GAMBLING’S HIGH STAKES: IS ENOUGH BEING DONE TO PROTECT PLAYERS?

Gambling is a big business—no doubt about it. With billions flowing through sports betting apps and online platforms, it’s no surprise that this industry keeps growing.

But behind the mon­ey and excite­ment, there’s a real impact on the lives of gam­blers, espe­cial­ly those who strug­gle with addic­tion.

The Nation­al Coun­cil on Prob­lem Gam­bling (NCPG) recent­ly released a report that high­lights just how poor­ly most U.S. states are doing when it comes to pro­tect­ing play­ers. Accord­ing to their find­ings, states are only meet­ing about 39% of the stan­dards laid out by the NCPG’s Inter­net Respon­si­ble Gam­bling Stan­dards (IRGS). These stan­dards, updat­ed in late 2023, aim to make sure that peo­ple are pro­tect­ed from the harms of gam­bling, espe­cial­ly those at risk of addic­tion.

In their study of 30 states (plus D.C.), the NCPG found that only a hand­ful — Con­necti­cut, New Jer­sey, and Vir­ginia — came close to doing a decent job, meet­ing 49 out of 82 stan­dards. They’ve set up clear rules for things like age ver­i­fi­ca­tion, respon­si­ble adver­tis­ing, and train­ing for staff to help those at risk. Oth­er states did okay, like Col­orado, New York, and Penn­syl­va­nia, but even they fell short of meet­ing the full rec­om­men­da­tions.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are states like Neva­da and Flori­da that per­formed poor­ly, hit­ting few­er than 24 stan­dards. This means they lack cru­cial pro­tec­tions, such as tools for peo­ple to man­age their gam­bling bud­gets and prop­er cus­tomer sup­port for those strug­gling.

Kei­th Whyte, the NCPG’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, called for stronger reg­u­la­tions, urg­ing law­mak­ers to take action. There’s even talk of fed­er­al over­sight. A bill called the SAFE Bet Act, intro­duced by Rep. Paul Tonko and Sen. Richard Blu­men­thal, aims to set nation­al stan­dards, like ban­ning gam­bling ads dur­ing live sports.

Gam­bling may be lucra­tive, but it can wreak hav­oc on lives. States need to step up, close the gaps, and make sure that while the busi­ness thrives, play­ers don’t lose every­thing along the way.