National Council on Problem Gambling’s recommendation to direct 1 percent of legal sports betting revenue toward problem gambling services.
NCPG Executive Director Keith Whyte said, “Most states that do have legalized gambling see it primarily as a revenue source, a jobs generator, rather than as a public health issue.” He said he’s hopeful public attitudes toward problem gambling could change—along with funding–since the American Psychiatric Association in 2013 reclassified problem gambling as a behavioral addiction, like drug abuse, rather than an impulse-control disorder, like kleptomania.
Jeff Marotta, president of Oregon-based Problem Gambling Services, which conducts the National Survey of Gambling Services, said, “Bills can be written in a way that set up all kinds of protections. I don’t think enough people think about that.”
Sports betting became legal in June in New Jersey, which provides the highest amount of funding for problem gambling, but not the NCPG’s recommended 1 percent of revenue. Pennsylvania increased problem gambling funds but only by 0.2 percent of gross sports betting wagering revenue. Rhode Island increased its funding by $25,000, state officials said.
Mississippi, West Virginia, Nevada, New York and Delaware have not yet added funds to addiction programs. Delaware Council on Gambling Problems Executive Director Arlene Simon said, “We’re going to have to be treating more people. We’ll have to expand our prevention advertising, and we can’t do that with the funding we currently receive.”
In Nevada, where about 6 percent of the population has gambling addiction problems, seven addiction treatment centers currently operate and more are expected to apply for public funds next year, said Nevada Problem Gambling Program Director Kim Garcia. But she noted the program’s $1.2 million annual budget is not expected to be increased.
In Mississippi, legislators approved both sports betting and a state lottery, but funding was not included for the Mississippi Council on Problem and Compulsive Gambling, said Program Director Betty Greer. The agency used to offer free counseling but now only runs a helpline on a $100,000 annual budget, Greer said, adding the agency is operating with a 40 percent budget deficit and may have to close within two years.
According to the 2016 gambling addiction services survey, the problem affects slightly more than 2 percent of the U.S. population, but has attracted far less attention than drug, tobacco and alcohol addictions. U.S. public funding for substance abuse treatment is 334 times more than funding for all gambling addiction services, but those problems are just 3.8 times more common. Problem gambling’s estimated social costs are about $6.5 billion a year, mainly related to criminal justice and health expenditures.
