Gambling Ads Keep Pulling Bettors Back, New Study Finds

Gambling Ads are everywhere during the game, between social videos, and inside your inbox — and new research says they are doing more than nudging casual fans toward a first bet. A study of advertising and gambling behavior across dozens of US states links heavier ad spending to more gambling activity and more searches for help with problem gambling, according to Phys.org.

The research, conducted by a team at the University of Colorado Boulder, analyzed quarterly gambling advertising spending against Google search data for 116 problem-gambling help-seeking terms across 41 states. The association between ad spending and help-seeking search interest strengthened over time. Notably, whether sports betting was legal in a state was not associated with more searches for help.

At the individual level, the team combined survey responses with passive digital trace data from 419 volunteers, tracking website visits, app use, video plays, searches, and the social media ads people actually saw. Exposure to gambling ads on Facebook, TikTok, and X was associated with whether someone gambled, how frequently they gambled, and whether a gambling-site visit was observed. Some volunteers were served 50, 100, or more betting ads in a single week.

"Sports betting ads are everywhere — they are inescapable," said Chris Vargo, an associate professor at the university's College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, who led the work. He added that in advertising there is a saying: if you are seeing a lot of ads for a certain service, the companies behind it are raking it in.

The ads follow you after you walk away

The most striking finding concerns retargeting. The researchers isolated moments when a person had gone quiet — a full day or more with no observed gambling activity — and checked whether a gambling ad served afterward pulled them back in. In 8.3 percent of those cases, the ad was followed the next day by some form of gambling activity, such as a visit to a gambling app. Overall, the ad exposures were associated with higher odds of subsequent gambling activity, particularly website visits.

"These sites are retargeting these gamblers who have stepped away, to nudge them back in," Vargo said. "Ads are good at following us around the web. We have all seen the item we left in an online shopping cart follow us as we browse apps and social media," he added, drawing a direct line between retail retargeting and betting apps. Gambling Ads are not passive billboards, the data suggest — they actively re-engage people at the moment they step away.

The study also separates two explanations that are usually tangled together. The state-by-state rollout of legal sports betting let the researchers examine advertising apart from legalization. "We thought it might be like marijuana — it becomes legalized, it takes a little time and then takes off," Vargo said. "And while that is true here, it is really the introduction of advertising in each of these states that clearly signals the growth of sports betting."

What the researchers want to change

Vargo hopes the findings can inform debates about online gambling advertising, including limits on ad volume, rules around free bets and other incentives, stronger platform oversight, and better ways to connect people with addiction resources. For support, the team suggests counter-messaging on search and social media, links to self-exclusion programs and counseling, and support resources shown alongside betting ads themselves.

There is an important caveat: because the study was correlational, the findings identify associations and do not establish that advertising caused the behavior. Still, the pattern held at both the population level and the individual level, which makes it harder to dismiss as coincidence.

For anyone who gambles casually, the takeaway is practical. If betting ads seem to chase you across apps right after you have stepped away, that is likely by design — and most legal sportsbooks and state programs offer self-exclusion and deposit-limit tools for exactly these moments. Young adults, who grew up with feeds saturated by promotions for risky money moves, may be especially exposed to the retargeting loop the study describes. And as researchers continue to probe how digital environments shape behavior — from social connection to spending — this is one more reminder that the algorithm has a business model, and you are the product it is optimizing for.

The study, Gambling Advertising and Problem Gambling in the United States: Multi-Level Evidence Beyond Sports-Betting Legal Status, was published in the journal Policy & Internet, and its findings are summarized with further detail in the outlet's report on the research. The full paper is available via its published DOI record.