A recent online study has revealed that individuals who bet on sports are more inclined to engage in other forms of gambling compared to their counterparts who do not partake in sports betting. They were found to gamble more frequently and participate in a broader range of gambling activities. Moreover, these individuals exhibited a higher likelihood of developing problem gambling behaviors. This study was published in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. Sports betting is available for a wide range of sports, including football, basketball, baseball, horse racing, and more. Typically, bets can be placed on various aspects of the game such as the final score, individual player performances, or overall standings.
Although the outcomes of sports matches are influenced by the skills and abilities of the competitors and the teamwork in team sports, many people still consider sports betting to be a form of gambling. Gambling generally involves risking money or valuables on an event with an uncertain outcome, in the hope of winning additional money or material goods. This broad category includes casino games, lotteries, and other betting events. Since the outcomes of sports matches are often uncertain, sports betting also meets this definition of gambling.
Gambling can lead to addiction through a process known as conditioning, wherein the brain associates gambling activities with pleasure and reward. This is often due to the release of dopamine during wins. Over time, this association can lead to a compulsive need to gamble in order to experience the same level of excitement or to escape negative emotions, resulting in a cycle of addiction that can be difficult to break.
Problem gambling, or gambling addiction, is characterized by an uncontrollable urge to gamble despite the negative consequences it may have on an individual’s personal, social, or financial well-being, often leading to significant distress and impacting relationships, work, and mental health.
Study authors Joshua B. Grubbs and Shane W. Kraus note that, in the recent years, sports gambling has gone from being legal in only one location in the United States to being legal in most of the country, very often via mobile applications and online betting websites. They were interested in how sports betting is related to other forms of gambling and if there are specific risks associated with this type of activity.
Study participants were 2,806 adults selected to match the overall U.S. population on gender, age, education, census region, and race/ethnicity and 1,557 adults who reported participating in sports betting. 49% of the first group and 67% of the second group were men.
Participants were asked about their engagement with four categories of sports betting in the past 12 months—traditional sports betting, fantasy sports play, daily fantasy sports play, esports betting—and several other forms of gambling, such as card games, track betting, dice games, prop bets, lottery/number games, bingo, slots/electronic gaming machines, pull tabs, keno, and scratch offs. Based on these responses, the researchers assessed the breadth of participants’ gambling involvement.
Additionally, participants reported on the frequency of their gambling, enabling researchers to evaluate the depth of their gambling involvement. Participants also completed an assessment for problem gambling symptoms using the Problem Gambling Severity Index.
Results showed that participants with any sports betting history in the previous year tended to gamble much more often compared to those not involved in sports betting. These individuals also tended to have more severe problem gambling symptoms compared to those who did not gamble on sports. Overall, the share of people betting on sports was higher among individuals with higher risk of gambling addiction.
Two thirds of participants not betting on sports in the past year reported participated in one or two other gambling activities in the past year. In contrast, two-thirds of those betting on sports reported engaging in four or more different gambling activities in the previous year.
Overall, individuals betting on sports demonstrated greater breadth and greater depth of gambling involvement, but also an increased risk of developing gambling addiction. However, when breadth and depth of gambling involvement are taken into account, sports betting did not confer any additional risk of gambling addiction.
“The present work shows that the association between sports betting and problem gambling symptoms is largely accounted for by breadth of gambling activities and depth of gambling involvement when examined cross-sectionally. Even so, those who engage in sports gambling are more likely to endorse higher overall breadth of gambling (i.e., engaging in more distinct gambling activities over the past year), display greater frequency of gambling (i.e., on average, monthly or more), and experience higher rates of problem gambling symptoms at all levels of gambling activities,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the links between sports betting and gambling behaviors. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, the design of the study does not allow any cause-and-effect inferences to be drawn from the data. Additionally, the study was based on self-reports, leaving lots of room for reporting bias to influence the results.
The paper, “The relative risks of different forms of sports betting in a U.S. sample: A brief report,” was authored by Joshua B. Grubbs and Shane W. Kraus.