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Christopher Boan is the lead writer at BetArizona.com after covering sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
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Booziest Counties In Arizona
The Wild West mindset that comes from living in rural parts of the Grand Canyon State has its fair share of positives, though such a laissez faire mentality comes with its share of drawbacks for Arizonans. Those downsides include alcohol abuse, with the state’s most rural counties having the highest percentage of excessive drinkers, with Greenlee, Coconino and Graham counties leading the way statewide by that metric.
Utilizing CountyHealthRankings.org, BetArizona.com - typically home to all things Arizona sports betting - utilized the 2024 annual data by county of Arizona that includes the percentage of adults who reported as either binge or heavy drinking.
The CDC defined binge drinking as 4 or more drinks in one occasion for females, while it is 5 or more in one occasion for males. Heavy drinking is defined as 8 or more drinks per week for females and 15 or more drinks per week for males.
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Top 10 Booziest Counties In Arizona
Overall Rank | County | % of Excessive Drinkers |
1 | Greenlee County | 20.36% |
2 | Coconino County | 20.22% |
3 | Graham County | 18.61% |
4 | Maricopa County | 18.12% |
5 | Yuma County | 17.91% |
6 | Pinal County | 17.86% |
7 | Pima County | 17.74% |
8 | Cochise County | 17.58% |
9 | Santa Cruz County | 17.57% |
10 | Gila County | 17.45% |
Which Arizona Counties Drink The Most?
The top counties when it comes to the percentage of excessive drinkers are all rural outposts, with Greenlee County (20.36%), Coconino County (20.22%) and Graham County (18.61%) all residing well away from the state’s population centers of Phoenix and Tucson.
Maricopa County (home to the Phoenix metropolitan area) was the next closest, at 18.12%, while Yuma County (17.91%), Pinal County (17.86%), Pima County (17.74%), Cochise County (17.58%), Santa Cruz County (17.57%) and Gila County (17.45%) rounded out the top 10 in Arizona.
Of the top counties when it came to the percentage of excessive drinkers, only Maricopa and Pima counties could be considered “urban,” with those two also hosting two of the state’s three public universities, in Arizona State and the University of Arizona.
Coconino County is home to the state’s other public college, Northern Arizona University, potentially upping the county’s percentage a tad, while the rest could be explained by the net result of low population totals and a lack of things to do in the rural portions of the state.
USA Today photo by Barbara Gauntt.
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