<p>This study investigates the impact of childhood adversity on problematic gambling in early adulthood. Data from 16,760 young adults (24–32 years old) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were studied. Gambling behaviors were categorized as no gambling, non-problematic and problematic gambling based on self-reported responses. Multivariable logistic regression modeling examined whether childhood perpetration-related arrests and traumas (neglect, emotional, physical, sexual) predicted gambling behaviors after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Most young adults reported non-problematic gambling (<i>n</i> = 14,228, 85.5%), with 3.9% (<i>n</i> = 591) reporting problematic gambling. Problematic gambling was significantly more common in people who were Non-Hispanic Black (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.01), male (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.01), and who had past 30-day alcohol (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.01), cigarette (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.01), and marijuana use (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.01). Of the nine trauma types examined, participants experienced an average of 0.9 types of childhood trauma, with problematic gambling experiencing significantly more types (mean: 1.2, SD: 0.1, <i>p</i> = 0.04). In comparison to those with non-problematic gambling, participants with problematic gambling had 2.4 increased odds of reporting their health was fair/poor rather than excellent/very good/good (95% CI: 1.4, 4.1), 1.8 increased odds of past 30-day cigarette use (95% CI: 1.2, 2.6), and 0.3 decreased odds of being female (95% CI: 0.2, 0.4). Childhood trauma and perpetration-related arrests were not significant predictors of problematic gambling in young adulthood. Young adults with problematic gambling reported a wider variety of childhood traumas, yet it did not predict future gambling behaviors. Rather, these findings suggest sex and smoking status may be associated with gambling behaviors.</p>