[BostonCard]

Probably needs to be said: Legalized sports betting has caused enough harm to society that, in my opinion, it's time to question the ethics of supporting pro teams whose parent leagues (e.g. NFL and NBA) are in bed with the big gaming sites.

https://www.nba.com/news/draftkings-fand...g-partners

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-announces-t...g-partners

Timely article from The Atlantic about the impact of widespread legalized gambling.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ke/679925/

A growing body of social-science literature suggests that, yes, this is in fact quite different. The rise of sports gambling has caused a wave of financial and familial misery, one that falls disproportionately on the most economically precarious households. Six years into the experiment, the evidence is convincing: Legalizing sports gambling was a brobdingnagian mistake.

Here are the two papers that have been making the rounds lately:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=4903302

Following a 2018 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, 38 states have legalized sports gambling. We study how this policy has impacted consumer financial health using the state-by-state rollout of legal sports gambling and a large and comprehensive dataset on consumer financial outcomes. Our main finding is that overall, consumers' financial health is modestly deteriorating as the average credit score in states that legalize sports gambling decreases by roughly 0.3%. The decline in credit score is associated with changes in indicators of excessive debt. We find a substantial increase in bankruptcy rates, debt collections, debt consolidation loans, and auto loan delinquencies. We also find that financial institutions respond to the reduced creditworthiness of consumers by restricting access to credit. These results are stronger for states that allow sports gambling online compared to states that restrict access to in-person betting and larger for young men in low-income counties. Together, these results indicate that the ease of access to sports gambling is harming consumer financial health by increasing their level of debt.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=4881086

We estimate the causal effect of online sports betting on households' investment, spending, and debt management decisions. Employing household-level transaction data and a staggered difference-in-differences framework, we find sharp increases in sports betting following legalization. This increase does not displace other gambling activity or consumption but significantly reduces households' savings allocations, as negative expected value risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments. These effects concentrate among financially constrained households, who become further constrained as credit card debt increases, available credit decreases, and overdraft frequency rises. Our findings highlight the potential adverse effects of online sports betting on vulnerable households.

And, unfortunately, it's not just professional sports leagues, and I expect to see a very corrosive collegiate sports gambling scandal any day now.

BC

[BostonCard]

Probably needs to be said: Legalized sports betting has caused enough harm to society that, in my opinion, it's time to question the ethics of supporting pro teams whose parent leagues (e.g. NFL and NBA) are in bed with the big gaming sites.

https://www.nba.com/news/draftkings-fand...g-partners

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-announces-t...g-partners

Timely article from The Atlantic about the impact of widespread legalized gambling.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ke/679925/

A growing body of social-science literature suggests that, yes, this is in fact quite different. The rise of sports gambling has caused a wave of financial and familial misery, one that falls disproportionately on the most economically precarious households. Six years into the experiment, the evidence is convincing: Legalizing sports gambling was a brobdingnagian mistake.

Here are the two papers that have been making the rounds lately:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=4903302

Following a 2018 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, 38 states have legalized sports gambling. We study how this policy has impacted consumer financial health using the state-by-state rollout of legal sports gambling and a large and comprehensive dataset on consumer financial outcomes. Our main finding is that overall, consumers' financial health is modestly deteriorating as the average credit score in states that legalize sports gambling decreases by roughly 0.3%. The decline in credit score is associated with changes in indicators of excessive debt. We find a substantial increase in bankruptcy rates, debt collections, debt consolidation loans, and auto loan delinquencies. We also find that financial institutions respond to the reduced creditworthiness of consumers by restricting access to credit. These results are stronger for states that allow sports gambling online compared to states that restrict access to in-person betting and larger for young men in low-income counties. Together, these results indicate that the ease of access to sports gambling is harming consumer financial health by increasing their level of debt.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=4881086

We estimate the causal effect of online sports betting on households' investment, spending, and debt management decisions. Employing household-level transaction data and a staggered difference-in-differences framework, we find sharp increases in sports betting following legalization. This increase does not displace other gambling activity or consumption but significantly reduces households' savings allocations, as negative expected value risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments. These effects concentrate among financially constrained households, who become further constrained as credit card debt increases, available credit decreases, and overdraft frequency rises. Our findings highlight the potential adverse effects of online sports betting on vulnerable households.

And, unfortunately, it's not just professional sports leagues, and I expect to see a very corrosive collegiate sports gambling scandal any day now.

BC