Online Sports Gambling and Virtue – Religion & Liberty Online

When a pastor I know told me about “an issue ruining marriages” in his congregation, I assumed he was going to describe a spate of financial trouble, a string of faithlessness, typical marital discord. Then he explained the trouble was “online sports gambling.” That stopped me in my tracks. PASPA, which stands for the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 and effectively banned online betting nationwide, was repealed by the Supreme Court on a states’ rights argument in 2018. Just as important, 98% of Americans have become cellphone owners, and a third of them have placed more than $600 billion in bets at legal online sportsbooks.

Moreover, Bettors Insider writes that consumer bankruptcy attorneys are seeing a surge of younger clients, mostly men in their 20s and 30s, running into serious financial trouble, largely because of online sports betting. Florida attorney Chad Van Horn estimates that roughly 15% of his clients now carry gambling-related debt, which accumulates faster than any other kind.

Walter Metzen, a Detroit-based bankruptcy attorney, writes that at least a dozen clients within the last couple of years have told him that they were at the end of their rope after burning through friendships by borrowing money to feed their addiction. He cites a client who accrued nearly $200,000 in debt from online sports betting and another who wagered $20,000 on single football games. Once a compulsive gambler loses control, Metzen notes, his “credit cards get maxed out. Personal loans are taken to cover gambling losses. Retirement accounts are drained. And for many, the financial damage becomes overwhelming.”

Personal accounts illustrate how quickly financial collapse can happen. In 2026, NPR/WBUR followed a young Massachusetts man named Adam who hid his betting from his girlfriend until the night he wagered everything he could on a Boston Bruins game, lost, and had to wake her up to confess that he had gambled away their entire savings. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine recently profiled 28-year-old Pennsylvania pharmacist Bryan Biehl, who would hide in the bathroom to place bets on his phone during family parties or while watching a movie with his girlfriend. He would wake in the middle of the night and wager on a ping-pong serve in Japan. On early morning drives to work, he’d gamble on the first quarter winner of a Korean basketball game, ultimately accumulating $50,000 in debt and experiencing suicidal thoughts.

A report from the American Institute for Boys and Men provides further evidence of the financial crises men of all ages are far more likely to suffer in states with legal sports betting:

• Auto Loan Delinquencies: Up 9% in states with any legalized betting and 5% in states with online betting
• Bankruptcy Rates: Up 25–30% three to four years after online betting is legalized, translating to roughly 30,000 more bankruptcies in the U.S.
• Credit Card Limits: Down 3% in states with online betting
• Credit Scores: Down 0.3% in states with any form of legalized sports betting. With access to legalized online sports betting, this effect is nearly three times as large.
• Debt Collections: Up 8%, with $30 more debt per consumer in states with online sports betting
• Debt Consolidation Loans: Up 10% in states with legalized general and online sports betting
• Ratio of Secured to Unsecured Credit: Up 4% in states with online betting

In any discussion about compulsive gambling, it is important to recognize that with losses comes shame, and with small wins come illusions of grandeur about the “next big win.” Both encourage gamblers to hide in plain sight, abetted by handy mobile apps that facilitate gambling during dinners, family visits, and even their own wedding days, as a recent story in New York magazine’s The Cut reports. The deceptions add up. There’s the debt from credit cards that Metzen mentioned, but also payday loans, cash advances, and employer theft. Eventually, tens of thousands or even three-quarters of a million in losses cannot be disguised anymore. To regain control, the non-addicted wives and partners fight deception for deception, hiding credit cards, rerouting paychecks under their own names, demanding postnuptial agreements and complete control. That’s how they save their own lives. Their partners and husbands, meanwhile, are not so fortunate. One served 11 months in federal prison before becoming a recovery coach. Others fell into relapse cycles. At the close of The Cut article, a younger girlfriend considers whether leaving before the marriage would have been the right thing to do.

In the U.S., an estimated 7 million people now suffer from compulsive gambling. Like substance abuse, it is classified as an addictive disorder, with substance abuse further classified as a “substance use disorder,” while gambling abuse is classified as a “behavioral addiction.” Regardless, the drive for another dopamine hit is the same, and the cohort it most impacts is generally the same, too, with greater numbers of male victims than female. Please note that men are already more likely to suffer from higher rates of loneliness and suicide, and therefore are also more likely, at 1 in 5, to attempt suicide.

To the question of why sports betting in particular so often drives gambling addiction, the answer is at least partly emotional: The best sports matches are timeless tales of underdogs and superstars, heroes and villains. But even less riveting games can trigger emotional responses. Repeat exposure to certain teams or players builds “brand loyalty.” For the most committed, a winning team casts reflected light, with fandom serving as an identity marker. Recent research also indicates that domestic violence is more common in states with legal sports betting. When a football team experiences an unexpected loss, rates of violence can increase 10%.

When it comes to online sports betting specifically, the sensory experience of watching and listening, which inevitably involve waiting, builds anticipation and triggers deepened involvement. Indeed, a frequently cited study in the journal Addiction Biology uses brain scans to show that the anticipation of the outcome is at the center of the addictive qualities of sports gambling. Driven by a dopamine loop, users keep returning for another opportunity to feel the thrill of the possibility of winning. According to the Center for Brain Health:

A core feature of gambling is reward uncertainty, in which the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a central role. Dopamine signals help us predict rewards, such as eating food or earning money. When rewards are delivered randomly, the anticipation itself leads to heightened dopamine activity. Over time, the dopamine system becomes activated simply by placing the bet, whether you win or lose. Under these chance conditions, the brain cannot detect a predictable pattern, so the dopamine cycle continues indefinitely.

This is the same brain pattern scientists see in people addicted to drugs and alcohol, where the urge to use takes over and crowds out logical decision-making. The constant push notifications, in-game odds, and one-tap betting in today’s sportsbook apps are working on a brain system that can be rewired to crave the next bet. It therefore stands to reason that the biggest sports gambling event of the year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s basketball tournaments, is known as “March Madness.”

Consider: In 2026, Americans legally wagered about $3.3 billion on the NCAA, a 54% increase over the past three years, according to the American Gambling Association. These numbers come on the heels of several NCAA sports betting scandals. In January 2026, ESPN reported that Jalen Smith of Charlotte, North Carolina, pleaded guilty in a Philadelphia federal court to charges of wire fraud and bribery, becoming the first of 26 defendants to formally plead in a sprawling NCAA point-shaving scheme, which involved gamblers bribing projected winners to lose and then betting on their “long-shot” opponents. Smith, who trained players for pre-draft tryouts (known to the cognoscenti as “pro scouting combines”), used his connections to recruit college athletes and paid them off to underperform. For each game they played less than their best, he paid them between $10,000 to $30,000 cash.

In December 2025, Front Office Sports reported on a wave of sports gambling scandals across multiple professional leagues that year:

• In the National Basketball Association (NBA), Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, and former Cleveland Cavaliers player Damon Jones were arrested in connection with two cases: an illegal basketball betting scheme and a rigged poker ring.
• In Major League Baseball (MLB), Guardians pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase were placed on leave in July 2025. Five months later, they were federally indicted for allegedly taking bribes to rig specific pitches, generating at least $450,000 in fraudulent prop-bet
• In tennis, the International Tennis Integrity Agency issued multiple suspensions, including a 20-year ban for French player Quentin Folliot as a “central figure” in a match-fixing syndicate, bans of six weeks to 12 years for five other players, and a lifetime ban for Yannick Thivant after he admitted to fixing 22 matches.

Eight years after the PASPA repeal, Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society and sports. In 2025, lawmakers responded by reintroducing the SAFE Bet Act, which “would require states offering sports betting to meet minimum federal standards in the categories of marketing, affordability, and Artificial Intelligence to create a safer, less addictive product.” To ensure passage, however, the bill would require bipartisan support from the U.S. Congress, strong public opinion, and the approval of professional sports leagues.

Also in 2025, Lisa D’Alessandro sued DraftKings Inc. after her estranged husband gambled almost $15 million on their site over just four years, secretly depleting credit cards, and the Christmas-, birthday-, and baptism-funded savings accounts of their two children. The day after he confessed to his wife that he’d lost the money gambling, D’Alessandro filed for divorce. She sought roughly $942,000 from DraftKings, which she accused of “nurturing” his costly addiction—and reached a sealed settlement.

In the journal Christian Higher Education, Kimberly M. Reeve and Jared Pincin offer a Christian response that also deserves serious attention. It is based on the two fundamental views of gambling within Christianity: one that sees it as inherently sinful and another that views it as permissible in moderation. Reeve and Pincin navigate the debate by proposing a framework based on core Christian principles, asking key questions to assess the morality of the activity:

1. Motivation: Is the goal harmless entertainment or is it driven by greed? Proverbs warns against the desire to get rich quickly.
2. Love of Neighbor: Since gambling is a zero-sum game—for one to win, others must lose—how does it align with the command to love your neighbor as yourself? Even when betting against a corporate sportsbook, the house ultimately pays winners with the money from losers.
3. Christian Witness: Does the practice harm one’s witness to Christian virtue or cause a fellow believer to stumble by putting something so addictive near the vulnerable?
4. Stewardship: Is gambling a wise use of God-given resources? Scripture praises productive labor and sound investments, not short-term, high-risk ventures.

Reeve and Pincin argue that online sports gambling fails all four tests. By design, it is addictive and its marketing messages encourage both greed and the illusion of control. While bettors may believe they are using skill, the reality is that the apps and platforms themselves are enabling outcomes that can financially break families.

While some will address the problem by calling for a ban, it is unlikely any level of government will endorse one any time soon, given the high tax revenue derived from such a high-profit industry. In lieu of regulation, however, we are endowed with the ability to exercise the virtues: prudence, justice, and temperance. A society that lacks formation in these areas will leave men vulnerable to online sports gambling and the destruction it reaps. Users must be confronted with the wisdom of engaging in any activity without self-imposed limits, given that online platforms are designed to take advantage of human proclivities toward impulsivity. Above all, religious leaders and religious institutions have a moral responsibility to address online sports gambling directly and specifically, lest their silence inadvertently condone the potential crisis of so many ruined lives.