Findings

Congress finds that— (1) gambling disorder was categorized as a behavioral addiction in 2013 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev. 2022) published by the American Psychiatric Association; (2) although gambling disorder is categorized along with substance-related and addictive disorders that include alcohol, tobacco, and drug-related addictions, no Federal agency has been designated to fund and guide research, programs, or policies addressing gambling disorder in the United States on a national level; (3) this absence of Federal funding and guidance has resulted in a lack of research and resources available to address gambling disorder and gambling harm; (4) in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 584 U.S. 453 (2018), the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (Public Law 102–427), allowing States to legalize and regulate sports betting; and (5) following the Supreme Court’s ruling in that case, 38 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico legalized some form of sports betting, consequently making sports betting and other forms of gambling more accessible and popular and garnering billions of dollars of revenue for the gambling industries.