The 2025 report by the American Gaming Association (AGA) showed that 57 percent of adults in the United States gambled within the past year, translating to roughly 145 million adults, marking the highest rate of gambling the organization has ever recorded. This figure includes people who bought lottery tickets, placed sports bets, visited casinos, or played games wagering money through any online gambling platforms. Many people have remarked on the apparent growth in visibility of gambling-related ads on TV, sports broadcasts, streaming, and podcasts, and this reflects the collective $3.9 billion spent on marketing and advertising by the U.S. sports betting and gambling industries in 2025. Both the prevalence of gambling and its presence in the cultural conversation appear to be on the rise. This two-part blog series will cover some of the more recent changes in the landscape of gambling, impacts gambling can have, and what resources and steps are available to those who may be negatively impacted by gambling or betting.
The Gambling Continuum
Historically, gambling has tended to be marketed as entertainment, and for many people it is. However, there is always a chance of gambling becoming problematic. Gambling is generally viewed on a continuum, ranging from casual gamblers, to those at risk, then to problem gamblers, and finally to people who meet criteria for gambling disorder, a specific diagnosis in the DSM-5 in the same category as other addictive disorders such as those with substance use or alcohol use disorder. What this continuum means is that a person does not need to meet criteria for gambling disorder to experience negative impacts and consequences from gambling, and the severity of gambling can increase over time. According to the 2024 National Council on Problem Gambling report, an estimated 10-15 million U.S. adults (3-4.5%) are affected by problem gambling. However, a breakdown of the data show that men under the age of 35, are at significantly higher risk of problem gambling, with men aged 18-24 being the highest risk group at almost twice the rate of the general population. There has been longstanding research showing higher rates of problem gambling among men in general, though some researchers have hypothesized that the growing rates of gambling among younger men may be due to the increase of accessibility in online gambling and sports betting.
Changes in the Gambling Landscape
In 2018, a Supreme Court ruling struck down a federal sports betting ban, and since then, 39 states and Washington D.C. have legalized sports betting, with 30 states also legalizing online/mobile sports-betting. According to the Siena Research Institute, about 27% of Americans, and about half (52%) of men ages 18-49 report having at least one online sportsbook account, such as DraftKings, FanDuel, or BetMGM. Rather than having to take time to attend a sportsbook at an in-person casino like in eras past, a huge number of people have access to gambling in their back pocket. The convenience of being able to place bets quickly and at any time of the day through an app on a phone significantly increases risk for behaviors linked to problem gambling, such as chasing losses, primarily because faster speed of play increases the risk of problematic gambling.
Another change in the landscape in recent years has been the growth of prediction markets, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which have grown in popularity in the 2020s. Prediction markets represent another online avenue for individuals to speculate with their money through “event contracts,” where users can speculate or bet money on the future outcome of events, such as pop culture, geopolitical, or sporting events, typically in the form of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ outcomes, and the amount of money paid out if a user guesses correctly will fluctuate in price based on the projected outcome of the event. Prediction markets are not legally classified as gambling, and they are regulated at the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. However, according to a 2026 national survey conducted by the Harris Poll on behalf of the National Council on Problem Gambling, nearly half of Americans (45%) say they view prediction markets as functionally comparable to gambling, while only 27% align them with investing. Regardless of their legal classification, prediction markets represent opportunity for the majority of people to experience financial losses, with a research study on Polymarket profits showing that only the top 1% of users (likely professional traders) captured 76.5% of all profits. Meanwhile a study done by the Roosevelt institute suggests ordinary participants in prediction markets lose more money and lose even more often than in other forms of gambling such as sports betting or casino gambling.
Critics of prediction markets purport that they are essentially using financial trading language to subvert legal definitions of gambling and/or sports betting. In states where gambling and sports betting is legal, companies that offer sports betting need to have gambling licenses, meaning they are regulated by state gaming boards, users have to go through age checks according to state laws that set the legal age to gamble, and the companies must provide voluntary self-exclusion tools. However, because prediction markets are not legally classified as gambling, they do not have to follow these laws, allowing for example 18-year-olds to use prediction markets whereas in Virginia the legal age to gamble is 21. This shift in age availability affects millions more people aged 18-21, which is particularly troubling given data about the disproportionate rate of problem gambling among younger people.
This quickly changing landscape of online gambling and trading has led to calls for increased research on gambling and prediction markets at both state and federal levels, increased efforts to educate the public on the risks and potential impacts, and proposed legislation, such as the SAFE Bets Act, which could provide more consumer guardrails and oversight. In the meantime, though, how can people safely navigate this landscape? For people who believe they may have a gambling problem or know someone with one, what resources are available? In the second part of this blog series, I will share more about resources available and steps people can take.
