> the amount wagered on sports bets has grown from $5 billion to $150 billion annually. 58% of college students have bet on sports. 50% of all men below 50 have an online sports betting account.

If I had my way, everyone who has ever made a "why make it illegal/regulate it? People will just do it anyway."-style argument would be forced under penalty of law to write the above quote 300 times on a chalkboard.

Note that the article uses an outdated name for the Supreme Court case: Christie was replaced as governor while it was ongoing and the final name was Murphy v NCAA. That will make it easier to search for later coverage of the result instead of just early blog posts from when it was brought to court.

It all comes down to: there was a ton of money to be made.

They left out the UIGEA which specifically legalized fantasy sports for money and the fact that FanDuel was not the first daily fantasy sports site (went through YC with one myself in 2007) but good primer nonetheless.

Sports betting is one of those things that sounds kind of harmless in the abstract, and like something that consenting adults should be allowed to do. But in practice, it causes enormous harm, both by draining the meagre resources of the people who get addicted to it, and by changing the nature of the sports in ways that make them less enjoyable for everyone who isn't betting.

I think betting needs to work like credit cards. When you get a credit card the bank does a risk assessment to evaluate your line of credit and you won't be able to spend over that limit.

Well, sports betting could have the same mechanism, where you are only allowed to bet an amount proportional to your line of credit.

If the banks don't trust you to spend over that limit and honour your debt, why should betting houses be any different?

The problem is the intersection of two things that have questionable social merit and you could easily see a society making illegal.

One of them is gambling.

The other is modern marketing.

Combined, they represent a substantial harm.

With nearly all of our social agency - which in our society means money - already in the possession of a tiny fraction of the country, with the bottom half of the country having approximately zero savings and spending at least as much as they have income? Any revenue gleaned from their dysfunctional attitude becomes a collective hardship, money that needs to be replaced by some form of subsidy to maintain our quality of life and avoid spillover problems like property crime.

There's some intense opposition to betting here. It's odd because in the UK sports betting is pretty much embedded in the culture. In fact i'm pretty sure the only reason horse racing is even a thing is because posh rich people like to bet on it. I'm anti gambling personally which is part of why i hate crypto but i don't get why sports betting in particular is so objectionable.

My charitable interpretation is that it's a way for fans to feel more invested in the game. When their team wins they also do.