By Brett Hollenbeck, Poet Larsen, and Davide Proserpio

Following a 2018 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, 38 states have legalized sports gambling. We study how this policy has impacted consumer financial health using a large and comprehensive dataset on consumer financial outcomes. We use data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel, containing credit rating agency data for a representative sample of roughly 7 million U.S. consumers. We exploit the staggered rollout of legal sports betting across U.S. states and evaluate two treatment effects: the presence of any legal sports betting in a state and the specific presence of online or mobile access to betting. Our main finding is that overall consumers' financial health is modestly deteriorating as the average credit score in states that legalize sports gambling decreases by roughly 0.3%. The decline in credit score is associated with changes in indicators of excessive debt. We find a substantial increase in average bankruptcy rates, debt sent to collections, use of debt consolidation loans, and auto loan delinquencies. We also find that financial institutions respond to the reduced creditworthiness of consumers by restricting access to credit. These results are substantially stronger for states that allow online sports gambling compared to states that restrict access to in-person betting. Together, these results indicate that the ease of access to sports gambling is harming consumer financial health by increasing their level of debt. 

Unpublished Paper, 2024.

By  Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) provides additional funding to law enforcement agencies implementing programs to deter dangerous driving. As a condition, agencies must report the number of traffic stop warnings and tickets issued to the state’s STEP grant administrator. Agencies risk reduced funding if found to be not “productive” by issuing a sufficient amount of citations. Police departments in Alabama use these federal grants to drive economic sanctions by paying patrol officers overtime to be “productive” and rewarding the “most active” officers with more overtime at the end of the year; those found to be not “productive” face suspension from the program in some departments. Using municipal budgets and audits, legal records of those ticketed and arrested over court debt, and federal and state grant data, this report examines the incentives that drive policing decisions in Alabama and highlights how traffic stops–primarily regulatory and economic stops–harm low-wealth people. The report also includes personal accounts of individuals who faced court debt and provides recommendations for law enforcement, courts, and lawmakers.

Key Findings:

68 percent of law enforcement agencies statewide that received STEP funding issued more warnings to speeders than to drivers with car insurance violations —who instead received tickets.Cleburne County adds an additional $30 fee to the base of their fines for planning, designing, constructing, furnishing, equipping, and financing a county jail.Findings from two municipal budgets showed revenue from fines and fees is volatile.In 2021, the Anniston Police Department was twice as likely to issue tickets for an insurance violation than a warning when compared to those stopped for speeding.  Drivers who miss enough payments or court appearances are issued a suspended driver’s license and an order for arrest.

Recommendations:

Alabama police departments should look into how the prioritization of moving violations over equipment and regulatory stops by the Fayetteville Police Department in North Carolina has reduced traffic fatalities, injuries, and racial disparities.Courts should hold ability to pay hearings before ordering an arrest or placing a person on payment plans.Lawmakers should require publicly available reporting on all traffic stops.

Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, 2023. 36p.