From India to Britain to America, gambling harm follows the betting app

Top photo: ten circular Ganjifa playing cards, painted in opaque watercolour on card in Rajasthan in the 19th century, now at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

When South Asians fall into gambling trouble, the explanation offered is usually cultural. Families keep secrets, shame keeps people from asking for help, and the dice game in the Mahabharata is cited as an ancient warning. Research from India, Britain and the United States over the past fifteen years puts more weight on betting products and how freely they are sold.

The most quoted British figure comes from a 2011 study by David Forrest and Heather Wardle. Among 589 Asian adults drawn from national surveys, 22 percent had gambled in the past week, fewer than among white Britons. Yet 1.4 percent met the screen for problem gambling, a rate the authors called significantly higher. That 1.4 percent works out to roughly eight people.

Newer British studies are larger. A 2023 study for the charity GambleAware, run by Ipsos and Clearview Research, found that minority communities gamble less but suffer more harm. It tied that harm to experiences of racism and discrimination, and to low awareness of where to find help. Stigma was a major barrier to seeking help.

The Gambling Commission, Britain's regulator, found a similar pattern in a report on demographic differences. Participants from ethnic minority backgrounds reported more adverse consequences than white participants with the same risk score, after other demographics were controlled for. At the lowest level of risk, the predicted chance was 11.8 percent for minority participants against 5.5 percent for white ones. At a score of 8, the difference was no longer evident, at 91.9 percent against 95.6 percent.

Heather Wardle, who co-wrote the 2011 study, has since turned to the design of betting products. "The features that make these products exciting and engaging are also the features that make them addictive," she told Scientific American in January 2025.

India chose a ban. In August 2025, Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, which bans online games played for money, whether they rely on skill or chance. Operators face up to three years in jail and a fine of ₹1 crore. Players are treated as victims. The rules took effect on May 1, 2026, Mondaq reported.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister who steered the bill, told the Lok Sabha that "each year, 450 million Indians lose 10,000 crore rupees to these games," The Core reported. As of August 2026, the Supreme Court had agreed to a final hearing on challenges to the law and had set no date, Telangana Today reported. The law covers offshore sites and lets the government block them. One estimate puts illegal betting deposits from India at about $100 billion a year, according to a 2023 report by the Think Change Forum, a think tank, The Tribune reported.

Since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, most states have legalised sports betting, and economists have followed the money. A study of 230,171 households by Scott Baker and colleagues, published in the Journal of Financial Economics, found that legal online betting cut into savings. Among households with little savings, credit card debt rose by about 8 percent, by the Institute for Family Studies' summary of the research. The risk of an overdraft rose 24 percent.

A separate study, drawn from a credit panel of about 7 million consumers, by Brett Hollenbeck, Poet Larsen and Davide Proserpio found that bankruptcies rose after states allowed betting on phones, the UCLA Anderson Review reported. The chance of a personal bankruptcy filing rose 25 to 30 percent. States that allowed only in-person betting saw very small or statistically insignificant effects.

In Illinois, contacts with the 1-800-GAMBLER helpline more than doubled, from 12,342 in 2022 to 25,287 in 2023, GamblingNews reported. The figures do not show that legal betting caused the rise.

Britain capped online slot stakes at £5 a spin for adults 25 and over on April 9, 2025, and at £2 for players aged 18 to 24 on May 21, under Gambling Commission rules. Australia announced limits on gambling advertising in April 2026, to start in January 2027, including a ban on gambling ads during live sport on free-to-air television before 8:30 p.m., the government said. A 2023 parliamentary inquiry there had urged a full ban.

Shame still delays treatment, the British studies found, and minority gamblers know less about where to find help.

This article is not medical advice. Help is available in each country. In the United States, call 1-800-GAMBLER. In Britain, the National Gambling Helpline is 0808 8020 133. In India, the government's Tele-MANAS mental health line is 14416.