Wagering the Bread Money: Sports Betting Legalization and Food Sufficiency

Xiaohui Guo, Lizhong Peng and Chad Meyerhoefer

No 35305, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This is the first study to estimate the impact of sports gambling legalization on food sufficiency using the staggered implementation of state laws between 2021-2023. By analyzing Google searches for online sportsbooks and legal wagers, we show that interest in sports gambling increases sharply following legalization. Applying an imputation-based difference-in-differences design to biweekly Household Pulse Survey (HPS) data, we find that legalized sports gambling reduces household food sufficiency by 2.1 percent among working-age adults without a college degree, which translates to a 10.5 percent decline among active bettors. This effect is cyclical, persisting for three-to-five months during NFL seasons. Additionally, the declines in food sufficiency are larger among households with adults aged 25-44 and racial/ethnic minorities. Using additional data from the HPS, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and Current Population Survey, our exploration of mechanisms suggests that the negative effects on food sufficiency operate through financial distress rather than changes in mental health or labor supply. A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that legalization of sports gambling in nine states resulted in an additional 284,000 food-insufficient households and $130.2 million in excess healthcare expenditures annually.

JEL-codes: I12 I18 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06
Note: EH
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35305.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35305

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35305
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().