About our Speaker: Alex Shephard is senior editor of The New Republic, where he has covered politics and culture since 2015. His work has also appeared in New York, GQ, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other publications.
About the Program: Sports gambling is everywhere. After the Supreme Court struck down a federal law prohibiting it in 2018, states across the country quickly struck down their own bans. Today, 38 states not only allow residents to gamble on sports, they have opened up app-based betting that allows residents to wager on sports from their phones. It is now nearly impossible to watch any sporting event or sports coverage and not be awash with betting advertisements, punditry about odds, and constant nudges that remind viewers that they could be staking money on the outcome—or something as banal or trivial as whether or not the next pitch is a ball or a strike.
For cash-strapped states, sports gambling has been a boon: It has opened up a new source of revenue that doesn’t involve levies or tax increases. But in less than a decade, there are alarming signs that the rush to legalize sports gambling has already led to steep increases in bankruptcy, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicides. But the societal cost of sports gambling goes well beyond the individual and the family: It’s also straining social resources and fraying community bonds.