Dear [Your Elected Official],

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose any efforts to legalize online sports gambling in Minnesota. Expanding sports betting, especially through mobile apps, poses significant risks to individuals, families, and communities—particularly the young and people in vulnerable economic circumstances.

Legalized sports gambling primarily benefits national gambling conglomerates and sportsbooks, not Minnesota families. Fewer than five percent of those who use sports betting apps pull out more money than they put in. In other words, it is a state-sanctioned consumer-fraud scheme.

The data shows that calls to gambling helplines in Virginia rose 387 percent after the first year of legalization. In New Jersey, it is believed six percent of residents now have a gambling disorder. And a recent commission of 22 academic experts convened by the medical journal, The Lancet, concluded that existing studies and surveys demonstrate that gambling’s prevalence poses a significant threat to public health.

If online sports gambling is legalized in Minnesota, taxpayers will bear the costs of the resulting addiction, family breakdown, and financial instability—and the state gets no benefit as the gambling revenue goes into a special fund that is largely redistributed to gambling entities.

Making gambling accessible 24/7 from any smartphone would place a virtual bookie in every home, workplace, and dorm room, with devastating consequences. Please commit to opposing any bill that would legalize online sports gambling and undoubtedly unleash an epidemic of problem gambling on our state’s youth, poor, and vulnerable.