Why Sports Betting Should Concern Christians

Sports gambling was once relegated to the underbelly of American life. It was a major scandal in 1989 when Pete Rose, an All Star player and manager of the Cincinnati Reds, was caught betting on Major League Baseball—even on games played by his team. His lifetime ban from the sport and the Hall of Fame came as no surprise to fans.

In recent years, sports betting has emerged from the shadows. You can’t watch a sporting event without seeing a commercial for betting. Sports shows on major networks are sponsored by companies like DraftKings and FanDuel. In 2025, 22 percent of U.S. adults reported betting on sports.

In Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, journalist Danny Funt explains how a system that’s rigged against the bettors made it into mainstream culture. Funt also convincingly argues that the costs of legalized sports gambling are already high, and things are likely to get worse before they get better. As the costs continue to rise, Christians can benefit from understanding how sports betting took over our culture and why that’s bad.

Cultural Change

Sports gambling has always existed, but it used to be seen as seedy and antisocial, often run in the shadows by organized-crime networks. League commissioners and team owners used to fight for laws to prevent it, especially after problems, like the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal, threatened the game’s integrity.

It’s taken years of linguistic manipulation to move sports gambling into the mainstream. For example, employees of sports gambling companies are discouraged from using the term “gambling” when referring to the industry. The approved term is “gaming” (8). It’s no coincidence that the industry’s leading lobbying group, the American Gaming Association, uses that euphemism in its title. “Gaming” makes a predatory industry sound like it manufactures board games.

But creative naming isn’t the only way gambling has been mainstreamed. Years after Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 1992, which banned sports gambling nationwide, companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings created daily fantasy sports (DFS) using a legal loophole.

DFS are online games where users build virtual teams of real athletes for short periods of time (often days instead of the typical season-long fantasy sports league) for a chance at cash rewards. It’s not quite like betting on your home team to win the game, but it helped make gambling seem more acceptable. It’s also an easy way to introduce sports betting to the masses.

Changing the Law

PASPA didn’t kill sports betting in the purer sense either. As Funt documents, bookmakers set up their businesses offshore to feed the growing demand for gambling. The internet made those wagering opportunities accessible. Meanwhile, casino representatives met in secret with sports league officials to strategize about legalizing sports gambling in the United States.

Secrecy was no longer needed beginning in 2018, because the U.S. Supreme Court overturned PASPA. Significantly, the law was overturned because it dictated what state legislatures could and couldn’t do, not because of a constitutional right to bet on sports. After that, the financial floodgates opened for the industry. Since 2018, Americans have wagered over half a trillion dollars on sports.

Since 2018, Americans have wagered over half a trillion dollars on sports.

It was the promise of this type of money that initially brought “leagues, their broadcasting partners, and gambling executives” together. The pretense of secrecy vanished overnight. As one interviewee told Funt, “I’d been having conversations with all those people for years behind closed doors. Then suddenly everybody’s in the room going, ‘Alright, we’re going to make a s—load of money on this’” (68).

Picking (On) Winners

Everyone wants a cut of the money from sports betting, from gambling executives to sports fans. However, any wagering system that exists long-term has to ensure it makes a profit. The industry is in direct competition with the bettors. Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. And, as the old adage goes, “The house always wins.”

To keep a fresh supply of wager income, bettors need to feel like they have a shot at winning. This is why the collaboration between sports media outlets and gambling corporations creates a rigged game. According to Funt,

Many sports outlets, from ESPN to Action Network, have spent years trying to convince their audience to take up betting. The implication is that if fans read enough articles, watch enough shows, and listen to enough podcasts, they’ll have a legitimate shot at making money. (122)

Yet even while media promote a false hope of informed bettors picking well, sports betting companies restrict the bets of individuals who consistently win. That practice has led some states, like New York, to introduce bills to prevent those companies from picking on winners.

To keep a fresh supply of wager income, bettors need to feel like they have a shot at winning.

Yet it’s worse than just blocking winners. Sports betting companies actively cultivate reliable losers by giving them VIP rewards. Though VIPs make up approximately 2 percent to 3 percent of sports bettors, they account for 60 percent to 70 percent of revenue. Ironically, the personal hosts and special perks designed to keep VIPs happy and hooked are funded by 10 percent to 25 percent of their losses. It’s just another way for “the house” to win.

Counting the Costs

The legalization of sports betting is causing predictable problems. The integrity of sports has been threatened as gambling scandals involving the NBA, MLB, and collegiate sports made the news in the last year.

But larger social consequences loom as well. The sports gambling industry preys on young people, especially young men. One former FanDuel executive says,

When I look at the eighteen-to-twenty-five audience, there is a remarkable financial nihilism. . . . And it translates into them disproportionately betting these 100-to-1 or 1,000-to-1 parlays—disproportionately searching for very high upside outcomes because, in their mind, that’s the only way for them to escape [financial challenges]. (213)

This isn’t just a cultural issue; it’s a discipleship problem too. An already anxious generation is being lured into potentially addictive gambling by ubiquitous advertising for convenient smartphone apps. As bankruptcy rates rise because of gambling debts, the church won’t go unscathed.

Popular opinion about sports betting is shifting as people reckon with the damage it’s causing to society. Pastors, teachers, and youth leaders need to learn to talk about the dangers and have resources for those struggling with gambling addiction.

Funt’s book can help make that case against sports betting. Everybody Loses helps Christians explain why opposition to legalized gambling isn’t legalism; it’s part of loving our neighbors well.