A pair of lawmakers are asking a federal agency to evaluate how the popularity of sports betting is impacting young people across America.
Sens. Katie Britt and Dick Durbin sent a letter to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the impact of sports gambling on young people amid the proliferation of online sports betting and the recent expansion of the industry behind the legalization of the vertical in North Carolina and Missouri.
The lawmakers want the CDC to investigate the impact of gambling on young Americans as limited research on the topic is widely available to the public. The duo are asking the research to look at both legal and unregulated platforms. The senators sent the letter to Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neal with a request for response.
“We believe policymakers and American families deserve to know the extent to which our children are engaging in potentially addictive and detrimental behavior,” reads the letter.
The lawmakers point to a 2024 National Poll on Children’s Health that found that one in six parents would not know whether the child was engaging with gambling platforms.
Request for CDC study has bipartisan support
Britt and Durbin’s call for the CDC to study the impact of gambling on young people has also garnered support from Sens. Lindsey Graham, Brian Schatz and Jeanne Shaheen.
Britt has previously sent letters to key government stakeholders regarding gambling. Last October, she, along with 11 other lawmakers, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging the Department of Justice to take action against illegal offshore gaming in order to protect young people from engaging in unregulated gambling.
How the CDC can study the impact of gambling
Durbin and Britt are requesting that the CDC evaluate the impact of gambling on young people through its Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), a system that monitors health risk behaviors over time. The YRBSS provides datasets for middle school and high school students every two years to determine how often unhealthy behaviors occur. The information is shared with lawmakers, health departments, educators and doctors.
“We ask that the CDC develop and incorporate questions about gambling by children, and in particular sports gambling, to give policymakers and families a better understanding of how, and to what extent, sports gambling is harming our children.”
In past surveys, the YRBSS has studied tobacco use, alcohol use, physical activity, mental health, housing situations and exposure to violence among young people in over 40 states.
The CDC published its latest YRBSS survey in 2023.
