Is Gambling “Killing Sports”?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

America’s $72 billion gambling industry is expanding and fast evolving. A New York Times opinion piece November 2 was headlined “Gambling Is Killing Sports and Consuming America.” See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/opinion/sports-gambling-major-leagues.html/. Joon Lee proceeded to describe and lament the explosion of easily accessible online betting through heavily advertised sites like DraftKings and FanDuel allied with professional sports.

The headline on a simultaneous New Yorker piece by Danny Funt decried “The Sports Betting Disaster.” See https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-sports-betting-disaster/. In January, Funt releases a book titled “Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling.” He depicts the more addictive move into 24/7 online “prop” bets on what might happen moment to moment during a game, and “parlays” stacking multiple possibilities. Basketball agent Danial Haran tells him that props, now the biggest money-maker, especially tempt athletes with chances to manipulate games.

On October 23, one of the worst sports scandals erupted since the White Sox threw the 1919 World Series. The FBI charged more than 30 defendants in a scheme where three organized crime families allegedly tapped National Basketball Association conspirators for inside information, and used star athletes to lure high rollers to fixed poker games. Then two Cleveland baseball pitchers were hit with similar charges.

November 22 Showdown

There’s an upcoming showdown in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which through 119 years enforced absolute bars to sports betting. One day before the basketball scandal hit, the NCAA announced a momentous decision allowing players and coaches to bet on professional games but not college games. In the ensuing uproar, some collegians demanded that this change be rescinded, with the final decision coming November 22. Also, this week the NCAA banished six basketball players at three universities for fixing games or giving bettors inside information.

Gambling expanded dramatically after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Murphy ruling to abolish federal law against sports gambling, leaving states free to legalize it. That in turn inspired “prediction markets,” dominated by Kalshi (founded in 2018) and Polymarket (in 2020), which won crucial court approval last year. Instead of sports, bettors guess other future outcomes such as stock averages, verdicts in court cases, government numbers, even the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Some think betting on election outcomes might supplant polls.

Enthusiasm comes from the top. President Donald Trump supercharged matters October 28 when his Truth Social announced a partnership with crypto.com in its new Truth Predict market. Donald Trump Jr. is investing in and advising prediction markets. The President’s interest in the gambling industry is longstanding. He was formerly a major player in casino developments and lost big, as recounted at www.casino.org/blog/trump-casino/.

Pleasurable personal bets or office pools have always accompanied athletics, but till recently professional leagues saw organized betting as a serious threat to games’ credibility, for good reason. A March Sacred Heart University poll showed 61% of Americans are “somewhat” or “very concerned” about gambling’s risk of sports corruption. Last month, Pew Research reported that 43% of Americans think legal sports betting is bad for society and 40% that it’s bad for sports.

Industry’s “Hammerlock”

Lee examined the ways leagues, teams and the sports media are thoroughly enmeshed with the gambling industry. The NFL, NBA, and MLB “now have direct financial stakes in the infrastructure of sports betting” and the sports media promote it daily. The system “rewards corruption” and erodes public trust, he believes. Just this week, Disney’s ESPN network switched its online betting partnership, worth some $2 billion, to DraftKings, promising to “super-serve passionate sports fans.” Lee says gambling interests hold a “hammerlock” on sports and are “in charge, and everyone knows it.”

Another pressing issue is obsessive “problem gamblers” who can destroy their family finances and careers. James Whelan, director of the Institute for Gambling Education and Research at the University of Memphis, says an estimated 2 to 4 million Americans are afflicted with “gambling disorder,” and another 5 to 9 million suffer troubles but do not require psychiatric intervention. The situation could be worsening. JAMA Internal Medicine reported last February that online searches for help with gambling increased 23% during the betting upsurge between 2018 and 2024.

Alongside the vigorous discussion of all the above, history records substantial moral opposition from religions. Regarding the Bible, a March posting by biblestudyforyou.com cited 30 verses said to oppose gambling, but these cover related matters like greed or neglect of God. The Bible contains no explicit commandment against wagering.

But practical moral effects have long roused absolute opposition, notably from Protestants, including their two largest U.S. denominations. In June, the Southern Baptist Convention for the first time added sports betting to its concerns. A resolution denounced “the promotion and normalization of this predatory industry” with “deep concern regarding its detrimental impact on individuals, families, and communities.” It saw  “a culture of greed while specifically exploiting and preying upon young adults, the impoverished, and those with addictive personality traits.”

 “A Form of Idolatry”

Last year, the United Methodist Church for the fifth time reaffirmed its 1980 policy statement. It states, “Gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic, and spiritual life, and destructive of good government. Gambling feeds on human greed and invites persons to place their trust in possessions rather than in God. It represents a form of idolatry.” Gaining money “by chance and at the neighbor’s expense, is a menace to personal character and social morality.” Commercial gambling “is a threat to business, breeds crime and poverty, and is destructive to the interests of good government.” Methodists are asked to shun even raffles, lotteries, Bingo, or door prizes.

Unlike Protestant prohibitions, the Catholic Church is tolerant, as symbolized by parish Bingo fund-raisers, but raises concerns. A typical summary at catholiceducation.org says that entertaining games of chance such as betting, card games, or lotteries are not intrinsically evil. But games must be fair, and participants need to protect family finances, control passions, and avoid addiction. “While everyone enjoys winning, the motive for playing the game should be one of pleasure rather than of gain.” The church’s current Code of Canon Law (#285) directs priests to avoid all things which are “unbecoming” or “alien” to their status, but omits wording in the 1917 edition that specified habitual or high-stakes gambling.

In Judaism, the ancient Talmud (Sanhedrin 24b) considers the winner of a bet a “robber” taking money from others “that is not legally his.” In practice, the religion has been tolerant, especially with raffles and lotteries interpreted as charitable donations. However, Orthodoxy’s Rabbinical Council of America calls upon “Jewish communal institutions not to use gambling as a fundraising vehicle.” A rabbinical ruling in Judaism’s liberal Reform branch said “it is one thing to accept human frailty, but another to approve [gambling] or to encourage it” through synagogue fund-raising.

A strict prohibition, however, is found in Islam’s holy book, the Quran, which links the sin of gambling (maysir or qimar) with idolatry against the true God and the faith’s well-known prohibition on alcoholic beverages (2:219; 5:90-91). An explanation at islamqa.info says gambling “makes a person rely on accidents, luck and wishful thinking” for income instead of “hard work,” “destroys families,” “breeds hatred,” and “leads to crime, suicide, insanity, and chronic illness.”

Note: Problem gamblers can get help at 1-800-522-4700 and https://gamblersanonymous.org/