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State of Play’s TL;DR
- Women are becoming a larger share of America’s online gambling market, and the harm tied to compulsive play is becoming harder to ignore.
- New reporting links that shift to personal financial distress, including bankruptcy filings that name major betting operators.
The latest reporting on online gambling addiction in the US focuses on women, a group that has often received less attention in public discussions around sports betting and casino-style apps.
Women accounted for 35% of online sports gamblers last year, up from 26% in 2022, according to the American Gaming Association.
At the same time, a Bloomberg Law review found that nearly a quarter of Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings in the past 12 months that listed sports betting websites such as FanDuel, DraftKings, or BetMGM as creditors came from women.
‘Out of control’
One of the cases highlighted is Elaina Bozzuto, who said she downloaded the DraftKings app after seeing a commercial and became addicted to its slots.
Within three years, she lost as much as $200,000 and later filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2025. Her filing listed about 50 creditors, including DraftKings.
Reflecting on the spiral, Bozzuto said:
“It was so out of control. … I knew that I was messing up. But I couldn’t stop it. It ruined my business and my mentality. It really wrecked my life.”
Other women described different paths into the same pattern. Monae Thompson said she has been betting on sports apps for eight years and now uses deposit limits on sites such as FanDuel to control spending. Melanie Watkiss said her gambling escalated from free game money to more than $1,000 a day.
On the day her mother died, Watkiss made 45 cash withdrawals totaling about $7,000.
“As my mom got sicker, I was gambling more. It felt like a dopamine rush or a hit.”
Experts say most attention is on male sports bettors
For US players, the story is less about one app or one operator and more about how easy mobile betting can become compulsive. It’s a broader responsible gambling issue tied to always-on access, fast deposits, and repeated play.
Experts cited competition, early sports participation, and betting alongside romantic partners as factors drawing more women into online gambling.
Jody Bechtold, CEO of the Better Institute, said the media has focused heavily on young male sports bettors while paying less attention to younger women who have also been betting.
Kitty Martz, executive director of Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery in Oregon, said proposition-style wagers can lower the barrier to entry, including bets on who catches the ball next or even what color the sports drink will be.
That matters because the growth in participation is happening alongside signs of financial strain. The bankruptcy data does not answer how widespread gambling disorder is among women overall, but it does show that women are appearing in a meaningful share of severe financial cases involving betting sites.
Christina Cook, who started The Broke Girl Society podcast in 2021 after her own recovery, said the show now has more than 300,000 listeners in 70 countries. Her view:
“This is an issue throughout the world. Not just for the US.”
Based on reporting by Keith L. Alexander for Bloomberg Tax.
