Study presented to committee finds larger spikes in intimate‑partner violence after upset losses when sports betting is legal — especially with mobile access

A working paper presented to the Senate Finance Committee examined whether legalized sports betting amplifies emotional cues from sporting upsets that can lead to violence at home.

Emily Arneson, a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Oregon, summarized research that links NFL upset losses (games in which a favored home team unexpectedly loses) to higher rates of police‑reported intimate‑partner violence (IPV) and reported a larger effect after states legalized sports betting — particularly where mobile betting is permitted. "We find a larger effect, approximately 10 percentage points when there is an upset loss and your home team is that team that experiences the upset loss on intimate partner violence when sports betting is legalized," Arneson said.

Nut graf: the author framed the result as a causal test using weekly, exogenous sporting events (NFL games) to isolate emotional shocks; she said the effect is concentrated in states that allow mobile betting and in weeks when paychecks are more likely.

Arneson described the empirical design (counties mapped to the closest NFL home team; FBI NIBRS data for police incidents; game spreads to identify upsets) and reported a larger increase when mobile betting was legal: "When there's an upset loss in the legalization of mobile betting, intimate partner violence instances increase approximately 18 percentage points," she testified. She added that upset losses are relatively rare events for any given team (the Minnesota Vikings example had eight upset losses in 2011–2022), so aggregate counts remain modest but nontrivial: the paper's back‑of‑the‑envelope calculation estimated roughly 16 to 31 additional IPV instances in the 2022 NFL season for Minnesota's coverage area.

Committee members asked about mechanisms (financial shock vs. emotional cue) and Arneson said the analysis examined timing, pay weeks and betting market size; the greater effects where mobile betting is legal and where per‑capita handles are larger supported the interpretation that increased betting exposure intensifies emotional and economic shocks tied to sporting outcomes.

Ending: Arneson cautioned the committee that police reports are one measure of IPV and may undercount total harm, and she said the study is one piece of evidence linking expanded betting access to secondary social harms to families.