A visit to a ballpark used to mean a wholesome family afternoon with popcorn and hot dogs and maybe a beer or two. These days, the adult members of a family party can step away from the kids between innings to lay micro bets on anything from the next base hit to the victor’s winning spread. In ballparks across the country, betting kiosks, mobile apps, and websites mean that anyone can lay down a bet just about anywhere, anytime, on anything.
When states decided that they would prefer picking the pocket of the poor through the lottery rather than surrendering gambling revenue to organized crime, the nation embarked on a slow surrender to institutionalized gambling that has finally resulted in a broad acceptance of sports wagering. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which kept sports betting largely limited to Nevada (some states had already allowed horse and track betting).
States quickly rushed in to claim their share of that sweet Vegas cash stream. Now, 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of sports betting. Although the totals remain small for now, sports betting has become the fastest growing tax revenue stream for states, which may be beginning to experience an addiction of their own to this easy money.
Over the last five years, sports gambling has grown by 20 percent or more each year. The American Gaming Association reports that the industry leaped from a total amount wagered, called the handle, of $6.7 billion in 2018 to almost 20 times that amount—$120 billion—by 2023. USA Today reports that a record 67.8 million people laid wagers on the Super Bowl last February.
The clear winners in the rapid expansion of sports betting have been the physical and digital gambling purveyors themselves, of course, but marketing and ad firms hired to normalize gambling in the public mind are also raking in record amounts, and tax-collecting states and municipalities also get a chance to wet their beaks as sports betting spreads. So who is watching out for the losers?
Like any other form of addiction, gambling can become an illness that takes over the victim’s life. The casualties of sports gambling addiction, of course, are not limited to the bettor alone. All a compulsive gambler’s loved ones are ensnared in their addiction and the suffering and financial ruin it engenders. According to research from the National Council on Problem Gambling, the risk of gambling addiction has increased by 30 percent between 2018 and 2021. The council estimates that about 7 million people in the United States now struggle with problem gambling.
The church offers scant instruction on wagering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church views gambling as more or less an acceptable vice but acknowledges that the “passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement.” It also instructs that gambling becomes “morally unacceptable when [it deprives] someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others.”
Unfortunately, most of us don’t find out about the addictive tendencies that may lead to ruin until we begin to experiment with what in moderation may be considered a harmless pastime. With gambling’s tendrils spreading across U.S. ballparks, betting parlors, and the internet, we have made experimenting with this “harmless” fun all too easy.
A broad acceptance of sports wagering opens a cultural Pandora’s box without much apparent thought to the inevitable personal and family ruin that will follow. Do warning labels, public service announcements, and 1-800 hotlines absolve the larger society of responsibility for the people who will be sucked into the addictive machinery of this new industry? Don’t bet on it.
This article also appears in the September 2024 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 89, No. 9, page 42). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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