It has been five years this month since Tennessee legalized sports gambling, and a state lawmaker said it has exceeded expectations and brought concerns.
State Representative Ryan Williams said that revenue from legalized sports gambling has exceeded the original projections by a significant amount. Legalized sports gambling generated an estimated $573 million for the state in 2024. Williams said it is also bringing gambling addictions.
“We need to continue to monitor and look at it to make sure what we are doing is responsible from a state’s perspective, and also keeping in mind our citizens, to make sure that if they do choose to do this, that it is done in a professional and protected way,” Williams said.
Williams said state legislators have set aside a portion of revenue to help those struggling with gambling addictions. Williams said one of his big concerns with sports gambling is how many young men are participating.
“Particularly young men in their early 20s who are participating in this online gambling at rates that are somewhat surprising to me,” Williams said. “Knowing that when I was a young man starting my life that I didn’t have that kind of disposable income. So my concern really is that the age might be better to be raised. It is something that I am looking at.”
A few recent investigations have come to light about professional and collegiate athletes being involved in sports gambling scandals. Williams said the investigations will have to play out, but it does bring concerns moving forward.
“Obviously, any time something like this makes the news, it makes us all wonder, ‘well that call I saw last week sure looks like it was a bad call,'” Williams said. “And so what I think what’s happened is the trust of people has gotten eroded considerably because of the knowledge of this.”
In Tennessee, sports gambling revenue goes towards educational initiatives, and a small portion goes to local governments. Williams said the state has talked about using the revenues for other purposes, like pre-k services and childcare.
“It’s still early in the process,” Williams said. “I think this is the middle of the third year of revenues that are coming in, and we don’t want to make long-term commitments with those revenues until we know kind of what the trajectory of revenues looks like, for fear of making a mistake and then they fall out. You know this is not a recession-proof industry. If household incomes start to fall and people are struggling at home financially, generally speaking, the sports gambling kind of reduces in a dramatic way.”
