A Dangerous and Unsocial Form of Excitement
· The Atlantic
One of the puzzling things about the online sports-betting boom that has swept through American culture over the past decade is the relative slowness of religious leaders to articulate a moral case against the vice.
In the past, churches were among the leading voices warning against gambling. Jerry Falwell denounced it as a sinful habit that preyed on the poor and left “little children” to pay the price. In The Atlantic’s December 1907 issue, a Unitarian minister made the case against “speculation.” “The long and costly experience of mankind bears uniform testimony against gambling,” Charles F. Dole wrote. “It is a dangerous or unsocial form of excitement; it hurts character, demoralizes industry, breeds quarrels, tempts men to self-destruction.”
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But in recent years, as state legislatures have raced to legalize sports betting and gambling ads have flooded the airwaves and millions of young men have begun walking around with a casino in their pocket, spiritual leaders have been relatively muted.
Jonathan D. Cohen, a researcher who studies gambling policy, noted recently that the National Association of Evangelicals, which in 1985 called gambling and lotteries “socially, morally and economically destructive,” has barely addressed the new betting boom. Since 2018, the group’s official statements have mentioned gambling only once, as one item in a long list of “social evils” threatening the American family.
Why the silence? Perhaps the speed at which online gambling has spread simply caught religious leaders flat-footed. And perhaps some are wary of alienating their flock, among whom gambling has become normalized.
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Whatever the reason, the result was predictable. In 2022, 71 percent of Americans said gambling was morally acceptable, the highest share Gallup had recorded since it began regularly asking the question in 2003.
I’ve noticed this anecdotally in my own faith tradition. While speaking on Utah’s college campuses about the explosion of online sport betting, I’ve been struck by how many young Mormon men have followed their peers onto DraftKings and PolyMarket with little consideration of the ethical or spiritual implications. Many of the students I met don’t think about gambling in moral terms at all; some don’t even consider sports betting or prediction markets to be gambling.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has officially condemned gambling since its earliest years. Throughout the 20th century, prophets and apostles preached against the spiritually corrosive vice, and the Church encouraged members to oppose pro-grambling ballot initiatives. But the last time a senior Church leader addressed gambling at its General Conference—the Church’s semiannual global broadcast and most prominent pulpit—was in 2005. The long silence from the conference pulpit may have allowed some members to convince themselves that the Church had softened its stance—or that their Kalshi habit was not a religious issue at all.
The silence ended this past Saturday, when President D. Todd Christofferson, a senior leader in the Church’s highest governing body, used his General Conference address to condemn gambling. His remarks were well researched: He recited various statistics about the industry’s expansion, and spelled out the ruinous social consequences. He detailed the popular forms of online gambling and even offered a quick survey of the bets you can make on prediction markets—including the timing of the Second Coming. (“Where do you go to collect on that bet?” he wondered.)
But then Christofferson arrived at the real point of his talk.
“For us as Latter-day Saints, overarching all other concerns is the fact that gambling is morally wrong,” he said. “Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing. Its structure requires that any gain comes at others’ expense. It’s hard to reconcile that with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.” He went on to say that Christians should be wise stewards of their God-given resources, and that “gambling produces nothing of value and enriches only its purveyors.”
He also addressed those in his audience who believe that they can gamble casually without becoming addicted. “Since your recreational gambling may lead a weaker brother or sister into temptation, just don’t do it,” Christofferson said. “Every soul is precious.”
Other Christian leaders have also recently become more outspoken about the issue. Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention formally condemned sports betting, and in February, leaders in the Assemblies of God, a large Pentecostal denomination with nearly 3 million adherents in the United States, warned that sports betting “erodes Christian character.”
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The sports-betting industry has begun to draw more scrutiny in the mainstream media too. Last month, The New York Times reported that DraftKings had developed an AI model to identify users most likely to lose money so that it could target them with promotions. When employees then developed a model that would have assigned “risk scores” based on users’ likelihood to develop compulsive behaviors, the company reportedly sidelined it. Meanwhile, an investigative reporter at ProPublica posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to see how the company—which likes to boast about its “responsible gaming” safeguards—would react. He was barraged with promotions and invited to a VIP program.
Journalism like that can raise public awareness, shape legislation, and even inform sermons. (My own contribution to the genre—The Atlantic’s April cover story—was quoted in Christofferson’s talk, though he graciously referred to me as a “prominent journalist” instead of a “degenerate gambler,” my editors’ preferred descriptor.)
But journalists are not moral leaders. Neither are legislators or regulators. Those who are alarmed by the runaway gambling industry, and the way that it’s preying on America’s young men, should welcome an explicitly moral case against gambling, whether or not they share the religious beliefs of those articulating it. Until Congress decides to get involved, sermons like Christofferson’s might be among the few things that can move the needle.
On Saturday afternoon, several friends sent me the same Instagram video. It showed a pair of young Mormon men comically collapsing to the ground in devastation as they watched Christofferson’s talk on TV. The caption implied grudging repentance: “We had a good run, boys.”