You Betcha! Is Minnesota Right for Not Allowing Sports Betting?

Minnesota is one of the few states in the country where you can’t legally bet on sports. Downloading apps or going to websites looking for the big score to make you rich is allowed in 38 states in the United States and the District of Columbia, including my home state of North Carolina, which is far more conservative than Minnesota. 

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Obviously, most states say that it’s a personal choice and all of them have messaging about being addicted to gambling and where to turn for help.  

The craze of legalized sports betting has come on strong the last five years or so, making it easy to place a bet from your phone. Most sites offer an incentive for new customers where they’ll spot you money or match funds or something along those lines.  

Researchers at USC and UCLA put aside their rivalry to work together on a project looking at the downside of sports betting online and on mobile devices, and their findings aren’t positive. 

Since the door was opened in 2018, over $300 billion has been bet on games. That’s billions with a “B”. That’s a lot of money for sure.  

The study found that since 2018, credit scores had dropped 1% in those states where you can bet from your phone or laptop. That may not seem like a big deal now overall, but it is showing a downward slope.  

Here’s a figure that is pretty shocking, bankruptcies went up 28% in those states. The study isn’t saying that sports betting is the only reason this has happened, or even the main reason. We’re all aware that inflation has gone up considerably in the last few years. But it is saying that this is a consistency from state to state. 

Another stat against the ease of sports betting is that debt that was transferred to debt collectors went up by 8% in those states as well. 

My intention wasn’t to change the way you feel about sports betting and whether it should be legal in Minnesota, I just found these numbers interesting and wanted to hopefully create a viewpoint that wasn’t being talked about with this topic yet.