Civil courts across Indonesia say a surge in online gambling is causing a catastrophic rise in divorce rates. And betting addiction is also driving families apart in other countries, including the US, a top American family lawyer says.
“I think we are seeing the same phenomenon in the United States,” Atty Bruggemann, matrimonial and family law attorney and partner at the New York-based law firm Gallet Dreyer & Berkey, told CasinoBeats. “While I would not claim that online gambling is responsible for a measurable percentage of American divorces, I absolutely believe it is becoming an increasingly important factor contributing to divorce.”
While there is insufficient national data to prove a causal relationship between the rise of online gambling and divorce rates, Bruggemann said that online portals make betting platforms “dramatically more accessible.”
Her warning comes just days after the former US Surgeon General Jerome Adams claimed sports betting has become a “new opioid crisis.”
Online Gambling: Divorces Often Caused By Breakdown in Trust
In May, the National Council on Problem Gambling said that, last year, almost a third of its helpline callers complained of online and app-based gambling problems. This marked a sharp rise of 23% from 2024.
Almost three-quarters of helpline callers said they were experiencing financial difficulties.
“From a matrimonial lawyer’s perspective, […] accessibility is enormously significant,” said Bruggemann. “I am less concerned with whether someone placed one bad bet than with the pattern: secret accounts, repeated withdrawals, credit-card debt, loans from family members, unexplained transfers, and money that was supposed to pay the mortgage, taxes, tuition, or household expenses disappearing into a betting platform.”
Earlier this year, the medical journal BMC Psychology published a systematic review of 30 studies on gambling disorders.
The review’s authors concluded that gambling addiction severely strains romantic partnerships, fosters distrust, and negatively impacts overall family stability.
“The research supports the broader connection between gambling disorder and marital instability,” Bruggemann said.
The Indonesian courts say online gambling “destroys family finances,” causing marriages to break up.
But Bruggemann said that in the US, other factors are also at play.
“In my experience, the gambling itself is often only part of the problem,” she explained. “What destroys the relationship is the combination of gambling and secrecy, which leads to changes in the relationship and financial decline.”
In some instances, said Bruggemann, spouses may initially tolerate recreational gambling.
“But what becomes intolerable is discovering that the family’s savings have been depleted, credit cards have been maxed out, retirement funds have been borrowed against, taxes have gone unpaid, or the mortgage is suddenly in arrears – and then learning that the other spouse has been concealing the problem for months or years,” she explained.
Legal System Struggling to Keep Up
Online gambling poses a myriad of novel legal problems. And some say the current US legal system is not designed to cope with all of them.
“Gambling transactions can be fragmented across sportsbooks, casino applications, credit cards, bank accounts, digital wallets, and peer-to-peer payment platforms,” said Bruggemann. “A spouse may know that money is missing without knowing exactly where it went. That makes forensic discovery extremely important.”
The highly accessible nature of online gambling resources means lawyers sometimes face a battle against time. This is often painfully evident when it comes to preserving marital estates.
“If one spouse continues gambling after learning that a divorce is imminent, the other spouse and counsel may need to move quickly to protect assets and obtain financial information,” Bruggemann added.
But, the expert said, the US legal system remains behind the pace of gambling-related technology. This is particularly true for speed and transparency, said Bruggemann.
“The law was largely developed around a world in which financial misconduct might involve a checkbook, a brokerage account, or a bank account,” she explained. “There may be dozens of betting transactions that appear on a bank statement under unfamiliar merchant names. Funds can move between traditional financial institutions and digital payment services almost instantaneously.”
Legal Reform Could Reduce Transparency Gaps
To address the legal challenges of online gambling, Bruggemann says there is a need for legal reform.
Only this, she argued, would help bridge the transparency gap.
“I would like to see greater transparency from online gambling operators in response to lawful matrimonial discovery,” she said. “If a spouse is claiming that tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost, lawyers should be able to obtain a reliable transaction history without having to engage in unnecessarily complicated discovery battles.”
She also said that US law lacks uniform standards for financial disclosures concerning gambling accounts and gambling-related debts.
The problem, Bruggemann said, is increasingly interstate and digital. In the US, however, family law remains “overwhelmingly state-based,” she said.
Judges and matrimonial lawyers also need to learn more about gambling disorders, she argued. They must bolster their knowledge of both digital gambling technology and digital currencies.
“Online gambling has changed the speed and scale of the problem,” Bruggemann concluded. “Matrimonial law now has to catch up.”
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