Sports Betting Is Bigger. Is It Actually Getting Worse?

Bigger is easy to prove

Americans legally wagered $166.94 billion through commercial sportsbooks in 2025, according to the American Gaming Association's tracker. In 2021, the comparable total was $57.22 billion. That is an increase of $109.72 billion, or about 192%, in four years.

That last distinction matters. Handle is the total amount wagered, including money bet again after a win. It does not count unique bettors. It is not the amount people lost. And it is not a harm index. The legal market also expanded between 2021 and 2025, so the comparison does not hold the number of available markets constant.

So the first part of the question has a clean answer: legal sports betting became much bigger. Applying that 192% figure to harm would be a category error. To ask whether betting is getting worse, we need people-level and outcome-level evidence.

One national survey tells two stories

The Urban Institute surveyed U.S. adults in January 2026 through the Understanding America Study. Its July analysis describes 3,194 completed responses, weighted to national demographics, and estimates that 11% of adults bet on sports in the previous year. Its definition was broad: sportsbook apps, prediction markets, casinos, racetracks, kiosks, and other physical locations all counted.

The typical picture in that survey was not daily, high-dollar betting. Among past-year bettors, 48% said they bet only once or twice, 55% said they wagered less than $100 during the year, and 65% said sports betting had no effect on their personal finances. Four percent reported betting daily.

The minority story should not disappear inside those majorities. Twelve percent said they saved less money than they would have without sports betting. That rose to 19% among bettors with household incomes below $50,000 and 15% among bettors ages 18–29. Overall, 3% reported missing bill payments and 3% reported borrowing from friends or family.

“

The evidence does not say every bettor is in trouble. It says a large market can look ordinary for most participants while a smaller group reports financial strain.

These are weighted self-reports, not bank records. Urban flags possible nonresponse and social-desirability bias, and some negative experiences may be underreported. The subgroup estimates also come from much smaller samples than the full survey. Those limits cut against both panic and complacency.

The online signal deserves attention—not a causal headline

Urban also compared 206 to 208 online-only bettors, depending on the question, with 123 people who bet only in person. In that small weighted comparison, 5% of online-only bettors reported missing or delaying a bill because money went to sports betting. The rate among in-person-only bettors was 0.3%. The article describes the relative gap as approximately fifteenfold.

The relative difference is striking. The absolute estimates—5% and 0.3%—are both low, and the groups are small. Online-only bettors also reported more frequent and higher-dollar betting. But this was a cross-sectional survey, so it cannot tell us whether the channel caused the missed bills. Existing finances, betting intensity, and who chooses each channel may all matter.

The defensible conclusion is narrower: financial-strain signals were more common among the online-only bettors Urban surveyed. That is a reason to investigate further, not permission to turn association into causation.

Several warning lights moved

A separate Siena/St. Bonaventure survey series adds trend evidence of a different kind. In its annual proprietary online surveys, the share reporting an active online sportsbook account rose from 19% in 2024 to 22% in 2025 and 27% in 2026.

Among surveyed bettors, several self-reported warning indicators also rose. Chasing a bet went from 52% in 2025 to 60% in 2026. Someone expressing concern about the respondent's sportsbook use rose from 22% in 2024 and 23% in 2025 to 31% in 2026. Calling a helpline or seeking other help rose from 9% in each of 2024 and 2025 to 15% in 2026.

Those movements are concerning. They are not a clean national prevalence series. Each year surveyed a new proprietary online sample, not the same people over time. The 2026 release does not provide exact bettor subgroup sizes or statistical tests for each year-over-year change. These results are best read as warning lights within one repeated survey method.

The helpline is a signal measured with a broken ruler

The National Problem Gambling Helpline's 2025 report includes 377,410 contacts across calls, chats, and texts. The report frames those records as evidence about help-seeking and helpline service delivery—not as a measure of total gambling harm or a causal evaluation of gambling policy.

Those records show what appeared in conversations reaching included helpline systems. They do not count everyone seeking help, estimate national prevalence, or identify unique people across every channel. Awareness campaigns, required helpline disclosures, routing, and willingness to use chat or text can all change contact volume.

There is an additional break in the series. After a September 2025 court order, NCPG stopped managing and using 1-800-GAMBLER. Call and text data for that number are unavailable for October through December. The report explicitly warns against treating the resulting decline as real. It also says contacts cannot be linked to a particular sporting event. That missing fall window makes an NFL-season conclusion especially indefensible.

The evidence scorecard

• Strong: legal commercial sports-betting turnover nearly tripled from 2021 to 2025.
• Strong: a 2026 national survey found mostly occasional, modest-dollar betting alongside a smaller group reporting reduced saving and missed bills.
• Suggestive: online-only bettors reported more financial strain in a small cross-sectional comparison.
• Suggestive: repeated online surveys contain rising warning signals, while helpline records show when included contacts sought help.
• Unanswered: no source provides one comparable national measure showing how total sports-betting harm changed over the same period.
• Unanswered: these sources do not prove that legalization, mobile access, advertising, or the NFL caused the reported outcomes.

Is sports betting bigger? Yes, decisively. Is it getting worse? Some outcomes and warning signals appear to be moving in a troubling direction, but the honest answer depends on which outcome, which population, and which measurement method we mean. The next time a giant betting number appears on screen, ask what it counts. Dollars, people, reported strain, and requests for help are not interchangeable—and keeping them separate is how the real problem comes into focus.