The Sports Gambling Gold Rush Is On. Should We Be Concerned?

In this week’s “Debatable” newsletter from the opinion section of The New York Times, Staff Editor, Spencer Bokat-Lindell, highlights concerns around the booming sports betting industry. Bokat-Lindell cited Caron's Eric Webber and the title from his recent opinion piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the dangers of sports betting and also linked back to the essay.

What might a better approach — a public health approach, as some have called it — to gambling look like? To start with, Eric Webber, a senior clinician at Caron Treatment Centers, argues that regulators should ban gambling ads during sports broadcasts, as Britain has done.

“In the U.S., we have also put limits on advertisements for many other vices, such as tobacco use, where there is a compelling public health need," wrote Webber. "Like smoking, gambling is a public health threat, and our advertising policy should reflect that.”

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