Since online sports gambling became legal in Ohio in 2023, sports scandals have been mounting. Getting less attention is the human toll, which has grown rapidly.
With the stress of the holidays — and college and professional football playoffs — approaching, a Columbus-based clinician said it’s important to understand when gambling passes from being simple fun to a real problem.
Kelley Breidigan is an assistant clinical professor at Ohio State’s College of Social Work. She said that measures of problem gambling have been on the rise in all 38 states that have legalized online sports betting.
“Most folks are assigning this to the Supreme Court decision in 2018 that allowed states to legalize and regulate sports betting,” she said.
