Greg Weber began gambling at 13, playing poker with his friends for small stakes after school. Weber, who is 32 now, and a New Jersey native, grew up in the wake of the Moneymaker effect—a boom in poker interest sparked when a 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee, Chris Moneymaker, won the 2003 World Series of Poker, taking home $2.5 million. Weber has always obsessed over sports, particularly basketball, and poker appealed to his competitive instincts; it played weekly on ESPN too. So while it was Weber’s love of sports that got him into gambling, he didn’t gamble on sports right away—that came later, at 18. His habit began small, with $5 or $10 bets. In college, his friend put him in contact with a bookie, and his wagers increased.
Before 2018, he explains, it was hard to bet consistently. The websites of the offshore accounts he used were unreliable. He often worried he wouldn’t actually receive his winnings, with credit cards denied or bets lost in the ether. His bookie set up an online platform where he could place wagers, and at the end of each week, they’d settle up. “But prior to 2018, that was pretty much the only way that I was able to gamble and place bets on sports,” he says.
Then, in May of that year, the US Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, a 1992 federal law that had prohibited states from authorizing sports gambling. New Jersey legalized sports betting that same year, and as companies vied for customers, gambling ads flooded the state—on billboards, radio, and television. Weber recalls a blitz of promotional emails for “risk-free bets.” New apps popped up on smartphones. He marveled at the ease of this new technology: He could bet with just a few taps of his thumb, anywhere and at any time. Deposits and withdrawals were just as smooth and instantaneous. No longer did he have to wait weeks on some cash in an offshore account, or go meet a bookie to settle his bets; the money was simply there, in his bank account. Time and space now posed no hurdles.
There was now a breadth of new wagers to place. The foreign sites had offered rudimentary options, but nothing like this. He could always find something to bet on, since he could bet in-game, too: the next quarter of a football game, the next pitch in a baseball game. It seemed limitless. Weber notes that, during this time, he grew less interested in bets that required skill—those where his love and knowledge of sports might give him a better chance than the average person—and more concerned with speed. “I tended to enjoy the bets that I could win or lose instantly, the faster the better, especially when I was losing and I needed to catch up,” he explains. He played games that he had no interest in before, like roulette and blackjack. The apps and sites he visited were affiliated with casinos, enticing him in. His favorite bet toward the end of this period was to guess whether a baseball team would score during the first inning of a game; it was all over in 10 to 15 minutes.
Over the next two years, things deteriorated. Although Weber admits his issues with gambling had been slowly building since his first game of poker, after 2018 things markedly intensified. Weber has been a full-time firefighter for nine years, and when he was losing, he would always have wagered on the 11 pm or midnight games, and so would stay up till 2 or 3 in the morning, seeing how his wager played out. “That’s not good for somebody that does 24-hour shifts at the firehouse,” he says. For several years, he spent every waking moment thinking about gambling or trying to find money to gamble on sports or play poker. He couldn’t put his phone down; it was a 24-hour obsession. “My entire life was kind of in a hectic state,” he says. By the beginning of 2020, Weber had exhausted his sources of cash. He couldn’t take out a loan or request another credit card; he was out of options.
Americans have always found ways to bet on sports, both legally and illegally—whether it be through trips to Nevada, where sports betting has flourished for decades, or, like Weber, through offshore accounts or barroom bookies. “The introduction of regulated sports gambling in the US shouldn’t be confused with the introduction of sports gambling,” says Chris Grove, CEO of American Affiliate, a sports betting investment portfolio. Before the Supreme Court decision, a survey by the National Council on Problem Gambling found that roughly 15 percent of Americans said they bet on sports fairly frequently. Thirty-one states now permit sports betting. In turn, Americans, like Weber, have placed an abundance of bets. The latest survey by the NCPG found the number of betting Americans had jumped to 25 percent. (This is partly a result of the black market coming under regulation, explains Keith Whyte, NCPG’s director, and partly a result of new bettors joining the fray.)
New Jersey remains at the head of the pack: the first state, in September 2021, to take in $1 billion in one month. California, which is currently considering several gambling measures slated for November's ballot, represents “the holy grail”; if or when it caves, other states will likely cave with it. American football, building on fantasy sports, has gone further than any other sport. This year’s Super Bowl was a bonanza, with 80.1 million betting transactions, double the year before, totaling an estimated $8 billion. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, Americans have wagered more than $125 billion on sports.
And in turn, they’ve transformed their betting routines. Generalizing somewhat, a typical bet, pre-2018, might take place on a Tuesday for a big NFL game on a Sunday; it would focus on who would win or lose, and just that. No longer. “I think the ritual has categorically changed,” says Whyte. “It is now a daily, if not by the minute, cycle of betting on your mobile phone on in-play, and not on the outcome of the game.” As Weber’s experience demonstrates, Americans now have easy access to the numeric mirror world of cash and probability generated by American sports, and they can visit 24 hours a day.
A UK bettor would be struck by three things: what took the US so long to arrive, how quickly the country has embraced practices the UK is now abandoning, and, in some cases, how it has pushed practices the UK would balk at. For British people of Weber’s age, this symbiosis of sports and gambling is unremarkable—particularly in Premier League soccer. Gambling in Britain has a complex history, but its modern incarnation begins with the Gambling Act 2005, introduced by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour government. The act led to a proliferation in gambling advertising and marketing; modern punters are familiar with all the betting ads, especially bet365’s, helmed by the gravelly voiced cockney actor Ray Winstone (who Americans sadly may know best from his unconvincing accent in The Departed). This huge boost in awareness coincided with a technological revolution New Labour did not anticipate: smartphones. In Britain, with a bookie in every pocket, placing a bet on soccer is now as normal as watching it at the pub, and you can bet on so much more, from FIFA tournaments to Ukrainian table tennis.
Comparing the US to the UK is not arbitrary. For years, the UK’s industry, its mistakes and its achievements, had served as a benchmark for America. “The UK is held up as both an aspirational model and cautionary tale,” says John Holden, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who focuses on legal and regulatory issues in the sports industry. Holding this comparison in mind, a revealing contrast emerges. UK firms are currently quaking at the prospect of a proposed crackdown: A white paper by the UK Gambling Commission is due to be released in the coming weeks. Campaigners want the industry to fund research and treatments for problem gambling, as well as introduce stricter checks on what gamblers can afford to pay, new stake limits on online slot games, and a ban on gambling advertising in sports. Meanwhile, the US galavants into unregulated territory. It’s possible to discern a pattern, says Whyte: “Many of the things that are the most controversial and have led directly to the most backlash in the UK, are the very things that we are moving the farthest and fastest on here in the United States,” he says.
In essence, the “gamblification” of sports in the US would shock a UK bettor. “What has happened in the States since 2018, has, in so many ways, been a ‘Hold my beer’ moment,” says Darragh McGee, an assistant professor in the Department of Health at the University of Bath who has examined the impact of online sports gambling on young adult males in the UK. “Gambling stateside has already accelerated far beyond what we would consider acceptable here in the UK.”
These differences range from subtle to overt. In the former camp, take online payments: The UK has banned using credit cards for online gambling; US states (and UK bookmakers, who have pitched up stateside to take advantage of the more lax regulations) are busily expanding their use. In the latter camp, take advertising. In a recent broadcast of Arsenal versus Newcastle on the USA Network, the presenter advised viewers at halftime that a $10 bet on Liverpool to win the Premier League would see a return of $70; this is typical.
“There are numerous examples of this aggressive entry of gambling odds and discourse into the live commentary and coverage of sports,” says McGee. “It would still be a massive leap for most people in the UK to accept Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher discussing gambling odds on a Monday night on Sky Sports. That’s something that we would consider to be beyond the pale. But the reality is that in the States it is already normal practice.”
Currently, UK punters could, of course, see sportsmen advertising a gambling company in the ad break right afterwards. (The British Gambling Commission has followed a voluntary, pre-9 pm watershed, “whistle-to-whistle” ban on TV commercials during live sports since 2019.) But starting this fall, the UK’s Committee for Advertising Practice will ban soccer stars, celebrities, and social media influencers from appearing in gambling adverts. (Most of the UK public supports a total ban on gambling advertisements, a 2021 study found.)
A well-covered public backlash in the UK informs this scrutiny, including testimonies of figures who have suffered from gambling addiction, like former Arsenal player Paul Merson, who has said it “sickens” him when he sees former players and managers in these ads. Meanwhile, in the US, Ben Affleck appears in WynnBet ads alongside a host of celebs and sports figures like Shaquille O'Neal, striding through golden casinos with a smartphone in his hand.
The market for sponsorships is also diverging. Back in 2018, nearly 60 percent of clubs in England’s top two divisions had gambling companies as shirt sponsors; the government is likely to ban this practice by 2023. But in the US, explains Whyte, “sponsorships are something that firms and leagues and governments are putting all their effort behind.” In January 2021, the Washington Commanders became the first NFL team to land its own sports betting license. Universities have signed deals with gambling companies that can incentivize registrations among the student body. (Worries about match-fixing, when an amateur athlete can do something as simple as drop a pass and make someone thousands of dollars, are legitimate; the journalist and academic Declan Hill has covered the problem in depth in Canada.)
The speed and intensity of the change sweeping the US comes down to regulation. The UK has had a central gambling regulator since the 1968 Gaming Act; the US, in comparison, is “a Wild West,” says Lia Nower, the director of the Center for Gambling Studies. There is no federal oversight of states on the issue, so nothing like the (relatively strict) UK Gambling Commission overseeing expansion. With state legislatures left to their own devices, more and more have concluded that gambling revenue is a quick and easy way to fill their coffers. There is a snowballing sense of competition at work here, explains Holden: If you don’t cash in, your neighboring state will, and this fear of missing out has driven states that have historically condemned gambling, like Texas, to begin to consider legalization. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for governor, has said he would back legalization if elected.
US sports, by their very nature, have also proven predisposed to gamblifcation. While it’s important not to over-romanticize UK sports clubs, says McGee, they are often anchored in their communities in a way that US franchises aren’t. “US sports franchises are entertainment-oriented businesses, who are in the business of delivering sports as a form of leisure,” he says. Gambling slots neatly into this model, as just another form of entertainment for the consumer. US sports, particularly baseball and American football, also tend to be data-driven and statistically sophisticated to a level that would make the average UK fan blanch. Combine this with their intermittent action (there are roughly only 18 minutes of live action during an NFL game), and you have characteristics that map well to television advertising, in-play gambling, and perceptions of skill over chance.
It’s partly the salience of these characteristics that has allowed fantasy sports companies to dominate the gambling market. DraftKings and FanDuel control almost 70 percent of it, thrashing UK companies and outpacing Indigenous casinos. This easy transition is not surprising. Fantasy sports, so popular in the US, is simply gambling by another name. The promise is the same: convert your sports knowledge into cash. For these platforms, the transition was as simple as flipping a switch. “Daily fantasy sports is gambling,” says Nower. “It was exempted under a law because at that point they didn’t anticipate the daily fantasy sports platforms, and they didn’t want people being charged with gambling violations for holding an office pool. So these platforms got in under a loophole. And they built this daily fantasy sports platform on a sports betting platform.” (In statements to WIRED, both DraftKings and FanDuel disputed this, claiming that fantasy sports contests are predominately games of skill, so distinct from gambling.) A 2016 prevalence study found that the overlap between sports wagering and daily fantasy sports in New Jersey was about 95 percent, and those who did both were more likely to have gambling problems than your average player. (Weber confirms that fantasy sports—football, but also NBA basketball and golf—which began as a draft in his garage each year with high school friends, comprised a key part of his obsession, ending up with him entering lineups almost every day.)
The UK remains ahead in in-play betting, with 75 to 80 percent of sports bets being in play, to the US’s 40 to 50 percent, according to NCPG, approximate figures gleaned from conversations with industry execs. Several experts concur that broadcast latency is the big hurdle here, with too many bets getting lost and rejected. Getting these kinds of bets to work smoothly is a top priority for the American sports leagues, says Holden. (Premier League soccer teams cash in on the data transmitted to in-play betting companies.) In Europe, this kind of betting is extremely profitable, accounting for more than half of all sports betting revenue. There’s no telling how far the US will go with this, says Whyte, who expects a hybridization of statistics, consumer data, daily fantasy, in-play betting, mobile access, and targeted advertising to take over US sports. “The world has never seen anything like this,” he says. “I fear that online sports betting is gonna start to look a lot like online slot play in terms of its speed, frequency, and potential for abuse.”
In-play betting constitutes a big part of what experts call the move from “discontinuous” to “continuous” gambling—moving from betting twice a week on the lottery, for example, to modern online betting. The latter has a much higher association with problem gambling. The NCPG doesn’t have the resources to check for the rate of gambling problems, only the risk, explains Whyte, but they have found that the latter increased by 50 per cent between 2018 and 2021. Nower, who analyzes player data in New Jersey to make recommendations for problem gambling, the only state that requires it, has found an increasing trend in the involvement of younger gamblers. Harm minimization is minimal: There’s no federal money for research, prevention, or treatment, she explains, and there’s currently no offices for problem gambling on a federal level.
Both DraftKings and FanDuel point out that they work with, and provide funding to, numerous responsible gaming organizations, including NCPG state affiliates. FanDuel also offers users tools the company claims can curtail problem play. Whyte counters that while they are grateful for the support from the gambling industry, the average per capita allocation for problem gambling services is just 23 cents, “completely unacceptable and absolutely insufficient to provide adequate services for most gamblers in most states,” he says.
The US puts all the onus on the addict to self-exclude. Public health scholars tend to appeal to a “harms-based frame” rather than “problem gambling,” explains McGee; it's not some flaw in a person’s character that is the issue, but a society that abandons the vulnerable to exploitation. In this framing, “the only form of ‘prevention’ most states use is putting up billboards or sticking the 800 gambler help line number on everything,” Nower says.
Even if states require the industry to provide dedicated funding for treatment, few people who have problems actually seek it out. The duty of care should lie with the operators, not addicts; anything less is “unconscionable,” says Nower. “In the UK, operators are bound by social responsibility guidelines that increasingly include gauging individual levels of affordability,” she says. Lifting the prohibition on sports betting should simultaneously help the vulnerable, but in the wrong landscape some Americans will fall through the cracks.
“One of the reasons the UK is so interesting to us right now is that there is an enormous public, political, and press backlash,” says Whyte. “So it’s almost like, ‘Yes, the UK is a cautionary tale, and we want to avoid the backlash, but we’re going to do everything that led to the backlash and just hope that it’s different.’” The industry should remember, he says, that until 2018 sports betting was prohibited by federal law. “You ignore that history at our own peril,” he says. “If Congress passed a law once on this, they could probably pass a law again. The more the industry expands, without truly taking steps to minimize harm, the more they invite congressional scrutiny.”
Weber has not placed a bet since February of 2020. For most of his time spent gambling, he didn’t see his problem as an addiction and had no idea that it was considered a disorder, similar to abuse of alcohol or opiates, and that there was a recovery process for people like him. He was shocked to learn about its rate of suicide (problem gamblers are at 15 times higher risk), and he credits joining a problem gambling group, which met daily via Zoom, with saving his life. He now works for Epic Risk Management, an independent gambling harm consultancy, raising awareness among student-athletes. He never tells them not to bet; he just informs them that there is a small percentage who could be at risk, and they can reach out if they need help.
Weber admits that he’s lost much of his love for sports, a feeling he never thought possible. “Betting is just a major part of sports now,” he says. “You see it on the bottom ticker while you’re watching; before the games, you’ll see people talking about the lines and who’s favored. Sports betting and sports in the US now are so intertwined. They’re just part of each other now.”
