A Most Useless Vice
Sam Sykes ~ 10/24/2024
In 1910 America, gambling was not federally banned, but through a combination of local and state laws the country had essentially killed legal gaming. It was a requirement for statehood for places like New Mexico, Arizona, and even Nevada to ban gambling for admission into the union. It wasn’t until the 1930s that legal gambling started to make its comeback. So why would the U.S. give up on banning it? The industry has exploded over the last decade, and the amount of wealth it has stolen from Americans has been staggering.
With the exceptions of Nevada (1931) and New Jersey (1976), casino gambling was largely illegal in the United States until the 1990s. In the 1970s, state lotteries (drawn and scratch) really began to get legalized throughout the country. Cities that have been developed around the gambling-tourism industry are known to be completely dirty, disgusting cesspools of corruption and crime. The explosive growth of the gambling industry has been nothing but horrible for the citizens of anywhere that allows it.
Pro-gambling organizations have argued that legal gambling is a useful tool to combat illegal gambling enterprises, and that people would just go underground if it was made illegal once again. What we have actually seen is that the legalization of gambling, especially online sports betting, has energized a new, young group of eager bettors. While also removing the dangerous elements of illegal betting that repelled your average law-abiding citizen. Growing up during the rise of the sports app, I have seen first hand the transactions between 18-year-olds and their younger students and friends to place wagers for them. Age verification goes out the window pretty quickly.
Twenty-four states have legalized online sports betting, and they have made billions in tax revenue doing so. Everyone knows that app betting is extremely gamifies gambling and targets mostly young men, but if it brings in a couple of bucks for the state, fuck those kids, right?
The people most affected by gambling are overwhelmingly poor and young men. Americans spend over half a trillion dollars a year on all different types of gaming, almost double the $250 Billion that we spend on booze. Low-income men are more than twice as likely to gamble as the general population. Flooding poor communities with “Skill” machines, lotteries (such as Scratch-offs), and other gambling facilitators is crushing these areas. Rent, food, child support, and more go out the window as this money is poured into gaming.
Gambling is incredibly destructive to black people and their families. They categorically score higher on disordered gambling, female gambling, and heavy gambling among the youth. How the industry has not gotten a reputation for being incredibly destructive to minority communities is insane. If anything was destroying black wealth as much as gambling, it would be front page news, but somehow, it gets a pass.
So what’s the point? There is really no purpose in gambling. Every type of game is designed to make money for “the house”, even without gamblers chasing losses. I’ve seen guys make the manic walk between the skill machine and the ATM to squeeze a few more dollars from their depleted accounts. The heartbreaking realization is that they make so many trips back and forth because they must be thinking, “Okay, just twenty more dollars”.
I obviously don’t condone drug or alcohol abuse, but at least when you spend money on those vices you actually receive a product in return. Gambling is easily the most financially devastating vice you can partake in. It does not provide a product or service, and it would be a big stretch to say that it provides entertainment. This country really needs to look at gambling and its horrible effects on people’s lives. Let’s ask ourselves, why is something so bad allowed to prey on Americans without scrutiny.
