A recent episode by 60 Minutes on CBS on February 4, 2024 touched on the issue of addiction to online sports betting in the U.S. Interestingly, a study of people involved in online sports betting indicated that the majority of gamblers were between 25 and 34 years old. What was most concerning is the fact that the operators in online gaming — including sports betting — are gathering immense of amounts of data about each individual’s gambling habits. They then use this information to individualize their online marketing to each gambler in order to encourage more betting and to lure back former gamblers to their site. As a result, there is a greater chance of some gamblers to overextend their betting, and to develop an addiction to online sports betting.
In addition, the marketing of sports betting sites appears to be directed mostly to young people. All one has to do is watch any sports event and one will see several flashy ads for such sites. Operators also now cover any sport anywhere at any time (24/7), whereby some gamblers may not even know much about or follow a particular sport on a regular basis. Beyond football, you have everything including curling, soccer, basketball, hockey, motor sports, rugby, volleyball, and even tennis. There appear to be no limits on what one can bet. The sites do not really make an effort to provide such limits, even though they have all the necessary individual data.
In the U.S., a 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the door for states to legalize sports betting, whereby the majority of States have since seen it as a new source of revenue. Since then, 60 Minutes reported that Americans have spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars sports betting. Canada made single-event sports betting legal in 2021. The province of Ontario was first to move ahead with a regulated sports betting program — allowing multiple operators to provide legal online sports gambling services. There are now more than two dozen companies to compete for this sports-related segment of the broader provincial online gaming market. In-play betting also opens the door to people being able to make many bets within a given game.
What all this means is that the possibility of increasing the number of gambler addicts is definitely in the mix. While governments claim that their gaming commissions are trying to educate people about the dangers of excessive gambling, very little funding is provided to deal with this issue when compared to revenues going into their coffers. The ability to control online gambling has become even more difficult because of the nature of the technology itself. It was one thing in the past where an individual had to go to a casino or offsite operation to make a bet in cash. Making a physical bet in cash is certainly more evident than making a bet online where to amount of total bets become more elusive and less discernable. Young people in particular are more comfortable with using new technologies and have become more reliant on them for their daily experiences. In such an environment, how to deal with potential addictive behaviour has become that much more difficult.
60 Minutes interviewed Matt Zarb-Cousin, a leading gambling reformer in the U.K. He is also a recovering gambling addict. Mr. Zarb-Cousin successfully lobbied for stricter gambling regulations in Britain — limiting how betting companies advertise and how much gamblers can wager. He says the U.K.— where gambling’s been legal for decades — offers a sobering glimpse into what he believes is a crisis headed straight toward the U.S. He noted that online sports betting addiction has been intensified by how much more the gambling companies now know about each user.
All in all, more has to be done to deal with gambling addictions. Governments can no longer be complicit in online gambling in particular. I once read that about one in five persons will develop a gambling addiction. This of course has a major impact on individuals’ lives, their families, their communities and the health care system. The costs associated with such addictions can be enormous!
FROLITICKS 
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