Survey: 55% of US adults gamble monthly, and 1 in 8 do so every day

More than half of American adults gamble at least monthly, and about 1 in 8 do so every day, according to a national survey from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University in Utah. The institute announced the report, “Gambling With Our Future”, on 13 October 2026.

The survey covers 2,548 US adults and 16 activities, from lottery tickets and charity raffles to mobile sports betting, prediction markets and high-risk financial trading treated as a wager.

By the numbers

• Monthly gambling: 55% of adults; 63% of men against 48% of women.
• Making money as a primary motive: about 4 in 10 respondents. Among 18-to-29-year-olds it edges out entertainment, 53% to 50%; among those 30 and older, entertainment leads, 51% to 37%.
• Frequent play by age and sex: 59% of men aged 18 to 29 gamble at least a few times a week, against 34% of women that age. For adults 30 and older the figures are 33% of men and 20% of women.
• Mobile sports betting: 67% of men aged 18 to 29 took part in the past year, against 41% of young women.
• Harm from others: 21% say someone else’s gambling hurt them financially, emotionally or otherwise; 39% know someone with a gambling problem.

The details

About 8 in 10 respondents agree most gamblers lose money over time. Asked about their own chances, around half of gamblers believe they would win or at least break even in a single hour.

Men are three times as likely as women to report losing more than $1,000 in a single day. Among weekly gamblers, men are three times as likely to report spending $500 or more a week.

More frequent gamblers report more depression, anxiety and hopelessness; the survey does not establish whether gambling causes them. More frequent religious attendance is associated with greater participation across all 16 activities.

Only about 4 in 10 adults agree that betting is morally wrong and can lead to destructive addiction. Among those who consider gambling morally wrong, 71% gambled in the past year.

How the survey was done

Qualtrics fielded the survey, with an oversample of adults aged 18 to 29. The sample was balanced through quota sampling on age, gender, race and income, and results are weighted for age.

Paul Lambert, the institute’s Religion Initiative Director and a co-author, said gambling is “not a niche activity” for many Americans. Co-author Shima Baradaran Baughman called for more education about gambling odds.