There’s Always Been Gambling. Never Like This.

It’s Sunday afternoon. A young man is on the couch with the game on, but his eyes are mostly on his phone. He’s got a bet on the next drive, a prop on the quarterback, and a parlay running on games he isn’t even watching. Ten years ago, none of this would have been legal where he lives. Today, it’s advertised during every commercial break.

People often say gambling is nothing new. They’re right. But the way people gamble today and how easy it has become, is something the world has never seen before.

ambling is one of humanity’s oldest pastimes. Dice have been found at archaeological sites thousands of years old. The ancient Greeks played games of chance, and Roman soldiers and senators alike bet on dice and chariot races.

Even then societies understood the risks. Rome restricted gambling on dice for much of its history, largely allowing it during festivals such as Saturnalia. Gambling was tolerated but it was kept in its place: limited to certain times, certain spaces and certain people.

That pattern held for most of history. Gambling existed but it took effort. You had to find the game, travel to the track or the casino, or know the bookie. The barriers were part of the protection.

American sports used to guard that line fiercely. In 1979 and 1983, two of baseball’s greatest players, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, were barred from working in Major League Baseball. They hadn’t fixed games or bet on baseball. They had taken jobs as greeters at Atlantic City casinos. Even the appearance of a link to gambling was seen as a threat to the game.

For decades after that, federal law confined legal sports betting almost entirely to Nevada.

That changed in May 2018. In Murphy v. NCAA, the US Supreme Court struck down the federal ban and left each state to decide for itself. The expansion that followed was rapid.

• The number of states with operating sportsbooks grew from one in 2017 to 38 by 2024 (1).
• Total sports wagers rose from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023, with 94% of 2023’s bets placed online (1).
• Today, sportsbooks are official partners of the leagues. Odds appear on broadcasts, and pre-game shows talk through their picks.

What once got Hall of Famers banned is now a business partnership.

Normalization doesn’t happen overnight. It happens through repetition. Ads during every game. Odds on the scoreboard. Commentators shouting “what a gamble!” Celebrities and influencers sharing their bets. Friends asking “did they cover?” instead of “did they win?”

For young people who have grown up since 2018, betting on sports isn’t a risky activity tucked away in a back room. It’s part of being a fan. A generation that never knew the old barriers doesn’t see a reason to be cautious.

That shift has changed the games themselves. Prop bets turn attention from teams to individual stats: a receiver’s yards, a player’s rebounds, a single pitch. Fans who lose money sometimes harass players online. And fans have started to wonder whether a strange play was just a bad play, or whether someone had money on it.

The core lesson from public health is simple: the easier something is to get, the more people use it and the more people are harmed by it. It’s true of alcohol and tobacco, and the evidence shows it’s true of gambling.

What changed after 2018 wasn’t just that betting became legal. It became available everywhere, all the time, on the phone in your pocket.

The research shows how much access matters:

• A study in JAMA Internal Medicine found online searches for help with gambling addiction rose 23% nationally after the 2018 ruling. In Pennsylvania, retail sportsbooks were linked to a 33% rise in help-seeking searches. When online sportsbooks launched, searches jumped 61%, and stayed high for years (1).
• A study of credit data for around 7 million Americans found that legal sports betting lowered average credit scores slightly. When states allowed online betting, the drop was nearly three times larger, and bankruptcies rose by about 10% (2). The harm fell hardest on people who were already struggling financially.

The researchers behind that study put it plainly: ease of access to sports gambling is harming people’s financial health.

A lottery ticket bought once a week and an app offering a new bet every few seconds are not the same product. Some forms of gambling are far more addictive than others. The most dangerous share a few features:

• Speed. In-play and micro-bets on single plays mean there’s almost no pause between one bet and the next.
• Constant access. No closing time, no travel, no one to see you.
• Rapid reward. Fast results keep the brain chasing the next outcome.
• Easy money in. Cards and instant deposits mean losses don’t feel real until they are.

Few people argue for banning all gambling. History suggests that wouldn’t work. But society already treats risky products differently depending on how harmful they are. Alcohol is sold with age limits and licensing hours. Tobacco ads are restricted. Some products are only allowed in certain places.

Gambling deserves the same thinking. The highest-risk products, such as rapid in-play betting, micro-bets and online slot-style games, could be tightly regulated or limited to licensed venues where there are natural barriers and oversight. Other sensible steps include:

• Restricting advertising, especially during games and where young people will see it.
• Limits by default, rather than tools users have to find and switch on themselves.
• Removing the most dangerous bet types.

That last step is already happening, if slowly. This month, the NBA and its sportsbook partners agreed to drop several types of player prop bets to protect the integrity of the game, building on earlier bans on props for turnovers, fouls and missed free throws (3). If these bets are risky enough for the league to restrict, it’s fair to ask why they were offered at all.

If you’re a parent, it helps to remember that your child is growing up in a very different world from the one you did. Betting isn’t something they have to look for. It finds them through their phone, their favorite players and the games they love.

Talk with them about how gambling has changed and why the ads make it look easier and more fun than it is. Ask whether they or their friends bet and how often. Blocking software can put a layer between an urge and a bet. And if someone is struggling, help is available.

People have gambled since ancient Greece and Rome. What’s new isn’t the urge to bet. It’s how easy it has become and how normal it now feels. When gambling is always available, more people gamble and more people get hurt.

The question isn’t whether gambling should exist. It’s whether the most addictive forms should be in everyone’s pocket, all day, every day.

Parents can join Chat with Dan every Tuesday at 5pm to ask questions and hear from other families. Find out more at stopbettingsports.com.

If someone you love is in crisis or talking about self-harm, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the US.

Sources

1. Yeola, A., Allen, M., Desai, N., Poliak, A., Yang, K., Smith, D., & Ayers, J. W. (2025). Growing health concern regarding gambling addiction in the age of sportsbooks. JAMA Internal Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.8193
2. Hollenbeck, B., Larsen, P., & Proserpio, D. (2025). The financial consequences of legalized sports gambling. Working paper, UCLA Anderson School of Management. https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/document/2025-05/Hollenbeck_The_Financial_Consequences_of_Legalized_Sports_Gambling.pdf
3. Deseret News (2026, October 16). NBA, sportsbooks agree to ban several types of player prop bets amid gambling concerns. https://www.deseret.com/sports/2026/10/16/nba-sportsbooks-agree-to-ban-several-types-of-player-prop-bets-amid-gambling-concerns/