There’s no doubt that the American gambling market is booming.
In 2021, the industry surged to new heights, recovering from COVID-19 much faster than anticipated. Revenue grew to an all-time record—up 20 percent over pre-pandemic 2019 levels, despite 40 million fewer casino visitors. A question naturally arises as players spend more on gambling than ever before—can increased spend be tied to an increase in problem gambling?
Enchanting problem gambling resources
For some, gambling can be a pleasant diversion—for others, a dangerous path to unnecessary risk and harm.
The pandemic caused countless Americans severe pain, isolation, and grief. This collective trauma has led to drastic behavioral changes and new coping mechanisms. As COVID-19 ripped through the country, regulators approved cashless gaming as a public health measure and legislatures supported legalized sports betting, causing explosive market expansion. Problem Gambling Awareness Month provides an excellent opportunity to examine this potentially problematic behavior—and what, if any, role the pandemic played in exacerbating it.
Organizations like UNLV’s International Gaming Institute and the International Center for Responsible Gaming (ICRG) continue to serve as leading experts on these risks and guide the world’s policymakers as they make decisions to create a safer, healthier environment for gamblers. Combatting problem gambling requires a united effort between government officials, public health experts, operators, and suppliers.
But individual companies can’t do it alone—they need support from the entire gaming community. The industry’s acknowledgment of these issues during Problem Gambling Awareness Month is meaningful, but we must do more to fund research into problem gambling behavior so we can truly understand how to address it.
To that end, the UNLV International Gaming Institute has partnered with payments companies like Sightline, Global Payments, and others to provide valuable transaction data that may offer better insight into gamblers’ habits. The International Gaming Institute will use that data to examine tens of millions of transactions across several years—all in search of actionable information to prevent problem gambling.
Call for further action
We hope this deep data analysis identifies key predictive markers for possible problematic gamblers—changes in their deposit timing, amount, or frequency. And while we can’t know for certain what the data will demonstrate, we believe that this collaboration is a crucial first step toward a better understanding of the potential impacts these past two years have had on gamblers and preventing gambling harms.
We urge our industry colleagues to invest in new research, initiatives, and programs to address the negative impacts of increased access to gambling. We hope that gaming companies will get involved with organizations like UNLV, ICRG, NCPG, or a state problem gambling council to better understand the impacts of problem gambling and advocate for those in harm’s way.
We must understand the potential impact of problem gambling and preempt it by acting swiftly and with purpose. We’ve all seen what happened in international markets that didn’t prioritize this kind of research.
Only then can we create a sustainable foundation for our industry’s continued growth. We owe that to our patrons.
