Study: gambling online poses higher addiction risk than gambling in person
CHEYENNE — Online gamblers reported experiencing higher rates of depression, anxiety and financial stress, as well as weaker control over impulsive spending, compared to in-person gamblers, according to a study performed in Laramie County by Datacorp.
Local community leaders gathered in a conference room at the Cheyenne Police Department for the monthly Behavioral Health Action Team meeting Tuesday afternoon. This meeting covered the findings of the Datacorp “environmental scan,” or study, and members brainstormed community approaches to treating gambling addiction.
Gambling recently exploded into a large-scale industry in Wyoming, and local entities are scrambling to understand the impacts of problem gambling in their communities.
Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Community Prevention Project Director Brittany Wardle said studies on gambling addiction are “behind the times” compared to substance abuse, in terms of how to identify and treat it.
“Everyone knows what to do about alcohol, right? Alcohol has been around for a long time,” Wardle told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle last week. “Gambling has been around for a long time, but not studied to the same effect as we see with other substances. … So that kind of presents its own challenges.”
The environmental scan, which was completed in February, found that online gambling poses a bigger risk of causing gambling addiction than in-person gambling. Online gamblers play for longer amounts of time, are more likely to exceed their budget and struggle with interpersonal relationships, according to the study.
When people gamble at a physical location, they have to get up, go to the ATM and draw out the dollar bills or add funds to a card, said Datacorp COO Susan Janke, one of the leads on study. With online gambling, however, money can be refilled with the click of a button.
“There’s no bumpers,” Janke said. “There’s no breaks to go, ‘You sure you want to spend more money?’”
Online sports wagering is the only legal form of online gambling in Wyoming, but Janke said it’s difficult to block access to other, illegal forms of online gambling. When a website gets shut down, it simply pops back up under another IP address.
“It’s incredibly difficult to keep people from engaging in online casino gaming or gambling, if that’s what they want to do,” Janke said.
Furthermore, young men between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to participate in online sports wagering and online casino games, according to the study. Overall, 29% of men and 26% of women in this age group reported two or more gambling-related problems.
“It really doesn’t take a whole lot to meet a diagnosis for having problem gambling,” Janke said. “So, 29% of men and 26% of women in that younger group, these are people who … are likely to fall into that higher risk group.”
Education, ending stigma
Online gamblers are more likely to seek professional help than in-person gamblers, Janke said, but 73% of gamblers overall said they would not consider asking for help, under any circumstances.
Responses to surveys included in the environmental scan showed that a majority of people were not aware of resources available to them in Laramie County. Many survey respondents asked for professional training of facility staff to address problem gambling, a support group for problem gamblers and resources that offer financial planning.
“We have a really great opportunity to develop some infrastructure, especially for how we want to address prevention and early intervention,” Janke said.
She suggested increasing awareness of available resources in Laramie County, building on those resources and educating young people on the risks of problem gambling.
Another point brought up during the meeting was testifying on the issues of gambling addiction to state legislators, county commissioners and city council members. Wardle said during the meeting that policymakers often hear from the pro-business side of gambling facilities, but they hear little about the “human cost” of these activities.
Gambling locations, similar to alcohol and tobacco sellers, target low-income areas, Wardle previously told the WTE. Wyoming is focused on being a business-friendly state, but it often fails to pause and observe human impact, she said.
“Industry is leading the charge,” Wardle told the WTE. “And that means the decisions that are being made will benefit the industry, and not necessarily the community.”
Available resources
The first $300,000 in annual tax revenue from online sports wagering is funneled to the Wyoming Department of Health, which distributes it to Wyoming’s 23 counties, based on county population, to address problem gambling. However, not all 23 counties accept the funds, according to Wyoming Gaming Commission PIO and Responsible Gaming Liaison Sara Beth Lyon, due to a lack of ways to put it to use.
Laramie County has received a little more than $70,000 annually for the last two years, according to Wardle. CRMC partnered with Volunteers of America Northern Rockies (VOA) to begin studying the gambling landscape in Laramie County, as well as brainstorm ways to identify and treat gambling addiction.
VOA Northern Rockies Clinical Director Christin Covello said the partnership is still laying out the foundation of addressing problem gambling in the county. Two of three VOA clinicians were sent to a National Council on Problem Gambling conference last July, and all of them will attend the conference again this summer.
“We’re really trying to gear up and have everyone gain an understanding,” Covello said.
“Several gambling institutions have popped up here in Cheyenne over the last few years, which means that we’re going to continue to see gambling addictions, and those concerns continue to arise.”
The Wyoming Gaming Commission offers a self-exclusion list, where people can voluntarily register themselves if they feel they’re struggling with gambling addiction. People can choose to be on the list for a year, three years, five years or a lifetime. Names on the list are sent out to every off-track betting site and skill-based gambling vendor across the state and to online sports wagering companies, Lyon said.
The Wyoming Responsible Gaming Coalition is also currently putting together an updated study on problem gambling in the state, she added.
“The hardest part is that gambling addiction is not something that you see as easily as a drug addiction … where you see the effects immediately,” Lyon said, adding that national gambling statistics are also “few and far between.” “There is not a lot of research in Wyoming right now, which is being worked on.”
This story was published on May 14, 2025.