It’s no secret that billions of dollars are annually spent in the U.S. on both legal and illegal gambling, but the exact figure can range by hundreds of billions. Here’s my attempt to figure out roughly how much money is annually spent on gambling in the U.S. and to see if Adam Silver’s recent claim is accurate.

Americans who made bets with gaming, lotteries and offshore regulated betting firms lost approximately $107 billion in 2017, an increase of 1.5% on the previous year, and that’s expected to. “How do I recover from a massive gambling loss?” You stop gambling. Whether you cease gambling forever or for a specified time really depends on the circumstances of your loss. Moving the gambling income to page one of Form 1040 and the gambling losses to miscellaneous itemized deductions (not subject to the 2% limit), and using the figures in the case, but calculating the changes using 2005 rates, he would have lost slightly over $1,200 of itemized deductions had he claimed gambling income of $325,668 ($10,538. During a year-long gambling streak, Terry lost a mind melting $204 million dollars at two Vegas casinos. Both gambling halls are owned by Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. And Watanabe's staggering. We know some people who have lost millions of dollars and have gone to jail because they could not repay the casino markers (or loans) they took out. If all you lost was $3,000 (which we know is a lot of money), then you are in a much better position than they are!

In Silver’s Op-Ed in the New York Times, he wrote:

Lost 400 Dollars Gambling No Deposit

There is no solid data on the volume of illegal sports betting activity in the United States, but some estimate that nearly $400 billion is illegally wagered on sports each year.

Slate writer Jordan Weissmann called that number in to question in a recent article found here:

When I asked the NBA where Silver got that $400 billion figure, a spokesman pointed me to the 1999 final report of National Gambling Impact Study Commission … The section on sports is short but dramatic. “Estimates of the scope of illegal sports betting in the United States range anywhere from $80 billion to $380 billion annually,” the commission wrote, “making sports betting the most widespread and popular form of gambling in America.” Silver, it seemed, took the high end of that range, but didn’t adjust it for inflation.

So, case closed? Not quite. The $380 billion figure was footnoted in the report, but the citation wasn’t a research paper. Instead, it referred back to an Associated Press article that appeared in the May 18, 1999, edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, titled “Ban on College Sports Betting Could Cost State Books Millions.”

Lost 400 Dollars Gambling Winnings

That news article, it turned out, recounted one of the commission’s own hearings, which had taken place in Las Vegas the previous November. “Commissioners were told that while legal sports betting in Nevada draws $2.3 billion a year, illegal sports betting runs anywhere from $80 billion to $380 billion annually,” the article explained.

… Vic Salerno, the CEO of American Wagering, a Vegas bookmaker, cited estimates between $50 billion and $250 billion (the latter of which appeared to have come from a clinical psychologist who studied gambling addicts rather than any kind of economic study). None of the other expert speakers appear to have presented specific numbers.

The $380 billion figure only emerged later thanks to an exasperated commission member, John Wilhelm.

Weissmann raised some good points and clearly did his homework. However, I’m still not sold that the gambling figures aren’t in the 100s of billions and could reach $400 billion if/when gambling is legalized and regulated. Silver’s projection was the high end of an estimate, so more than likely it’s quite a bit higher than what’s actually being spent, but that doesn’t mean it’s not closer to being accurate than the article portrays.

A 1998 study of gambling conducted by the University of Salford and reported by BBC found that about $2.659 billion was spent on betting in 1998 in Britain. With inflation, that number today would be roughly $3.87 billion. The U.S. population is nearly 5 times that of Britain’s, according to World Bank, which brings that number close to $20 billion.

This is where estimating the exact figure gets tricky. It’s hard to jump from $20 billion to the $100s of billions. However, most of the major sports being bet on in Britain are played in the U.S., so it’s safe to say that there is more gambling interest in America. The rise of fantasy sports and the NFL, which is the most gambled on sport in the U.S., is driving gambling figures higher each year, and that increase was not factored into the report. The CNBC article in the last link estimates that $80-$100 billion is gambled on NFL games each year, with an additional $8-$10 billion being spent to bet on the Super Bowl.

Even if every other form of gambling combined is only equal to what is wagered each season on the NFL, which is an incredibly tame estimate, then at least $176 billion is annually spent on gambling in the U.S.

If the cries, most recently and notably by Mark Cuban and Adam Silver, are answered and gambling is legalized and regulated, it’s safe to say that the $175-$200 billion figure could land closely to Silver’s claim of $400 billion.

Lost 400 Dollars Gambling Dollars

Sports-Kings’ Pass the Pill Contributor: @THEMarkPace