Sports Betting Legalisation and Suicide Mortality
Session Title
Gambling & Mental Health Crises
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation
Start Date
27-5-2026 12:00 AM
Abstract
We examine whether legalisation of sports betting in the US leads to changes in suicide mortality, and which groups are most affected, using annual state–age–sex suicide rates from 2015–2023 in a staggered difference-in-differences design. We find no detectable association with overall suicide rates, but disaggregated results reveal sharp heterogeneity, with legalisation associated with an annual increase in suicide rates among males aged 15–34 (by about 2 per 100,000 people) and a decrease among males aged 35–54 (by about 2.4 per 100,000), while effects for males aged 55–74 and all female groups are small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. For young men, the increase occurs soon after legalisation, is largest in online-only regimes, and is concentrated in states with higher underlying mental illness, stronger gambling stigma, lower awareness of support services, limited prior commercial gambling, and greater financial fragility, whereas the reductions among middle-aged men appear confined to more financially secure states.
Sports Betting Legalisation and Suicide Mortality
We examine whether legalisation of sports betting in the US leads to changes in suicide mortality, and which groups are most affected, using annual state–age–sex suicide rates from 2015–2023 in a staggered difference-in-differences design. We find no detectable association with overall suicide rates, but disaggregated results reveal sharp heterogeneity, with legalisation associated with an annual increase in suicide rates among males aged 15–34 (by about 2 per 100,000 people) and a decrease among males aged 35–54 (by about 2.4 per 100,000), while effects for males aged 55–74 and all female groups are small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. For young men, the increase occurs soon after legalisation, is largest in online-only regimes, and is concentrated in states with higher underlying mental illness, stronger gambling stigma, lower awareness of support services, limited prior commercial gambling, and greater financial fragility, whereas the reductions among middle-aged men appear confined to more financially secure states.