Online Sports Gambling and Virtue

When a pastor I know told me about “an issue ruining marriages” in his congregation, I assumed he was going to describe a spate of financial trouble, a string of faithlessness, typical marital discord. Then he explained the trouble was “online sports gambling.” That stopped me in my tracks. PASPA, which stands for the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 and effectively banned online betting nationwide, was repealed by the Supreme Court on a states’ rights argument in 2018. Just as important, 98% of Americans have become cellphone owners, and a third of them have placed more than $600 billion in bets at legal online sportsbooks.