Credit: (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)A fast-paced type of sports betting is becoming increasingly popular in the gambling industry and is now drawing the attention of state lawmakers who fear it may be especially addictive for young people who are embracing online gambling.
Known in the industry as microbetting, it offers gamblers ways to place rapid-fire bets on specific, in-game events instead of waiting for the outcome of a single game to win or lose money.
Examples of microbetting offered by online sportsbooks include betting on whether the next play in a football game will be a pass or a run and whether a professional tennis player will win the next set in a match.
While this type of betting is becoming increasingly popular, especially among young people, mental health experts warn there are also serious downsides, given microbetting’s fast pace and potentially costly nature.
And in New Jersey, where the state collects tax revenue from legalized sports betting — and is likely to cash in more as a new National Football League season begins this week — lawmakers are beginning to respond to these concerns.
The proposed ban
Under legislation drafted by Assemblyman Dan Hutchison (D-Atlantic), New Jersey would ban sportsbooks from offering any microbetting to gamblers throughout the state.
The measure also stipulates that a sportsbook or person who offers or accepts a microbet could be found guilty of disorderly persons offenses and fined between $500 and $1,000 per bet, according to a copy of the proposed bill provided by legislative staff.
“We really should focus on this legislation so that we can remove a part of gambling that really is difficult to police,” Hutchison said in a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News.
New Jersey legalized betting on sports both for in-person and online in 2018, just weeks after a major U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a long-standing federal law that only allowed such gambling to occur in Nevada and a handful of other states. The same New Jersey law allows brick-and-mortar casinos in Atlantic City and in-state horse racetracks to partner with online sportsbooks to offer mobile sports betting to those aged 21 and over.
NJ gambling revenues — and taxes
As of last year, revenue generated by casino operators and their online partners from legal sports betting in New Jersey totaled nearly $500 million, with the bulk of that coming from mobile sports betting, according to a report issued in May by Stockton University.
Earlier this summer, Gov. Phil Murphy and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature voted to hike the state tax levied on mobile sports betting, from 13% to 19.75%, as part of a broader plan to raise more than $600 million in new revenue for the annual state budget.
‘The evidence underscores that microbetting can accelerate the path to problem gambling, especially among vulnerable populations such as youth and those with existing vulnerabilities.’ — Luis Del Orbe, executive director, Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey
But New Jersey’s move to rake in more tax revenue from gambling activities this year — the state tax on online casino gambling was also hiked by Murphy and lawmakers in late June – comes amid growing concerns about the increased popularity of sports betting, including microbetting.
Advancements in technology and the proliferation of handheld smartphones are adding to these growing concerns about microbetting, some of which are supported by recent statewide data and cited by lawmakers as reasons to act.
Rapid-fire microbetting
Because of the rapid speed of many sporting events, and the speed at which wagers can be placed and settled, microbets provide a way for fans to stay engaged in and to anticipate every play. That means people have less time to research and consider the details of their wagers before placing them, and their losses can accumulate quickly.
Credit: (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)The speed at which microbets progress can also lead to problem gambling as the bets offer the possibility of a near immediate reward, Hutchison has noted in his proposed legislation. The popularity of microbetting coincides with the near-constant presence of advertisements on social media, television and podcasts that encourage people to place bets on sporting events.
The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, which has long emphasized that gambling addiction is a serious public health concern, has seen a nearly 300% increase in calls to its 800-GAMBLER helpline since 2018, with a majority of calls coming from young adults, according to the council’s latest data.
‘It’s scary that our pursuit of revenue matters more than the health and well-being of the people we’re supposed to be governing and helping.’ — Assemblyman Dan Hutchison (D-Atlantic)
Luis Del Orbe, the executive director of the council, said in a statement to NJ Spotlight News that frequently placing bets on plays throughout the course of a sports game can trigger instant dopamine releases “in the brain’s reward system,” fostering compulsive behaviors that can develop into serious addictions.
“The evidence underscores that microbetting can accelerate the path to problem gambling, especially among vulnerable populations such as youth and those with existing vulnerabilities,” Del Orbe said.
Who’s most at risk?
Young men, in particular, have shown troubling signs of gambling problems since the legalization of online gambling and sports betting across the country in recent years, according to a September 2024 poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University. The poll, which surveyed registered voters nationally, said that 10% of men between the ages of 18 and 30 qualify as problem gamblers, compared to 3% of the overall population. The survey also showed that such problems are closely related to online betting on sports and online slot games.
“That’s terrifying that we’ve got that many people who are clinically at the level of problem gambling, and a lot of this is because of these smaller kinds of bets,” Dan Cassino, the executive director of the FDU Poll, said in a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News.
“When you start having these very small bets, these microbets, during a game … That gives you instant feedback, and that instant feedback is what makes them so dangerous,” said Cassino, a professor of government and politics at FDU.
Cassino also noted that young men, in particular, are drawn to sports betting because they often define themselves in terms of what they know about “very masculine” topics, including sports, video games and technology.
“This [sports betting] is a way of trying to monetize that, basically saying, ‘If you really are man enough to know so much about sports, know every little bit about it, well now you can prove that,” Cassino said. “You can put your money where your mouth is and prove that you know more than anybody else about this. That appeals much more to young men than to any other demographic.”
What’s happening in other states
Other states have recently taken steps to ban microbetting on sporting events. Last month, ESPN reported that gambling regulators in Ohio want to prohibit sportsbooks from offering microbets, including betting markets on first pitches in Major League Baseball, amid a gambling investigation into two Cleveland Guardians pitchers.
The Ohio Casino Control Commission, at the request of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, is reviewing the types of microbets currently offered by all sportsbooks in the state, before drafting a rule to remove some player-specific “props,” or proposition bets, from the list of approved wagers, according to ESPN. The proposed new rule would need the approval of the commission and the Ohio Legislature before going into effect.
A proposition bet is a type of wager that is based on an outcome separate from the game’s result, according to The Athletic. There are three general types of prop bets: player props, game props and team props. A player prop is a bet on something relating to a specific player, and can include wagering on the number of strikeouts thrown by a starting pitcher in baseball, say, or the number of assists by a point guard in basketball.
In New Jersey, Hutchison noted that he is seeing the dangers of problem gambling through his work as a bankruptcy attorney, including in a recent case where a client chose to gamble rather than pay his mortgage.
“It’s scary that our pursuit of revenue matters more than the health and well-being of the people we’re supposed to be governing and helping,” said Hutchison. “We have to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘This is not acceptable.’”
