Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

6-27-2024

College/Unit

Chambers College of Business and Economics

Document Number

24-04

Department/Program/Center

Economics

Abstract

Since the Supreme Court declared the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 unconstitutional in 2018, 38 states and the District of Columbia legalized face to face and/or on-line betting on sports. A potential unintended consequence of legalized sports betting is an increased risk for mental health disorders and problem gambling. Using a staggered difference-in differences framework, we exploit variation in timing of adoption of legal sports betting across states to evaluate the impact of these laws on mental health outcomes. We combine data on when states passed laws to legalize gambling with data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from 2013-2022 for the analysis. The results show that BRFSS participants reported worse mental health in terms of the fraction of the sample reporting one or more bad mental health days, the reported number of bad mental health days in the past month, and the number of people reporting suffering from depressive disorders. Increased access to sports betting reduces mental health. These results can help stake holders to assess the risk of legalized sports betting on mental health.

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