To bet or save? BYU study examines detriment sports betting can have on building savings

PROVO — Sports betting is rampant in today's society, with the meteoric rise of online sports book apps like DraftKings and FanDuel making it easier than ever for people to gamble.

A 2026 national survey conducted by The Harris Poll revealed that 23% of adults have placed a sports bet.

And as it becomes increasingly accessible, a new Brigham Young University study discovered people are saving less money to fuel their gambling habits.

The research, led by BYU Marriott School of Business professors Mark Johnson and Jason Kotter, analyzed transaction data from 184,000 households. Through this analysis, Johnson and Kotter determined households cut their net investment in brokerage accounts by 20% following the legalization of sports betting.

Additionally, the research showed the biggest bettors cut their investment deposits by more than half: for every dollar they put into a betting app, roughly 20 cents never made it into long-term savings.

To put it plainly, more people than ever — including those who had little savings to begin with — are treating gambling as an investment, despite data that shows sports betting is a "terrible" financial strategy.

"If you have a diversified investment portfolio like an S&P index, it consistently makes money over a long period," Kotter said in a statement. "With sports betting, you might win occasionally, but if you look over a window of six months or longer, only a tiny fraction of people do better than break even. If you think you are going to make a lot of money betting, you are expecting to be an extreme exception in the data."

When the federal ban on sports betting was overturned in May 2018, the pairing of sports as a form of entertainment and as a potential (though not probable) economic driver changed the landscape of both sports and gambling.

"Many people consume sports and feel like they are experts on their favorite teams or players," Kotter said in a statement. "This can make them overconfident, leading them to believe they have an informational advantage and a potentially profitable strategy. But very few bettors make money."

As it turns out, a significant portion of Americans see this intersection as a net-negative for society. According to a 2025 Pew study, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society — up from 34% in 2022.

Heavy bettors aren't hedging their savings losses by spending less, either. In fact, they're actually spending more, as the study found frequent bettors also increased spending in sports-adjacent categories like restaurants, bars, and cable television.

"It creates an exacerbating effect where they not only draw money from investment accounts but also spend more in places they wouldn't have without the legalization of sports betting," Johnson said in a statement. "They view it as both entertainment and investing; they go to a restaurant with friends to watch the game and discuss their bets together."

Johnson and Kotter both agreed that the study findings emphasize the need to protect families and educate bettors to seriously examine the fallouts associated with the legalization and rise of online sports gambling.

"We are not going to get rid of sports betting nationwide," Kotter said in a statement. "So the conversation must focus on alleviating the worst harms. We need to break the mental link between sports betting and good financial returns by helping people understand the actual data and probabilities of making money."

The full study can be found here.

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