Updated March 17, 2025 at 05:00 AM ET
March Madness tips off this week. Millions of Americans will be hoping for a perfect bracket or to see magical Cinderella runs from underdog teams.
And many others will be looking to bet big money on this year's men and women's basketball tournaments.
The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans will legally gamble about $3.1 billion on both tournaments, about $400 million more than last year. A driver of that growth is the growing popularity of sports betting apps.
Wagers through such services were made possible by a 2018 Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. Collegiate Athletic Association, that overturned a 1992 federal law banning commercial sports betting in most of the country. In 2023, states collected about $1.8 billion revenue thanks to taxes on those services.
But with that also comes the increased risk that many Americans will develop gambling addictions. Gambling addiction rose about 30% from 2018 to 2021, according to The National Council on Problem Gambling.
Jonathan Cohen, author of the forthcoming book Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling, argues that the immediate, widespread availability of sports betting after the Supreme Court's decision may have been too much too fast.
Cohen spoke to Morning Edition's Leila Fadel about the effects sports betting has had on people and what safeguards could be put in place.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Leila Fadel: It's impossible to watch American sports and not see commercials for legalized betting. How big has sports gambling gotten?
Jonathan Cohen: Legalized gambling arrived in the United States just seven years ago. And since then, Americans have bet around $500 billion on sports just over that period. And as many as 20 or 40% of American adults have placed at least one bet on sports in the last seven years.
Fadel: Are states benefiting from the legalized betting industry? Is this good for them?
Cohen: This is sort of the perplexing question. States, of course, are benefiting. That $500 billion translates into revenue for states down the line. But the question I have is exactly to what degree are they benefitting? So $500 billion sounds good on paper. Sports betting is actually a very small margin business. About 95% of that money gets returned to players and then 5% goes to sportsbooks. And then there's tax on that money that goes to states. A small percentage of the money goes to states and then that money accounts for an even smaller percentage of states actual budgets.
Fadel: And what is your concern around sort of deregulating it?
Cohen: Yeah, the concern is and the word I use in the title of the book is "reckless." This was sort of rolled out so quickly, particularly the fact that it was available online right away. It did not have sufficient safeguards in place, particularly for young men who have been sort of the most affected by the rise of sports gambling. And we've seen in that population rising rates of both problem gambling and just general financial insecurity and the people betting more than they can afford to lose.
Fadel: Well, if states aren't benefiting in a big way and there's this concern around gambling addiction and financial insecurity, what is the upside of this?
Cohen: Well, the upside is that lots of Americans before 2018, before the Supreme Court decision, were gambling anyway. They were gambling offshore. They were gambling illegally. And now they have a chance to do so above board, legally and in the safe, regulated market. I'm in favor of people having a chance to bet and having a chance to do so safely and legally. The question is, have we gone a bridge too far with the marketing that you mentioned or some of the other? What I think are predatory practices by sportsbooks that are inducing more people to play more than they otherwise would have.
Fadel: What would you propose should be happening where it can be legal but regulated in some way?
Cohen: There are lots of reasonable policy solutions, things like deposit limits, limiting how much money someone can deposit into their account, and limiting the number of bets taking place in a 24-hour period. Lots of sort of wonkish ideas. Editing the advertising or fixing the advertising that would, I think, not actually do that much damage to the overall sports betting infrastructure, but would make the games a lot safer for people who are at risk of developing problems.
The radio version of this story was edited by Peter Granitz and produced by Nia Dumas.
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