Six years out from the widespread legalization and acceptance of sports betting in the United States, the sports world has been plagued over and over by scandals. A wave has hit in 2024, from Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter to Jontay Porter to most recently, the Notre Dame men’s swimming team. Now, a new study by researchers at BYU, Kansas, and Northwestern is linking sports betting with long-term negative financial consequences for gamblers.
The researchers used credit and debit card transaction data from 2010 to September 2023 to see how people spent their money, and they found a link between an increase in sports betting with a decrease in long-term financial planning.