A leading figure in efforts to reform the U.S. online sports betting industry has landed a prestigious book deal.
Dr. Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), told GamblingHarm.org that he has a book deal with Penguin Random House. The forthcoming project examines the online sports gambling boom and its public health consequences.
The book, Impossible Odds, is co-written with former Boston Globe sports journalist Ian Thomsen and was acquired by Harmony, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Levant, who has appeared in numerous national reports on sports betting, including CBS’ 60 Minutes, said the book will be released in August 2027. Levant has also testified before Congress on the issue.
High-Stakes Fight
The book will examine an expanding public health crisis tied to sports gambling. It follows Danny Funt’s Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling (2026) and Rob Csernyik’s A Losing Hand: The Human Costs of Canada’s Gambling Epidemic (2026).
Levant’s book will combine his personal story of addiction with an investigation into the highly controversial industry.
The book’s pages will include vivid descriptions of his lived experience with casino gambling harm, his disbarment as an attorney, and his eventual emergence as a prominent reformer and advocate.
Recently, a former U.S. Surgeon General described the legal sports betting boom as the “new opioid crisis,” and there are no signs yet that the betting crisis is anywhere close to peaking.
Reform Struggle
Levant, along with other public health advocates, backs the SAFE Bet Act, a proposal that would establish minimum federal guardrails for sports betting.
Other leading reformers, such as Les Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling, have called for congressional investigations into the industry and a potential reversal of the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the federal prohibition on sports betting.
Meanwhile, bipartisan legislative efforts seek to close a loophole that has allowed so-called prediction markets to offer sports bets. Legal experts expect the Supreme Court to rule on that issue.
Levant and his PHAI colleagues recently launched the platform FFOG to organize what public health experts describe as the “affected others” of sports gambling harm.
