The rise of online betting has led the commercial gambling industry to balloon worldwide, posing a significant threat to public health, according to a new report. The report, published Thursday , comes from a public health commission on gambling convened by the medical journal The Lancet. The commission’s 22 members — academic experts from a dozen countries — reviewed existing studies and surveys on gambling’s prevalence, impacts and harms and determined that on a global scale, current regulations do not go far enough to protect the public and need to be strengthened.
“We’re not talking about people playing a game with cards around the table anymore,” said the commission’s epidemiology lead, Louisa Degenhardt, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “Many people might be really experiencing harms from gambling — we think that it’s probably around 72 million people globally. That number is likely to increase, as we are seeing the increase in commercial organizations targeting people to gamble more.
” Gambling is legal in some capacity in more than 80% of countries worldwide, according to the report. Based on their systematic review of research, the authors estimated that 16% of adults and 26% of adolescents who use online casino or slot products have gambling disorders and that 9% of adults and 16% of adolescents who use sports betting products have such disorders. In the U.
S., 38 states and Washington, D.C.
, have legalized sports bet.
