The myth of the online gambling ‘epidemic’

Politicians and pundits have found a new social menace to fret about: online gambling. Some even compare its growth to an “opioid epidemic.” But alarmist rhetoric often obscures more than it reveals.

A new study by Douglas Walker of the College of Charleston and Brett Evans of Georgia College dismantles many of the claims fueling this moral panic. The authors find that much of the fear surrounding online gambling rests on weak evidence and flawed research methods.

Legalization didn’t create online gambling. It merely brought an existing market into the open, where it can be monitored, taxed, and regulated.

Walker and Evans examined the academic literature most often cited by anti-gambling activists and found “implicit anti-gambling biases, flawed research methodologies, and unsubsta