The Good Old Days of Sports Gambling

Las Vegas is no longer the seat of the sportsbook gods. In most states, it’s now legal, and extremely popular, to place bets using apps or websites such as FanDuel and DraftKings. From your couch, you can wager on everything from the results of snooker championships to the color of the Gatorade poured over the victorious coach after the Super Bowl. The N.F.L., along with the other major-league American sports associations, has officially partnered with sports-betting sites, and their alliance has proved so lucrative that other industries want in on the action; last month, the Golden Globes made a deal with Polymarket, a predictions-market platform, to encourage wagering (or “trading,” if you prefer) on the outcomes of its awards race. Betting, like cannabis and cabaret before it, has shed its reputation as a vice, and the nation has eagerly forgotten that sportsbooks exist to turn a profit. Even the addiction hotline 1-800-GAMBLER suddenly sounds like the number you’d dial to start gambling.