Gambling Our Fortunes Away

If I had to categorize 2024, I would label it “The Year of the Gambler.” Whether a favorite sports team, quarterback, political race, or weather forecast, it’s now possible to place a wager on almost anything.

Appeals to gamble are so common it’s nearly impossible to turn on a football game, situation comedy, or newscast without seeing someone urging us to throw money away on a game of chance.

And, thanks to the advent of apps that allow bets to be placed at the poke of a finger, our society is courting disaster. Those who think of gambling as a victimless crime are ignoring reality.

Mounting Evidence

I say that because of mounting evidence. Right after the NFL season kicked off, Bloomberg Law carried a story that outlined the problems in the roughly 30 states that have legalized online sports betting since 2018.

That was the year a U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for the practice. Not surprisingly, Bloomberg reports that consumer bankruptcy attorneys are starting to see gambling debts feature more prominently in their practices.

It is easy to see why. The publication said that Americans were projected to place a record $35 billion in legal bets throughout the current NFL season, up from $27 billion a year earlier.

Additional legislatures are contemplating it. In November, voters in Missouri narrowly approved a ballot initiative to join the parade. It’s one that no state should rush to be part of, considering the impact of online betting the past six years.

“In the years since, residents of those states have seen early signs of financial distress, including a 28% increase in the likelihood of bankruptcy filings, according to a separate July study,” Bloomberg’s Evan Ochsner wrote.

“Online sports books have made gambling easier and more accessible, and some attorneys say it’s pushed clients into Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.”

Affecting Everyone

The thing to note is that bankruptcies don’t happen in a vacuum. When people can’t pay their debts, creditors have to eat the costs. Except that they don’t, passing them along to the rest of us in the form of higher prices, fees or surcharges.

Aside from the monetary damage, the moral issues involved in gambling are numerous.

At its heart lies the practice of benefiting from another person’s loss. All while holding out the promise of rewards when the “house” is often the only party ahead at the end of the day.

The Ten Commandments include prohibitions against coveting another person’s property or possessions, or stealing from them.

In luring people to throw away their hard-earned funds in hopes of gaining more, gambling operations engage in all those activities. Outright thievery? Maybe not, but I think “theft by deception” applies.

Cause for Unity

In recent years, the moderate voices of Christianity have regularly clashed with evangelical and fundamentalist types.

Yet opposition to gambling is one cause that can unite believers of every stripe.

I saw that in this column last year by Baptist pastor Rodney Kennedy. Although he comes from a progressive perspective, Kennedy sounds like a Bible thumper when he asks: “How has gambling become a glittering virtue?”

Kennedy notes that the South has moved from the Bible Belt to the Gambling Belt, while outlining how this dramatic conversion occurred.

The four steps: 1) gambling marketing itself as good business, 2) a sea change in the nation’s moral climate, 3) legal sanctions from that 2018 court ruling, and 4) aligning itself with major sports.

Writes Kennedy: “The enticement offers greater appeal than the talking serpent offering the forbidden fruit to Eve.”

Sadly, society is following her in yielding to temptation.