Economics Professors on Sports Gambling and Mental Health

“Impact of Sports Gambling on Mental Health,” by Assistant Professors of Economics Cody Couture and Jeffrey Cross, and Stephen Wu, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, appears in the October issue of Economic Letters from Elsevier.

In their paper, the authors examine the impact of gambling on mental health and provide causal evidence from their research, conducted using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a nationally representative survey conducted by the U.S. Center for Disease Control.        

Their findings showed that “the legalization of gambling across the United States has increased access to betting, particularly sports betting, which has heterogeneously impacted the mental health of residents in those states.”

They found that “young men between the ages of 18 and 24 see an improvement in their mental health” due to improved access to legalized gambling as a new form of entertainment.

Their results also showed that married men between 30 and 34 years of age “see a substantial decline in their [mental health] resulting from legalized gambling, possibly due [to] the added stress of being financially responsible for someone else.” They noted that the study showed “no discernible effect for women.”