The new UMass survey found a significant increase in the share of regular gamblers who think legal betting is now too widely available in the Bay State, and a corresponding drop in the share who think all gambling should be legal.
The report does not explicitly link shifting attitudes solely to the rise in sports betting, but researchers note that “in the wake of sports betting legalization, monthly gamblers in the 2023 and 2024 surveys reported less favorable attitudes toward gambling compared to those in 2022.”
Researchers cautioned the survey, conducted in the fall of 2024, was taken by a self-enrolled group of 3,045 people. The results focus only on the roughly 56 percent of those people who reported gambling at least once a month, and thus cannot be taken as a scientific barometer of attitudes in Massachusetts as a whole.
Jack Kelley, 26, of Grafton told The Boston Globe he started betting on sports for the fun of it, a new thrill that combined his avid fandom with the chance to win a few bucks.
Kelley rooted for the legalization of sports betting in 2022, and after the apps launched, he started regularly wagering on DraftKings and Sleeper. He was up $400 after the first year before a big bet netted him another $1,000 in winnings. Then Kelley lost $600 within a couple of months, mostly on in-game wagers on individual plays, known as prop bets.
“I just left a ton of money on the table for no reason other than I wanted to keep gambling,” Kelley said. “And that’s not good.”
Kelley said he pulled back from making bets by himself because he felt he was “at the beginning of something that could be negative,” and now only does so in social situations, such as with friends. He told the Globe he now sees more downsides to online sports betting.
With more and more people betting on sports, lead author Rachel Volberg, a UMass Amherst public health professor, recommended developing “education and harm reduction strategies targeting sports bettors.”
“I believe these reports will serve as an important early warning system to allow for timely efforts at gambling harm minimization and mitigation in the Commonwealth,” Volberg told the gaming commission during a recent presentation.
The Sports Betting Alliance, a coalition of sports betting companies that includes FanDuel and Boston-based DraftKings, told the Globe that legalized online sports betting in Massachusetts and the United States “has brought a regulated market that has delivered the strongest customer protections available that encourage players to budget.”
A spokesman for the alliance downplayed any role sports betting might have played in the troubling trends detected in the survey.
“The truth is that the average sports betting customer spends less per month than they spend on their coffee, while problem gaming rates across the US have remained low and stable even as more states have chosen to create a legal sports betting market,” said the spokesman, Nathan Click.
Jordan Maynard, chairman of the gaming commission, told the Globe the UMass report highlights a need to take more steps to prevent people from falling into addiction.
“We have work to do,” he said. “We continue to do this research, and this really gives us the license to intervene when appropriate.”
A separate survey of a small group of young adults suggests more pointed issues with sports betting by youth, even those too young to legally bet on games. The limited study, presented to the gaming commission Thursday, found that most people between the ages of 18 and 25 think advertisements for sports betting should be regulated or restricted and more problem gambling resources should be provided and promoted.
Massachusetts lawmakers have begun exploring proposals that could reshape gambling in the state in divergent ways, with debate on the measures expected ahead of state budget cycle in 2026.
State Senator John Keenan is sponsoring the “Bettor Health Act,” which would raise the tax rate on sports betting operators, limit advertising for online sports wagering during televised sporting events, and ban prop betting, which are wagers with fast-moving odds made during live action that allow people to bet on everything from pitch speeds in baseball, free throws in basketball and the next goal-scorer in hockey.
Keenan, a Democrat from Quincy, called the survey results “really concerning” in an interview with the Globe.
“I believe that we’ve got a growing problem with gambling in general,” he said. “I believe sports betting has accelerated that problem.”
Another bill would push statewide gambling in the opposite direction, legalizing online casino games and allowing people to play slots and blackjack on their smartphones.
That bill’s sponsor, Senator Paul Feeney, said the change would bring a black market into the light with regulation and tax revenue.
“It takes five seconds of basic searching to find a trove of available websites at which you can gamble online,” said the Democrat from Foxborough. “Today, Massachusetts consumers have instant access to an unregulated, unmonitored, largely predatory iGaming market. Young people are targeted through social media ads and influencers are paid to lure them in. It’s like the wild wild West when it comes to online gaming.”
If Massachusetts legalized online casino-style games, or “iGaming,” current sportsbooks such as DraftKings and FanDuel could expand their operations to include them, as they have in other states.
Feeney said regulating the market would include consumer protections and funding for public health. His bill will face resistance from workers at brick-and-mortar casinos who worry they could lose their jobs if iGaming passes.
Keenan said it’s too much too fast.
“To go any further would just be to throw gasoline on an already growing fire,” he said.
In a statement supporting legalizing iGaming, DraftKings spokesperson Stephen Miraglia said the company’s products are “built to deliver customers a fun and entertaining experience” while the legal industry protects gamblers in a way that that illegal operators do not. He said iGaming would bring in new tax money.
Click, of the Sports Betting Alliance, said illegal online casinos and sportsbooks “routinely cheat customers, do not provide the same level of customer protections, have been linked by law enforcement to organized crime, and continue to target Americans in markets where legal gaming is not available.”
Maynard, the gambling commission chairman, declined to comment on any of the pending legislation. He said the commission shares its research publicly in hopes decision-makers are well-informed, but his practice is to “stay in my lane.”
“We’re the umpire, right? We don’t make the rules,” he said. “We enforce them.”
Over the two years since online sports wagering launched in Massachusetts, Mike Murray, 41, of Worcester, said he’s enjoyed the casual excitement of hitting a prop bet at the bar and covering his drinks tab with his winnings.
With two young kids, nights out are less common for him and can’t always be planned to match his favorite sports teams’ schedules. Sports betting apps and in-game wagers make watching random games more entertaining, he said.
Murray said he’s glad people no longer have to gamble in the shadows with bookies. But he wouldn’t mind some tweaks to the rules.
“I think that some regulation around advertising, especially who’s allowed to advertise and when it’s allowed, would be appropriate,” he told the Globe.
Online casino games, though, would be “ripe for abuse.”
“I think that there’s a lot of risk there, especially around addiction,” he said.
Kelley, the Grafton resident who now bets much less on sports, thinks iGaming should not move forward without more restrictions. The two bills under consideration should be crafted side-by-side to have “more pros than cons,” he said.
“But I also am very aware of how slow-moving our state Legislature is,” Kelley added. “I think that the ask of, ‘Hey, can we pass these two bills at the same time?’ is, unfortunately, a pretty hefty ask for them.”
Joey Flechas can be reached at joey.flechas@globe.com. Follow him on X @joeflech.