Missouri Independent: What Missouri can learn about sports gambling addiction from other states

What Missouri can learn about sports gambling addiction from other states

by Blaise Mesa, Missouri Independent
October 17, 2024

In states with legal sports betting, Americans are gambling on the talents of sports stars like Patrick Mahomes and Bobby Witt Jr. more and heeding the advice of certified financial advisers less.

Households across the country are skipping the stock market and using money that could otherwise be invested to bet on sports. A study, done in part by the University of Kansas, found that households bet more than $1,100 a year on average, and as money dries up, investments drop by 14%.

“If you think about it,” said Kevin Pisciotta, an assistant professor of finance at KU, “this is a gambling opportunity, unlike most things at casinos, where you could do research to fool yourself into thinking you’ve improved your odds.”

Families wagering on over/under bets instead of the stock market is one concerning trend that could come with Missouri sports betting. But there are more, and addiction counselors who spoke with The Beacon said state regulations to stop gambling addiction are weak.

On Nov. 5, Missouri voters could legalize sports gambling by passing Amendment 2 and possibly face similar problems.

How has Kansas fared? 

Kansas legalized sports betting in September 2022. There were 10 sports betting-related calls to the gambling addiction hotline by that August. In 2023, there were 66 sports betting-related calls. That’s 18% of the 377 calls.

Number of gambling helpline calls

Stephenie Roberts, a certified gambling addiction counselor, said her message to Missouri lawmakers is to make programs available to help everyone.

“Over time, they may see more bankruptcies, suicide attempts (and) embezzlements,” Roberts said. “When people find themselves suddenly in debt, they get desperate. Once your brain gets hooked, it’s like any other addiction.”

Sports betting is one of the more accessible types of gambling addictions, she said. Kansans only need to pull out their phones to bet instead of driving to a casino. Those gamblers can also bet everything in their bank account.

Accessibility isn’t the only issue — it’s the lax state regulations, said Roberts, chairperson of the South Central Kansas Problem Gambling Task Force.

Kansans can voluntarily ban themselves from a sportsbook. But they could just sign up for another in minutes. The state has no-cost counseling, but more addiction from sports betting means not enough money is put into the fund, Roberts said. And sports gambling helplines are promoted in advertisements, but that information is jammed into the final few seconds of ads.

The National Council on Problem Gambling looked at every state with legal sports gambling. It found holes in Kansas law.

A September 2024 report said Kansas was in the bottom third of states when it came to the number of standards met.

The report noted that Kansas doesn’t have state laws setting mandatory betting limits when accounts are created, doesn’t have certain types of betting limits, doesn’t require marketing campaigns on how to spot problem gambling behaviors and doesn’t mandate audits of the effectiveness of policy and progress reports.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but Kansas law is not clearly requiring any state employees or sportsbooks to implement those rules.

The state just isn’t proactive enough, Roberts said.

“The easier you make it to go and do those activities, the more they’re going to do it and the more they’re going to develop problems associated with it,” she said.

Layne Jacobson, a Colorado-based gambling addiction counselor, said he’d tell state lawmakers to put caps on how much someone can bet, spend more on addiction prevention services and beef up monitoring of how old gamblers are.

Colorado state law requires anyone to be 21 or older to gamble. Yet he’s seen patients as young as 16 get past the firewall.

“We’re always playing catch-up with online casinos,” Jacobson said, adding that new forms of betting usually mean the casinos are ahead of addiction counselors.

Andrew Burden has placed sports bets in Kansas. He likes the added rush it brings to sports games, but he knows the dangers sports betting can pose. Burden knows people in so much debt that they excluded themselves from apps.

Burden and other bettors who talked to The Beacon said the sportsbooks do a good job of warning people about the dangers of betting. The FanDuel app, for example, will send reminders to players about how much time they’ve spent on the app and how much they bet. FanDuel even alerts players when they deposit more money than they usually do on average.

Burden said the sportsbooks could move quicker to ban players who are losing thousands, though.

“The other way around,” he said, “when people are making a lot of money … they’ll ban them from their sportsbook.”

Missouri sports betting regulations

Key Missouri lawmakers didn’t respond to questions about possible state regulations if sports gambling passes. Those who did said they aren’t aware of any discussions.

The Missouri Gaming Commission does have the ability to introduce gambling regulations. The board didn’t respond to requests for comment on what it might do. It has said in past interviews it would look to other states for help.

Unlike Kansas, Missouri would substantially beef up funding to fight problem gambling addiction.

Missouri first put money into a problem gambling addiction fund in 2001. Since then, the fund has received a total of $5.4 million. If passed, Missouri could put $5 million in the problem gambling fund every year.

The KU study 

Justin Balthrop, an assistant professor of finance at KU, said people assume he is against sports betting because of his research. He isn’t. He just wants people to understand the full consequences of sports betting.

The study, “Gambling Away Stability: Sports Betting’s Impact on Vulnerable Households,” found that the amount of money invested in the stock market fell almost every quarter for the first three years after legalization in a state. It notes that the long-term financial risks of such a shift fall more heavily on working-class households with less margin for error.

Sean Benson, who has bet on sports in Kansas, sees sports betting as something fun to do, not a way to make serious money. He can see the appeal of sports betting over the stock market, even if he doesn’t do it.

A company’s stock price will jump up or down and it isn’t always clear why, he said. But he can see with his own two eyes why a sports bet wins or loses.

“As a sports fan my entire life, it’s just what I understand more,” Benson said. “I’d probably be more into the stocks if I understood business.”

Benson doesn’t love how much sportsbooks advertise during games but thinks there are enough regulations in place to curb gambling addiction.

Balthrop said the study doesn’t have the data to suggest the perfect changes to state law. But he wants gamblers to be more aware of how easy it is to lose.

Most people know that the house always wins at a casino, he said, but sports bettors might fool themselves into thinking they have the edge by watching enough game tape. But the sportsbooks are good at winning money as well.

“A lot of the potential negative consequences could be at least softened, if not eliminated,” Balthrop said, “if people were able to be a little bit more educated around exactly what the average sports betting profile looks like.”

This post has been corrected to spell Andrew Burden’s name correctly.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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