Gambling Addiction Among Lawyers? You Bet Your Life!
During March, the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) leads the annual observance of Problem Gambling Awareness Month, a nationwide grassroots campaign about this major public health issue. This year’s theme, “Caring Communities, Stronger Futures,” emphasizes the importance of a community driven approach to problem gambling awareness and support. As the campaign notes:
Problem gambling doesn’t exist in isolation. It affects families, friends, workplaces, and entire communities. Many people struggle in silence while the impacts ripple through families, relationships, and communities. 5 to 8 million U.S adults are considered to have mild or moderate gambling problems, while 2.5 million meet the criteria for a severe gambling problem, each with their own families, friends, and communities.1
Members of the legal community are at particularly high risk of developing problem gambling behaviors. To date (remarkably), there have been NO studies on the prevalence of gambling disorder among those in the legal community.
The recent gambling-related federal indictment and conviction of SCOTUS Blog Founder and U.S. Supreme Court Advocate Tom Goldstein generated a lot of press and got a lot of lawyers talking. The ABA Journal focused a cover story on gambling addiction in the profession last year.2 But what has the legal profession actually done to address this addictive behavior as it affects members of our profession? What mightwe do?
At the FBA-WDWA Annual CLE, Judges Kendall and Cartwright, and I discussed the well-established data showing the legal community is at much higher risk than the general adult population for addictive and other behavioral health issues (as well as secondary trauma/PTSD). We also noted the well-established studies that show these risks especially affecting our profession are the very same comorbidity risk factors preexisting gambling disorder. We further discussed the special ethical quandaries, malpractice consequences, and client and broader community impacts, of lawyer gambling addiction including lawyers “borrowing” from client funds to pay gambling debts and enable gambling compulsion.3
Research shows especially high rates of alcohol and other drug problems among problem gamblers (~4-7x).4 Now let’s compare this to what we know about lawyers and these known preexisting gambling disorder comorbidities. As to substance use disorder:
● 70% of Lawyers Likely to Develop Alcohol Problems Over Their Lifetimes
● ~ 37% of Legal Professionals Report Problematic Drinking (> 1 in 3)
● Since COVID, 39.5% of Women and 33.7% Men Report Problematic Drinking Behaviors
● Highest Rates Among Lawyers in First 15 years in Profession, Including Law School5
As to some other preexisting gambling disorder comorbidities, we also know lawyer rates are much higher than the general population and other professions. Lawyers report:
● Stress and Anxiety: 42%-70+% (1 in 5 reporting “severe”)
● Depression: 28%-45.7%
● ADHD/Impulse Control Issues: 12.5%
● Panic Disorder: 8.06
We also know that studies show over 1-10 lawyers report having suicidal thoughts in the last year (11.4% (males 2x > females; lawyers 30-40/yrs. > older ones)).7 And we know that approximately 20% of those with gambling disorder attempt suicide (higher rate than any other addictive disorder).8
With easier access to betting on all manner of things as easily as a swipe of the phone, this is an increasingly serious matter facing our profession and an increasingly easily “hidden” one. Research consistently shows that less than 10% of those with gambling problems ever seek treatment; and less than 7% lawyers (and 4% of law students) seek treatment for substance use problems behavior.9
WA Lawyers Assisting Lawyers (WaLAL) is here to help. We are a 501(c)(3) organization providing free, confidential and independent peer support (as well as proactive, MCLE-accredited trainings and CLE presentations), to the Washington legal community by members of our community with lived experience in addictive and other mental health challenges and recovery. I have completed a core gambling disorder training, in addition to my WA-certified peer counselor accreditation. WaLAL connects members of our legal community with lawyer peers who have lived experience with gambling disorder and recovery. There is also a confidential self-screen on our website. We hope you will also explore it and the additional resources provided at the end of it.10
1 NCPG website at https://www.ncpgambling.org/ncpg/ The NCPG also notes in its FAQs publication that “the annual social cost of problem gambling is $14 billion,” including “criminal justice and healthcare spending as well as bankruptcy and other consequences.”
2 Weisenfeld, All About the Action: Are Lawyers More at Risk for Gambling Addiction?, ABA Journal (Aug/Sept 2025). See American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (“DSM-5”) (latest edition of DSM moved gambling disorder (fka pathological gambling) to Addictions category); Briggs et al., Pathological Gamblers and Alcoholics: Do They Share the Same Addictions?, Addict. Behav. (2019).
3 Trauma, Impairment and Recovery, Annual FBA-WDWA CLE (Dec. 10, 2026), at M. Margaret McKeown Federal Bar Association - Online store product Judge Cartwright further noted she has recently seen a number of gambling-related criminal cases in her court. See also Jarvis, Lawyers, Gambling, and Trust Accounts, Why the Expansion of an Old Vice Requires a New Approach to Protecting Client Funds, 8 Bus. Entrepre. & Tax L. Rev. 111 (2024) (at Sec. II) (analysis of online gambling expansion and publicly-available disciplinary cases specifically nvolving lawyer gambling-related client trust account abuse through 12/31/2023)).
4 See e.g. Michael Burke, Never Enough: One Lawyer's True Story of How He Gambled His Career Away, ABA Press 2009 (personal story of disbarred lawyer’s alcohol and gambling addictions); Sharma & Weinstein, Gambling Disorder Comorbidity: A Narrative Review, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 27(1), at S1–18 (Apr. 3, 2025), at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/19585969.2025.2484288?needAccess=true
5 Beck, Sales, Benjamin, Lawyer Distress: Alcohol-Related Problems and Other Psychological Concerns Among a Sample of Practicing Lawyers, 10 J. Law & Health 1-60, at 45 (1996) (data collected from actively practicing WA and AZ lawyers by UW Professor (and WaLAL Board Member) Andrew Benjamin et al., and their methodological study thereof showing, from randomly selected sample of lawyers responding to Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, that 2/3rds of sample met threshold for alcoholism because of reported negative consequences associated with their alcohol use); Krill, et al., The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys; Benjamin et al., The Prevalence of Depression, Alcohol Abuse, and Cocaine Abuse Among US Lawyers, 13(3) Int’l J. Law & Psychiatry (Feb. 1990); Krill et al., The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys, 10 J. Addiction Med. 46-52 (2016).
6 ABA/Hazelton Betty Ford, Report, The Path to Lawyers Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change (2016); Johns Hopkins University Study (1990) (identifying lawyers with highest incidence of depression among over 100 occupations, and 3.6 times higher than general population); American Lawyer, 2024 Survey of Mental Health in the Legal Profession (surveying over 2000 private law firm attorneys) (> 70% report anxiety); Sharma & Weinstein, Gambling Disorder Comorbidity, supra (gambling disorder also shows higher risks for mood (3.7x) and anxiety disorders (3.1x)); and shared risk factors include impulsivity, trauma and socio-developmental influences); Nat’l Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) (2005).
7 The numbers among lawyers of color are even more concerning and deserve their own study and action. See e.g. The American Lawyer (ALM), Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey (2021) (survey of 3,200 law firm attorneys and staff);Data Reveals the Startling Mental Health Struggles of Attorneys of Color, at https://www.2civility.org/new-data-reveals-the-startling- mental-health-struggles-of-attorneys-of-color/) (2021) (regarding same and noting similar findings to interim (2020) report from Internation Bar Association). See also ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, Report, Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms (2005) survey of firms with 25 or more lawyers); ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, Report, Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Fortune 500 Legal Departments (2011-2012); Cruz, Still Too Few and Far Between: The Status of Latina Attorneys Fifteen Years Later (National Hispanic Bar Association follow-up study to benchmark study in 2009 on wellbeing of Latina attorneys and law students) (2024).
8 Marionneau V, Nikkinen J., Gambling-Related Suicides and Suicidality: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Evidence, Fro. Psychiatry (Oct. 26, 2022); Suicide Risk - Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, at https://www.nevadacouncil.org/understanding-problem-gambling/impact- consequences/suicide/ (“up to half of individuals in treatment for gambling disorder have suicidal ideation, and about 17% have attempted suicide.”) (emph. added)
9 ABA/Hazelton Betty Ford, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being, supra (lawyers and law students); Quigley, Gambling Disorder and Stigma: Opportunities for Treatment and Prevention, at pmc.ncbl.nlm.nih.gov (“about one in 10 people with gambling problems seeks treatment, and by that time, they have typically suffered from symptoms for 7 to 10 years”).
10 available at https://www.walawyersassistinglawyers.com/screening-health-tests