Does Illinois Have a Gambling Problem?

With the Kentucky Derby coming up next weekend, Americans will be digging in their pockets to wager somewhere around $100 million on the event. As for gambling in general, Americans will lose around $100 billion dollars this year. Has gambling become a really big problem? In some parts of the nation, the answer is yes. How about Illinois?

Looking at a new study out from WalletHub, the answer is yes and no.

WalletHub looked at a variety of factors in their study of 2016's Most Gambling Addicted States, including “presence of illegal gambling operations” to “lottery sales per capita” to “percentage of people with gambling disorders.”

Illinois lands at the number 21 spot overall, but we rank much higher (which is worse, on their scale) in some categories, and much lower (which is better) on others.

From WalletHub:

Gambling Addiction in Illinois (1=Most Addicted, 25=Avg.):

• 32^nd – Number of Casinos per Capita

• 32^nd – Number of Gaming Machines per Capita

• 19^th – Lottery Sales per Capita

• 11^th – % of Adults with Gambling Disorders

• 1^st – Number of Gambling-Related Arrests per Capita

• 40^th – Legality of Daily Fantasy Sports

• 18^th – NCPG (National Council on Problem Gambling) Affiliation

• 5^th – Legality of Sports Gambling

Not surprisingly, Nevada holds the #1 spot, followed by:

• South Dakota
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Oklahoma
• West Virginia
• New Jersey
• Oregon
• Delaware
• North Dakota

Bringing up the rear, the 10 states with the lowest amounts of gambling addiction are:

• Utah
• Nebraska
• Alabama
• Arizona
• Kansas
• Indiana
• Wisconsin
• Kentucky
• Alaska
• North Carolina

To read the full report, click here.