Charles Fain Lehman

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and I think at this point, many Americans know somebody who's been affected by this. Many Americans know people are in the hole. I was at a wedding recently and a friend of mine from college told me about a friend of his back home in Erie, Pennsylvania.

He works at the post office, not, you know, a well-off guy who's $28,000 in the hole on sports betting, just a tremendous problem. Um, The interesting thing about gambling legalization, we have information on this mostly from the UK's experience. The UK's experience is pretty grim. There's one estimate that says 8% of all completed suicides in the UK are attributable to sports gambling addiction.

He works at the post office, not, you know, a well-off guy who's $28,000 in the hole on sports betting, just a tremendous problem. Um, The interesting thing about gambling legalization, we have information on this mostly from the UK's experience. The UK's experience is pretty grim. There's one estimate that says 8% of all completed suicides in the UK are attributable to sports gambling addiction.

He works at the post office, not, you know, a well-off guy who's $28,000 in the hole on sports betting, just a tremendous problem. Um, The interesting thing about gambling legalization, we have information on this mostly from the UK's experience. The UK's experience is pretty grim. There's one estimate that says 8% of all completed suicides in the UK are attributable to sports gambling addiction.

Yikes. That's not great. But the thing about the US context is, to sort of try to simplify it, because gambling was legalized in different states at different times... economists can use fairly specific set of methods to isolate the causal effect of sports gambling, not just sort of the correlates of sports gambling, really what sports gambling causes on a number of different outcomes.

Yikes. That's not great. But the thing about the US context is, to sort of try to simplify it, because gambling was legalized in different states at different times... economists can use fairly specific set of methods to isolate the causal effect of sports gambling, not just sort of the correlates of sports gambling, really what sports gambling causes on a number of different outcomes.

Yikes. That's not great. But the thing about the US context is, to sort of try to simplify it, because gambling was legalized in different states at different times... economists can use fairly specific set of methods to isolate the causal effect of sports gambling, not just sort of the correlates of sports gambling, really what sports gambling causes on a number of different outcomes.

One of the studies that I point to from economists at Northwestern University estimates that for every dollar spent on sports gambling, households put $2 less into investment accounts. There are big increases in the risk of overdrafting a bank account or maxing out a credit card.

One of the studies that I point to from economists at Northwestern University estimates that for every dollar spent on sports gambling, households put $2 less into investment accounts. There are big increases in the risk of overdrafting a bank account or maxing out a credit card.

One of the studies that I point to from economists at Northwestern University estimates that for every dollar spent on sports gambling, households put $2 less into investment accounts. There are big increases in the risk of overdrafting a bank account or maxing out a credit card.

There's another paper from economists at UCLA and USC looking specifically at online sports gambling, and they find that legalization increases the risk of bankruptcy by 25% to 30%, which is a big relative risk increase against a small baseline, but still. And the other thing that really sticks out in those studies is that

There's another paper from economists at UCLA and USC looking specifically at online sports gambling, and they find that legalization increases the risk of bankruptcy by 25% to 30%, which is a big relative risk increase against a small baseline, but still. And the other thing that really sticks out in those studies is that

There's another paper from economists at UCLA and USC looking specifically at online sports gambling, and they find that legalization increases the risk of bankruptcy by 25% to 30%, which is a big relative risk increase against a small baseline, but still. And the other thing that really sticks out in those studies is that

the harms tend to concentrate among the most economically precarious, right? The people with a history of overdraft end up overdrafting more. There is sort of ecological evidence that the harms tend to concentrate in the areas with highest levels of poverty, that they also tend to concentrate among young men who are already at risk for all sorts of, frankly, not great financial decision making.

the harms tend to concentrate among the most economically precarious, right? The people with a history of overdraft end up overdrafting more. There is sort of ecological evidence that the harms tend to concentrate in the areas with highest levels of poverty, that they also tend to concentrate among young men who are already at risk for all sorts of, frankly, not great financial decision making.

the harms tend to concentrate among the most economically precarious, right? The people with a history of overdraft end up overdrafting more. There is sort of ecological evidence that the harms tend to concentrate in the areas with highest levels of poverty, that they also tend to concentrate among young men who are already at risk for all sorts of, frankly, not great financial decision making.

And so it seems like It's not just that, you know, gambling harm befalls some people. It's that gambling harm befalls often the people who can least afford to have it come down on them. Like the guy I was talking about earlier who's, you know, nearly 30 grand in the hole working at the post office.

And so it seems like It's not just that, you know, gambling harm befalls some people. It's that gambling harm befalls often the people who can least afford to have it come down on them. Like the guy I was talking about earlier who's, you know, nearly 30 grand in the hole working at the post office.

And so it seems like It's not just that, you know, gambling harm befalls some people. It's that gambling harm befalls often the people who can least afford to have it come down on them. Like the guy I was talking about earlier who's, you know, nearly 30 grand in the hole working at the post office.

Yeah, actually. So there's another study from folks at Southern Methodist University where they have a panel of 700,000 sports bettors. And they show a couple of really interesting things. So only about 5% of people in the panel withdrew more from the apps than they deposited. So 95% of people are losing money. Wow. That's actually nuts. not the interesting thing.