The coming gambling tsunami

If we had warning sirens to alert us to social catastrophes — like sirens warn us of approaching floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes — we would have a thousand alarms blaring across the land from coast to coast. The reason: a burgeoning tidal wave of legalized gambling and its impact on young people (especially young men).

Last fall, I wrote a column on the coming gambling addiction crisis, titled "The most predictable scandal in recent sports history."  Now, additional data has surfaced confirming the possible future impact of gambling addiction on our nation’s young adults.

A front-page article inUSA TODAY, titled “Kids Delve Into Sports Betting” by Nick Penzenstadler, proclaims the distressing news that more than one-third of adolescent boys have participated in the last 12 months in gambling through legal outlets (30% of 11- to 13-year-olds and 41% of 14- to 17-year-olds). Most of these youngsters bet on legalized sports books, and while some of them are caught while betting as minors, they resumed as soon as they turned 21.

Unfortunately, according to Jim Whelan, executive director of the Tennessee Institute for Gambling Education and Research at The University of Memphis, “the top two predictors of adult problem gambling are: you have a parent with a gambling problem and starting at a young age.”

These gambling facts serve as a harbinger of a tidal wave of financial and personal heartbreak for multiple thousands of young men who will have their financial and often their personal futures destroyed or seriously diminished by gambling addiction.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s extremely unwise decision to legalize sports wagering in 2018, the national appetite for online gambling has metastasized. It is estimated that Americans wagered $1.7 billion in legal wagers on Super Bowl 60.

Unfortunately, 31 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have legalized online sports betting (Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming).

The experiences of the United Kingdom and Australia serve as a useful, or perhaps rueful, guide. Children who grew up with gambling as part and parcel with sports are very prone to see sports and gambling as integral to each other and inseparable.

In essence, as a nation of adults, we are allowing our children and adolescents to be bombarded by very attractive advertising enticements to sports gaming, and they will see it as integral to the sports experience.

Knowing the extremely deleterious impact of legalized sports gambling, why does the adult community continue to condone and often encourage it? The answer is money.

Let us all understand some basic things about gambling. First, it is a zero-sum game. In order to win, someone else has to lose. Gambling produces no wealth or product. It is really a violation of “Thou shalt not steal.” If you win, you are taking the money from other people. It also may be a violation, depending on your state of mind, of “Thou shalt not covet.”

Furthermore, God ordained civil government to punish evildoers and to reward those who do that which is right (Romans 13). With legalized online betting, the state governments are making out like bandits.

As Les Bernal, national director of the Stop Predatory Gambling, has observed, “State governments are partners to this industry and can’t push too hard because they’re making so much money. They’re like the arsonists and firefighters at the same time.”

Actually, legalized sports betting makes the civil government into a “bookie,” promoting what amounts to a socially harmful activity for its “cut of the action.”

And finally, this coming avalanche of addiction will sooner or later undermine and corrupt the integrity of athletic contests. As athletes become indebted themselves, some of them will inevitably succumb to the temptations to throw games or beat the point spread, and the integrity of the game — be it baseball, football, soccer or basketball, etc. — will be compromised in ways that will be difficult, if not impossible, to undo.

It is difficult to think of a more foolish and immoral policy with more destructive consequences than the one we have embarked upon as a nation. I pray we wake up before it is too late.