Jun 03, 2011 One of the reasons that gambling should be banned is that gambling could be the cause of criminal activities. One of the reasons that gambling should be banned is that G ambling could be is often the cause of criminal activities. (You have introduced your thesis with your three points, and so it makes sense that this paragraph will be the first topic in detail, without repeating the main point. Another big reason to why MLDA 21 should be abolished is the risk that just about every college student takes when paying for school. Many college students have to take out massive loans, risking their financial security and future, just for the chance, not guarantee, to get a better job in the future. Gambling is an addictive behavior that not only ruins finances, but can become very dangerous. When gamblers get involved with illegal or underground gambling, there are huge consequences to pay for those who often fail to pay up. But instead of banning the lottery, the state governments promote it.
Billions of people love to gamble. For some, it’s the thrill of the chase – the possibility of winning. For others, it’s entertainment or a way to escape the day-to-day grind.
If you asked them, they’d tell you they’re not doing anything wrong. That gambling is no different or no more a waste of money than going to a movie, concert or nice dinner out.
But then there are people who disagree. That, for one reason or another, think there’s something wrong with gambling.
We thought it’d be interesting to explore the other side of the coin. So, the following are 6 arguments we’ve seen people make against gambling.
1. Religion
This is the biggest argument on our list. Do a Google search for ‘arguments against gambling’ and you’ll see what I mean.
There are different reasons why religious people are against gambling. But they all stem from different verses you’ll find in the Bible.
For example:
Why Gambling Should Be Abolished
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.
Hebrews 13:5
You shouldn’t try to gain material things when all your basic needs are met.
Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies will have their fill of poverty.
Proverbs 28:19
God wants you to work (for what you have). Gambling is a way to make money without working, which is fueled by greed, selfishness and laziness.
For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD hateth.
Psalm 10:3
And yet another passage that condemns greed and overabundance.
The bottom line – the Bible teaches you to be selfless and not to covet (materialistic) things. And that you can save both time and money by not gambling – which you can use instead to better yourself and those around you.
But is gambling truly a sin? That depends on who you ask, how they interpret the Bible’s lessons, and whether or not they follow everything the Bible teaches.
Not surprising, some say gambling is a sin. No two ways about it; no ifs, ands or butts.
But then there are others who believe only compulsive gambling is a sin; it’s sinful to be addicted to gambling. But it’s not a sin to gamble in moderation.
“Bible-believing Christians would consider compulsive gambling a sin. That is, gambling is sinful for those who are addicted to it. Compulsive gamblers sin by wasting time. Gambling is for them such an addiction, that most or all of their spare time is spent gambling in one form or another and weekends and vacations which should be spent with family are taken up with trips to cities that have casinos. The more focus on gambling an addicted person becomes the less time he spends with his family and the less productive he becomes in his job.” (Excerpt from nolotto.faithweb.com)
2. Gambling Leads to Addiction
Another argument against gambling is that it leads to developing a gambling addiction. Statistics show that 80 percent of American adults gamble annually. What’s scary about that is they also show that every 3-5 gamblers (out of 100) struggle with a gambling problem.
Even scarier yet, statistics shows that as many as 750,000 young adults (14-21) have a gambling addiction. The risk of developing an addiction more than doubles for young adults, with people between the ages of 20 and 30 having the highest risk.
Gambling addiction – like most addictions – is destructive. It tears families apart and often leads to suicide, substance abuse, bankruptcy, crime and more.
3. It’s a Waste of Money
Here’s what Dave Ramsey (a financial expert) says about gambling in a casino:
“I don’t really have a moral problem with it, but I don’t understand the concept. Call me crazy, but I do not get a thrill from losing money I’ve worked hard to earn. That’s not my idea of entertainment.”
He goes on to say he thinks people who say they gamble for fun or recreation are delusional – that they believe they’ll actually beat the house and win – that they’re an exception to the rule.
And what about the lucky few who actually win? Well, Dave says:
“You may see a news story once in a while about someone winning big money in a casino, but that rarely happens. Think, too, about how much money those people had flushed down the toilet previously while gambling. There’s a really good chance they didn’t really ‘win’ anything. In most cases, they probably just recouped a small portion of their previous, substantial losses.”
Mark Ford (serial entrepreneur, author, real estate investor) shares similar, yet different sentiments to Dave Ramsey. Ford says he doesn’t gamble because it’s too much like work; he gets no pleasure from it; and because it’s so clear to him he’d lose money.
He goes on to say you could spend the same amount of effort into nearly any other endeavor and you’re likely to walk away richer, not poorer, as a result.
“Concentration. Focus. Calculations. Long hours. It all seems like work to me. The only difference is that in Las Vegas the odds are stacked against you.
In any other field of endeavor, you could take the same people and put them to work doing virtually these same things concentrating, figuring, calculating, and executing and you’d have almost certainly a viable business.
Not in Las Vegas. Over the long haul, gambling makes you poorer. Spend the same time and effort in almost any other endeavor, and you’re likely to get richer.
So why is it that so many people like to gamble and don’t like to work?”
4. Millennials Want Control
Another argument stems from stats that show millennials (people born from 1980-2000) gamble far less than previous generations. An interesting fact is how Las Vegas and The Strip visitation is increasingly being driven by millennials, yet gaming accounts for less than 37% of the revenue generated on the Las Vegas Strip.
The Motley Fool gives several reasons (guesses) why:
- Millennials find (current) slot machines boring.
- They want to be engaged and empowered – they want some control over the outcome.
- They prefer night clubs to casino gambling.
- They’re more interesting in online gaming, poker and daily fantasy sports.
- They want skill based games.
- They demand fairness.
- They want to be more social.
- They want experiences.
The common denominator here is that millennials want more control over their outcome. They want games where skill can overcome luck – and that’s just not possible when every casino game favors the house.
And why do all casino games favor the house?
5. Casino Games are Rigged
Did you know that every casino game favors the house? It might be by as little as half a percent (.5%), but the point is, casino games are rigged against you. This is called the house edge.
“My advice is don’t waste your time and money on that stuff. One way or another, the house always wins. That’s how they’re able to build those giant, billion-dollar places called casinos”. – Dave Ramsey
In the same article referenced above (#4), the Motley Fool says that millennials wanting more skill-based games (control) isn’t the (only) problem.
In Las Vegas specifically, the house edge – or the hold percentage – has increased over the last few decades. In other words, the games were already rigged against you – but now they’re even more unfair. You can find better value gambling somewhere other than Las Vegas (at local casinos, for example).
“…the underlying assumption is that if millennials weren’t spending their money partying in Las Vegas, they would be spending it gambling in Las Vegas (either that, or millennials apparently should be gambling more to match what they’re spending on bottle service)”.
“This is 100% wrong – the reality is that if millennials weren’t spending their money partying in Las Vegas, they wouldn’t be coming to Las Vegas at all”. – The Motley Fool
The Motley Fool goes on to say that, while gambling has matured, so has the audience. Millennials have grown up using the internet – they have access to (gambling) information that past generations didn’t have access to.
“(Millennials) are more knowledgeable and generally less stupid about gambling than any generation to come before us. We are far less likely to believe, for example, that the Martingale system is valid”. – The Motley Fool
The bottom line – the internet has made us wiser about gambling. Most people now realize that casino games are (legally) rigged against us. Between this and the worsening house edge, people choose to gamble far less, if at all (evident by the decreasing gaming numbers in Las Vegas).
6. Underage Gambling
Another problem people have with gambling is the affects gambling has on kids and young adults.
This is a very real concern. Earlier (#2) we shared a stat that says nearly 750,000 young adults have developed a gaming addiction, and that they’re nearly twice as likely to do compared to adults aged 30+.
Most casinos say you need to be 18 or 21 (depending on if they serve alcohol) to gamble.
Never mind the stats that show that even adults 18-30 are twice as likely to develop a gambling addiction. What about those who are younger than 18/21, but manage to obtain a fake ID?
Want an example? What about poker pro Phil Ivey – you can’t read a bio about him without it being mentioned he used a fake ID to play poker in Atlantic City in his early days.
This problem isn’t limited to brick/mortar casinos, either. Poker pro Tom Dwan started playing online at 17. He’s not the only one, either. It’s easier for kids/teenagers to gamble online since many casinos (especially offshore) don’t check your ID until you’re ready to make your first cash out.
Next to addiction and religious reasons, underage gambling is the strongest argument people make against gambling. The prevention of underage gambling is a cornerstone of all state (online) gambling laws, as well as a big criticism of others.
Conclusion
These are the biggest and most common arguments against gambling today.
It’s not hard to poke holes or make strong cases against any of these points. But that shouldn’t be our focus.
Instead, I think it’s a much better idea to understand why people are against it. For one, it’s easier to empathize with others – to see where they’re coming from.
But it can also help us improve the gambling industry – to talk about it and figure out what we can do to make the industry safer and more enjoyable for those who choose to participate. That, I think, is the best action of all.
Sports betting has never been more visible in our society than it is today.
Major sports media outlets like ESPN and CBS have sections on their websites dedicated to coverage of gambling and handicapping. Al Michaels seems to allude to the point spread or over/under in almost any game he broadcasts, and recently-retired announcer Brent Musburger now heads up a sports betting information network based out of Vegas. And the Supreme Court is currently in the middle of hearing a case from the state of New Jersey, which could lead to sports betting becoming legal across the United States soon.
Here’s the thing: It should have been legal a long time ago. With all forms of online gambling continuing to explode in popularity, it makes no sense that sports betting in particular is singled out as if it is an especially immoral activity.
Here are 7 reasons why it’s silly that sports betting isn’t legal.
1. Everybody Does it Already
Reasons Why Gambling Should Be Abolished
And I’m not even talking about March Madness brackets, NFL survivor pools, fantasy leagues, and Super Bowl squares, all of which are forms of sports betting as well.
According to a UMass Lowell-Washington post poll that was released in September 2017, approximately 20% of sports fans have placed a bet on a game. Meanwhile, the American Gaming Association claims that approximately $4.2 billion was wagered on Super Bowl XLIX between the Seahawks and Patriots, and that 97% of those wagers were placed illegally.
Listen, I understand the argument that just because everybody does something doesn’t mean it should be legal. If that were the case, we could all pirate movies and software to our heart’s content, or drive as fast as we want down the highway.
While downloading creative works without paying for them is stealing, and driving 100 miles per hour on the freeway puts everyone in danger, sports betting doesn’t hurt anybody (as long as it’s done responsibly and recreationally, at least). If governments are concerned about protecting gamblers from themselves, why do they allow casinos (where the house has an insurmountable mathematical edge on games like craps, roulette, blackjack, and slots) while prohibiting sports betting (where a player’s skill at least gives them a chance to win)?
If everyone’s already doing it and everyone wants to continue doing it, governments might as well legalize it and make it a safer past-time for everybody involved.
2. It’s Already Legal in Certain States
New Jersey’s ongoing attempt to have the Supreme Court repeal PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) highlights the absurdity that sports betting is legal in Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon, but prohibited everywhere else in the country.
Ironically, PASPA was first sponsored twenty-five years ago by a New Jersey senator (Bill Bradley), who was looking to stop the spread of sports betting across the country. The four states that currently offer sports betting (in some form or another, though Nevada is the only state that permits single-game sports wagering) were grandfathered into the act because of their past laws allowing it.
A lot of things have changed since PASPA was passed. Almost all states currently have lotteries, gambling in general is a lot more accepted in our culture, and the internet has enabled all of us to gamble without borders, making the Wire Act of 1961 (prohibiting gambling across state lines) obsolete as well.
The biggest issue with PASPA, however, is that it appears to be unconstitutional. According to lawyer Daniel Wallach, at least five Supreme Court justices have indicated they agree that PASPA, “Violates the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle, which forbids the federal government from commanding the states to implement federal laws or policies that would interfere with state sovereignty.”
Boiled down, it’s not fair that some states can offer legalized sports betting while others can’t.
3. Sports Betting is a Game of Skill, Similar to DFS
Earlier this decade, when daily fantasy sports were first introduced into the mainstream, organizers had managed to find a loophole in anti-gambling laws. Since DFS was termed to be a “game of skill,” it wasn’t subjected to the same restrictions that sports betting faced under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
I can agree that DFS is a game of skill (in which the knowledge and expertise of a player gives them a better chance of winning, similar to poker), but that doesn’t mean it’s not gambling. And if DFS is allowed because it is a game of skill, then sports betting should be as well.
Sports betting is not the same as pulling the arm on a slot machine or buying a lottery scratch card. When you bet on sports, there are things that you can do to improve your chances of winning. Breaking down each team’s statistics and looking at recent performance to assess their probability of winning the next game is a skill. So is understanding odds, and so is knowing how to read the sports betting market in order to get the best possible number on your wager.
There’s still a lot of luck that goes into winning or losing a sports bet, but you can say the same thing about DFS, where an injury to a key player or a flukey interception can win or lose you your contest. If DFS is permitted in most states because it is a game of skill, sports betting should be treated no differently.
4. Betting is a Big Reason People Watch Sports
Sports are the toy department of life. They’re a vice, a diversion, a way for us to escape our jobs, our stresses, and our problems for a few hours. Otherwise, investing all of this time and emotion into supporting guys we don’t know scoring more points than other guys that we don’t know doesn’t really make that much sense.
Betting on games actually makes more people watch more sports. According to the American Gaming Association, people who bet on NFL games watch 19 more games per season than people who don’t bet. And not only is watching sports a healthy past-time in my opinion, it also boosts the ratings of the TV providers, which boosts advertising revenue, which boosts the economy.
Okay, so maybe I’m getting a little bit carried away here on this point. But if we’re going to invest time and emotion into watching sports, why not get everything out of it that we can? If our favorite teams or players aren’t playing tonight, let us have some other reason to watch the games. If point spreads and over/unders didn’t exist, I can’t see many people staying tuned in for a Patriots/Browns blowout in the fourth quarter.
5. Game Fixing Isn’t Going to Happen
The biggest reason that professional and college leagues oppose sports betting (publicly, at least, which is a point I’ll get into next) is the concern about game fixing.
Seriously? Maybe in 1970, when the average salary of a baseball player was around $30,000 per year. But now that even the most marginal of professional athletes is making close to 7 figures, I don’t see many taking a phone call from Fat Tony and agreeing to throw a game.
College is a different scenario in that respect, since the athletes don’t get paid (though I’d still sign up for a full ride scholarship), but that’s all the more reason to legalize sports betting. Having regulation in place brings sports betting out of the shadows and into the sunlight, providing a transparency that would make it easier for authorities to identify and investigate suspicious betting patterns.
You don’t hear much about match fixing in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, jurisdictions where sports betting is legalized, regulated, and monitored closely. Meanwhile, over the past fifteen years in the United States, we’ve seen Toledo university football players admit to point shaving, and former NBA referee Tim Donaghy plead guilty to allegations that he manipulated the point spread outcomes of games through his calls.
6. Leagues Want Legalized Sports Betting
The National Football League can pretend all it wants that it’s against gambling. We all know what the injury report is for, and why the NFL monitors teams’ adherence to it so closely. Let’s just say it’s not so that Tom Brady’s aunt knows if her nephew has a boo-boo.
I do believe there was a time when other sports leagues were genuine in their anti-sports betting stance, but that time is now over. Leading the charge is the NBA, with former commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver both recently going on record with their pro-betting regulation views.
“Let’s go all the way and have betting on sports. It’s okay. It’s going to be properly regulated… that gives a way for states to make more money, for leagues to be compensated for their intellectual property and for the federal government to take (away) illegally bet money and put it through the federal coffers,” Stern said in a public statement in 2015.
Silver went one step further by writing a column for the New York Times, concluding it by saying, “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
The NHL granted an expansion team in 2017-18 to Las Vegas, where it has held its annual end-of-season awards show for years. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders will be moving to Vegas as early as 2019. Major League Baseball maintains that they’re anti-gambling, yet have partnered with DFS sites in the past.
Let’s drop the charade. Sports leagues know it’s in their best interest to have regulated and legalized betting on their games. Their only hesitation is that they haven’t yet figured out the best way to capitalize financially on it themselves.
7. Regulation Would Generate Lots of Tax Dollars
Nevada was one of the states hit hardest by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, when many people suddenly found their home worth significantly less than the amount they still owed on their mortgage. But residents of the state might have been much worse off had the Nevada government not been benefiting from sports betting-related income for decades.
Even though Nevada charges its casinos just 6.75% tax on gross gaming win (the total profit after paying customers’ winnings), gambling continues to line the pockets of the Silver State. According to a Nevada Resort Association estimate, gaming revenue collected by the tourism and hospitality industries accounted for about 46% of the state’s general fund in 2010.
Other states have already turned to lotteries and casinos as a way to raise money for education, public safety, transportation, and other needs of their residents. But by keeping sports betting illegal, they’re missing out on a massive cash cow.
According to Forbes contributor Darren Heitner, the legalization of sports betting across the United States could generate more than $6 billion annually in tax revenues by the year 2023. The states would need to sell an awful lot of scratch tickets to come up with that sort of revenue.