Scientific Abstract

Background: Though gambling and sport have been intertwined throughout history, the U.S. has only recently liberalized the industry, repealing the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. Since that repeal, the U.S. has developed into one of the fastest-growing sports gambling markets in the world. This new integration of sports and gambling has the potential to increase risk for gambling harms, particularly among athletes, who might be particularly susceptible to these harms.

Methods: We conducted a scoping review of the literature to determine what is known about the relationship between participation in athletics and gambling and gambling-related problems. The review produced an initial set of 4,476 studies, of which 45 met our inclusion criteria. We charted information about these 45 studies including methodological details, populations, and findings.

Results: Of these 45 studies, less than half included non-athlete comparison groups, and only 19 compared gambling between athletes and non-athletes. College athletes were overrepresented – more than half of studies surveyed college populations. Overall, study findings were mixed. For those that tested gambling involvement, 50% of studies found that athletes were more likely to gamble than non-athletes while the other 50% found no relationship. Analyses of gambling problems were similarly inconclusive; 23% reported a positive relationship between being an athlete and experiencing gambling problems, 69% reported no relationship, and 8% (i.e., one study) found a negative association.

Conclusions: Studies of gambling among athletes have increased in the past decade, but these advances have been offset by the limited number of studies employing non-athlete comparison samples. Evidence from these studies suggests that athletes might be more at-risk for gambling involvement and harms than others, but findings are mixed. Future studies should investigate this relationship at different levels of athletics (e.g., elite, adult recreational, youth) and with non-athlete comparison samples.