A new report on sports betting industry lobbying adds to the growing body of research on the harms associated with the rapid expansion of state-sanctioned online gambling in the US.
Campaign for Accountability (CfA), a non-profit watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2025, released a 24-page report titled, “Advocating for Addiction: The Online Gambling Industry’s Two-Faced Effort to Kill Consumer Protections.”
The report documents the online sports betting industry’s efforts to prevent states from enacting new consumer protections to reduce problem gambling.
The US sports betting industry is regulated in the literal sense, but a growing movement calls for real rules to protect betting app users from financial hardship. Betting apps, like many other types of apps, are designed to be habit-forming. Gambling itself is inherently addictive for many people.
While betting websites based overseas that take deposits from Americans have zero consumer protections, the regulated industry currently has weak and ineffective protections, a great many advocates and researchers have argued in recent years.
Addiction on the rise
Studies show that 30-40% of online sports bettors experience problems, according to a GamblingHarm.org analysis of sports betting addiction statistics. Around 22% of Americans have an active online sports betting account, according to the Siena College Research Institute.
The CfA report documents instances of opposition to proposed legislation and/or additional regulation in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.
Sports betting has spread across the US since a 2018 US Supreme Court ruling struck down a 1990s law that limited the sports betting industry to just Nevada.
In 2025, more than 30 states have sanctioned sports betting.
“It’s an open secret that addicted players are the gambling industry’s best customers, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that sports betting companies aren’t eager to implement controls that minimize addictiveness. Legislators need to understand that the gambling industry—like the tobacco industry before it—cannot self-regulate when profits and the addictiveness of their product are so tightly linked,” said CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith.
Regulatory Capture
Gambling advertisements are a key topic of reform for gambling harm advocates, and the industry has widely opposed efforts by states to adopt additional advertising regulations.
Regulatory capture isn’t unique to the online gambling industry. Still, online gambling apps are among the most addictive products of any kind.
The report was the CfA’s first on US gambling operators’ predatory practices.
To find examples of companies opposing reforms, CfA searched through state legislative hearing transcripts, public comment submissions, and other archived primary materials.
“Implementing consumer protections around sports betting isn’t just picking winners and losers on a balance sheet,” Kuppersmith added. “Gambling addiction is linked to depression and suicide, meaning lives—especially of young people—are on the line.”
What is to be done?
The CfA report said the online gambling industry has opposed reforms, in the form of regulation and/or legislation, to help address compulsive gambling in these main areas:
- Advertising restrictions and disclosures
- Reducing the appeal of gambling to minors
- 21+ age requirements for daily fantasy sports
- Prop bet bans
- Requiring in-app safeguards
- Limiting financial inducements
Despite many setbacks in curbing problem gambling, regulators and policymakers are still trying to place tighter controls on the industry instead of letting it police itself.
At the federal level, there’s the SAFE Bet Act, which could create national standards for protecting consumers from the harmful effects of sports betting.
In a state like Minnesota, lawmakers have so far been able to stifle momentum for legalizing online sports betting apps by calling for real safeguards.
For some states that have already sanctioned gambling apps, such as New York and Massachusetts, policymakers have introduced legislation in 2025 to create guardrails.
In bolder moves, Maryland and Vermont are home to legislation to repeal state laws that allowed betting apps to launch.
The tide appears to be turning, but consumer protection proposals against the online betting industry face uphill battles.
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