But present Arnold Ventures, the instauration founded by the Arnolds, is going aft an unsuspecting cause: sports betting. The foundation announced Tuesday it has awarded astir $2.6 cardinal successful caller probe grants to 12 universities and deliberation tanks studying the fast-growing sports betting industry.
The main information is figuring retired what online sports betting is doing to the radical who usage it. The projects, which are housed astatine institutions including Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Wisconsin, volition analyse however gambling affects fiscal well-being, household formation, intelligence health, and user behavior—and, successful immoderate cases, what policymakers tin bash to trim harm.
Arnold Ventures is seeking a stronger grounds basal to springiness policymakers much accusation and “better tools” to marque decisions astir sports betting legislation, a instauration spokeswoman told Fortune.
“Sports betting expanded rapidly crossed the country, yet policymakers often deficiency rigorous causal probe connected its effects and connected which regulatory approaches are astir effective,” she said. “These studies are designed to assistance capable that gap.”
The grants, archetypal reported by CNBC, bespeak Arnold’s increasing condemnation that betting has fundamentally changed since a 2018 Supreme Court determination opened the doorway to legalization.
“Being capable to stake implicit the telephone has dramatically accrued entree and lowered friction,” Arnold, a erstwhile Enron expert who yet started a hedge fund, told CNBC. “You tin stake connected each pitch. You tin stake with a velocity that was ne'er imaginable erstwhile you had to spot a telephone to enactment a stake down.”
Justin Milner, Arnold Ventures’ enforcement vice president of grounds and evaluation, framed the backing arsenic a mode to limb lawmakers with autarkic data: “Anyone with a smartphone could efficaciously person a casino successful their pocket.”
Why the probe skips prediction markets
Notably, nary of the 12 studies volition analyse prediction markets specified arsenic Kalshi and Polymarket. The Arnold Ventures spokeswoman told Fortune the omission is simply a substance of probe design: “Access to betting information from prediction marketplace platforms is highly limited,” she said, “which makes it challenging for autarkic researchers to behaviour rigorous causal evaluations.”
Most of the funded studies alternatively comparison states based connected erstwhile they legalized online sports betting, an attack that lets researchers isolate the effect of those decisions. Prediction markets, regulated federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, connection nary comparable state-by-state variation, she explained.
“A batch of states jumped into legalizing sports betting successful 2018. And I deliberation that they were precise attracted to the imaginable taxation revenue,” Arnold told CNBC. “It’s precise appealing for a authorities legislature to get wealth from a voluntary taxation alternatively than a mandatory tax.”
Asked whether Arnold Ventures views immoderate azygous argument—financial harm, intelligence health, jock integrity, oregon disappointing taxation revenue—as its astir persuasive with legislators, the spokeswoman said the instauration doesn’t “approach the contented done a azygous lens.”
The goal, she said, is to guarantee “policymakers recognize the afloat scope of consequences associated with sports betting, truthful that erstwhile they are acceptable to act, the grounds is determination to enactment them.” She added the instauration is not backing the enactment “to enactment a predetermined legislative result oregon presumption connected legalization.”
A way grounds of giving it away
These grant announcements are conscionable a driblet successful the bucket of the Arnolds’ broader philanthropy. The mates has donated fractional of their nett worth.
According to a 2025 Institute for Policy Studies report, they’re the lone Giving Pledge signers who are technically successful compliance with the pledge’s committedness to springiness distant astatine slightest fractional of one’s wealth.
Fellow billionaires similar Melinda French Gates person openly criticized different Giving Pledge signers for not doing enough.
“Have they fixed enough? No,” French Gates said successful an interview with Wired published successful precocious 2025.
English (US) ·