Rutgers Study Documents 42.7% Past-Year Gambling Rate Among US Adolescents Aged 13-17
A Rutgers-led national survey found 42.7% of US adolescents aged 13-17 gambled in the past year, with household exposure and new digital formats raising risk.Summary
A national survey led by Lia Nower, director of Rutgers' Center for Gambling Studies, found that 42.7% of US adolescents aged 13 to 17 gambled in the past year. The study surveyed 1,677 respondents aged 13 to 27 between April and July 2026 and established a benchmark across 21 categories, from sports betting and lottery play to cryptocurrency trading, social casino games and prediction markets. Overall gambling participation reached 52.5%, and among those who gambled, nearly 40% showed some problem gambling risk while 10.3% were classified high risk; across the full sample, 20.8% experienced some risk and 5.4% were high risk.
Household and socioeconomic factors drove risk. 41.1% of respondents reported a family or household member who gambled, rising to 51.5% among the 13-17 group. Adolescents who perceived a household gambling problem were more than five times as likely to be high-risk, and those who gambled with family members more than four times as likely. Nearly 30% of gamblers from households earning under $10,000 annually were high risk, versus 22.8% from $10,000-$20,000 homes. Black non-Hispanic respondents had the highest past-year gambling rate at 63.9%, with 17.7% of Black gamblers high risk versus 12.8% of Hispanic and 6.4% of non-Hispanic White gamblers; high-risk rates were similar for males and females at about 10% each.
Emerging activities showed elevated risk: about 40% of prediction market participants and 41% of social casino players were high risk, far above the 10.3% overall rate among gamblers. 65.4% of high-risk individuals gambled both online and in land-based settings, and more than half did so at least weekly. Gamblers also reported higher rates of alcohol use (44.6% versus 25.9%), binge drinking (25.6% versus 10.5%), drug use (26.7% versus 17.6%), excessive social media use (51% versus 38.7%) and excessive shopping (12.6% versus 7.8%). Among high-risk gamblers, 52.8% reported anxiety, 38.4% depression and 13.1% suicidal ideation. Nower warned that gambling is now embedded in video games, sports broadcasts and other youth-accessible products, leaving regulators, operators and educators a narrow window to strengthen age controls and family-facing prevention.
(Source：Sccg Management)