When legal sports betting surges, so do Americans' financial problems

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/04/nx-s1-5773354/legal-sports-betting-research-credit-bankruptcy

22•pseudolus•2h ago

Comments

SoftTalker•35m ago

Gambling can be a fun way to make a game more interesting. Some people can't stop there, but government lost any moral high ground when they legalized state lotteries.

dolphinscorpion•23m ago

Fun turns to disaster when you lose. Sadly, many can't control it, destroying entire lives in the process.

(Not passing judgment)

gruez•21m ago

>but government lost any moral high ground when they legalized state lotteries.

What's the implication here? "In for a penny, in for a pound", so might as well legalize every other form of gambling?

SoftTalker•18m ago

I think so. If you're going to regulate sports betting (and I think there are good arguments for doing that), but you yourself run a lottery which is a tax on people who don't understand probability, then you are just preaching in a "do as I say not as I do" kind of way.

HWR_14•2m ago

The difference between the ability to make bets 2-3 times a week for a dollar or two and the ability to drop $500 every play of a sporting event is dramatic.

recursivedoubts•25m ago

remember when gambling was illegal?

and the idea of advertising gambling on television wasn't even something conceivable?

and, even more so, the idea that sports entertainment channels would be directly involved in the operation of gambling of was just completely beyond comprehension?

ahhh, the remote, halcyon, bygone days of 2018...

JaceDev•19m ago

the math on these house edges is

gz5•1m ago

and the US govt often helps facilitate gambling during downturns so we could see even more direct and indirect promotion of the problem. examples:

+ in stagflation of 70s/early 80s - states create state-run lotteries to help fix their budgets

+ 2008 great recession - states legalize casinos to recover lost tax revenue and prevent folks from traveling out of state to gamble

+ C19 - states fast track the legalization of mobile sports betting and online casinos to secure immediate tax revenue

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