Pennsylvania lawmakers have created the state’s first bipartisan Problem Gambling Caucus, bringing members of both chambers and parties together around risks linked to online gambling. State Sen. Joe Picozzi and Rep. Ben Sanchez are heading the group, while Rep. Jamie Flick is a founding member.
The caucus was announced Oct. 21 and plans to begin meeting when the General Assembly convenes for its 2027 session in January. Its stated agenda includes curbing young people’s exposure to gambling advertising, public education about the risks of casino gaming, sports betting and iGaming, and consumer-protection measures.
The group is considering safeguards rather than an end to legal gambling. Lawmakers identified easy mobile access, advertising and sports betting as principal concerns, while Picozzi said laws and consumer protections must keep pace with betting and online casinos being “just a tap away.” Flick described gambling as an increasingly portable risk, saying that the “drug of choice now sits in your pocket.”
Pennsylvania’s legal age for online wagering and casino gambling is 21. Lawmakers said some minors circumvent age checks through VPNs, false identification or documents belonging to relatives and friends. Rep. Danilo Burgos said gambling advertisements appeared while his 15-year-old daughter played a game on an iPad, and called marketing toward teenagers and preteens unacceptable.
The new caucus arrives after a July staff study by the Joint State Government Commission, required under House Resolution 60 of 2025. The study examined problem-gambling behaviour and consequences, youth exposure to advertising, marketing, self-exclusion, gambling debt and potential regulatory changes.
The timing leaves little room for fresh legislation in the current two-year session. Picozzi said developing responses could take years, noting that Pennsylvania waited 13 years after legalising casino gambling to require operators to offer cooling-off periods.
The underlying data point to expanding online participation. Penn State’s 2025 assessment, based on surveys of more than 3,500 residents, found that up to 30% of Pennsylvania adults had participated in some form of online gambling in the previous year, up from 20% in 2024. More than 10% said they had gambled on websites or formats not registered with or regulated by the state, while more than half of calls to the 1-800-GAMBLER hotline concerned problematic online gambling.
Penn State researchers estimated that between 2.5% and 6.4% of Pennsylvanians may be problem gamblers. In December 2025, people aged 18 to 24 generated the largest volume of outreach calls to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania for the first time in the state’s history.
Reported player losses across casinos, iGaming, sports betting, video gaming terminals and fantasy sports reached $6.8 billion in 2025, as the state recorded its fifth consecutive year of record gaming revenue. Reported online casino losses rose to $2.7 billion from $1.1 billion in 2021, while sports bettors lost $602.5 million, compared with $340.1 million four years earlier. Those reported totals excluded prediction markets.
Reducing young people’s exposure to gambling advertising is among the caucus’s initial priorities. Reporting by The Inquirer cited a 2025 survey in which 36% of boys aged 11 to 17 said they had gambled in the previous year. A separate Common Sense Media survey of 1,017 boys found that 49% had encountered gambling content on social media and nearly 60% said it appeared without their searching for it.
Since Pennsylvania began accepting legal sports wagers in 2018, at least 48 juveniles aged 13 to 17 have sought help from the state compulsive-gambling council. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board also promoted its “What’s Really at Stake” underage-gambling awareness campaign in March.
