Kentucky’s embrace of legalized sports betting has shifted gambling habits from racetracks to smartphones. While tax revenue and engagement grow, experts warn of rising addiction risks amid insufficient mental health support.
Pastel pinks and feather fascinators are only two of the numerous Kentucky Derby customs and rituals that include playing the ponies. Every May, on the first Saturday, the gates open at 9 a.m. Two commentators start to appear on huge screens at ten o’clock to go over the odds and their predictions for the fourteen races that day. The baritone of an announcer blasts over the public address system between events: “If you don’t bet, you can’t win!”
Toby Coggins and his sister travelled from College Station, Texas, to the Churchill Downs racecourse this year for the second time. Coggins browses the in-house betting app, which is promoted on billboards around the track, while leaning on a wall close to a free beverage booth. Normally, he doesn’t gamble. He claims, “I just don’t take many risks.” “But it all adds to the fun here.”
An Ipsos study from 2021 found that around 25% of Kentuckians wagered on horses. Those gamblers have a lot more choices now. Kentucky became the 38th state in the US to legalize sports betting in September 2023.
The state’s horse bets have already been overtaken by sports wagers, which are primarily made on cellphones.
Kentucky residents gambled $2.4 billion on sports in the 12 months following Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s introduction of the state’s first legal sports wager, a $20 parlay on Kentucky college football. Horse racing wagers dropped 8% to $196 million.
In the United States, the betting tendency has mostly followed the same pattern. According to a Siena College poll, 48% of American men under 50 have an account on a digital sportsbook, such as DraftKings, FanDuel, ESPNBet, and BetMGM. Americans currently gamble almost $150 billion annually on sports.
Professional sports leagues have seen a sharp increase in interest as a result of the wagers. Ads for betting applications are being crammed into commercial breaks by failing media organizations, while fresh tax revenues are flooding state coffers. Following a Supreme Court decision in 2018 that made it legal for sports betting throughout the country, it’s all part of a countrywide gambling honeymoon.
However, addiction specialists warn that a public health time bomb is about to go off. According to the Journal of Behavioural Addictions, gambling on smartphone applications is more likely to result in addiction than traditional wagers like those at casinos and racetracks. According to a recent research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, searches on the Internet on gambling addiction “have consistently increased year over year since 2021.”
According to specialists, it takes about seven years for a person with a gambling issue to seek therapy for the first time, so many problem gamblers are still unaware of their condition. The healthcare system will undoubtedly be overburdened when they do. According to the state’s problem gambling council, Kentucky has five trained counsellors who can help an estimated 60,000 problem gamblers. There are no consistent accreditation criteria and no reliable count of gambling counsellors in the country.
Courtesy: https://igamingexpert.com/, https://www.igbnorthamerica.com/, https://gamingamerica.com/news/
