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Americans are carrying more credit card debt than at any point on record, and lawmakers are starting to connect the dots between that debt and the boom in legal betting. The question now facing the gambling industry is whether that connection turns into real regulatory teeth.
A Debt Problem Hitting Record Highs
US credit card balances reached an all-time high of $1.277 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, before easing slightly to $1.252 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, a normal seasonal dip that still left balances up nearly 6% year-over-year. Balances have surged 63% since the pandemic-era low of 2021, and the average APR is sitting above 21%, among the highest sustained rates the Fed has ever recorded.
The pain isn’t just theoretical. Credit card delinquencies of 90 days or more climbed to roughly 13% in early 2026, a 15-year high, and nearly half of cardholders now carry a balance from month to month. Put simply, a large share of Americans are borrowing at record rates to cover expenses they can’t pay off. And, increasingly, that includes bets.
The Credit Card-Gambling Connection
Regulators and researchers have been building a case that credit cards and gambling are a uniquely bad mix. A widely cited Justice Department review found that up to 90% of compulsive gamblers have used credit cards to fund their habit, and a 2025 study highlighted by NPR found that legal access to online sports betting is linked to a roughly 10% increase in personal bankruptcy filings and an 8% jump in debt sent to collections, effects that tend to surface about two years after a state legalizes betting. Separate New York Fed research tied the arrival of legal sports betting to rising credit card delinquencies, concentrated among bettors under 40.
The mechanism is straightforward: unlike a debit card, a credit card lets someone gamble with money they don’t have. Losses become debt instantly, at double-digit interest, with none of the natural friction that comes from spending cash already sitting in a bank account.
Regulators Are Already Moving
The response isn’t hypothetical anymore, it’s happening, state by state and country by country.
In the US, credit card deposits for online sports betting are already restricted in Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Illinois, among others, and Maine has passed a ban set to take effect in 2026. New York, New Jersey, and Colorado have floated similar measures. Many operators are voluntarily phasing out credit card deposits nationwide, meaning the practice may fade even in states that still technically allow it.
Federally, the most aggressive proposal is the SAFE Bet Act, reintroduced in Congress by Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representative Paul Tonko. Beyond a nationwide ban on credit card deposits for sports betting, it would cap a bettor to five deposits in a 24-hour window, require “affordability checks” before accepting large wagers, restrict advertising hours, and ban AI-driven personalized promotions.
The bill faces a steep climb. Nevada Representative Dina Titus has called it “outdated” and “unwarranted,” and the industry has mobilized against it, with the American Gaming Association reporting record lobbying spending in early 2026. Even so, its repeated reintroduction signals that credit-funded gambling has become a fixed target for federal reformers.
Other countries have already gone further. The UK banned credit card gambling outright in 2020. Sweden is finalizing a rule, effective April 2026, that bans not just credit cards but also loans, overdrafts, and buy-now-pay-later financing for gambling, closing what regulators called a dangerous loophole. Swedish officials were explicit about the goal: preventing “indebtedness due to gambling for money.”
Why Household Debt Makes This Politically Potent
Credit card debt statistics give critics of the gambling industry a powerful talking point that’s independent of any one scandal or bad actor. When over 50% of cardholding American adults can’t pay their balance in full each month, and interest charges alone cost consumers more than $250 billion in 2025, lawmakers can frame a credit card betting ban as consumer protection rather than an attack on gambling itself. That framing is harder for the industry to fight than arguments about addiction alone, since it taps into a financial anxiety a much broader swath of the electorate already feels.
It also gives momentum to adjacent proposals, like federal caps on credit card interest rates, that could get bundled with gambling-specific reforms as part of larger economic packages ahead of the 2026 midterms.
What It Means for Bettors and Operators
For now, most legal sportsbooks and online casinos still accept some form of card payment, but the direction of travel is clear. Bettors in states that already restrict credit card deposits are limited to debit cards, bank transfers, or e-wallets, and that list of states is growing. Operators are increasingly getting ahead of the issue by dropping credit card options voluntarily, both to manage regulatory risk and to blunt criticism that they’re profiting from consumer debt.
Whether the SAFE Bet Act or similar federal legislation actually passes remains uncertain given industry pushback and disagreement even among Democrats over federal preemption of state gaming law. But the underlying pressure isn’t going away. As long as credit card debt keeps setting records and researchers keep finding ties between betting access and financial distress, credit-funded gambling will remain an easy, high-visibility target for regulators looking to show they’re doing something about both problems at once.
This article discusses gambling and financial hardship. If you or someone you know is struggling with problem gambling, contact the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.
