Sports betting may be good for the companies that promote it, but it is not good for sports or for society. Sports acceptance and popularity in society are the result of proven benefits to individuals and to groups. What the individual gains from practicing sports regularly is good physical and emotional health. Groups also benefit from sports because it provides them with wholesome teamwork training and group identity. There is also an economic aspect to sports. Quality and quantity do require abundant resources. They also have the potential to generate great profit.
Playing a sport by the rules is the ideal, and it remains so for many. Later, winning the competition became the prevalent understanding. In people’s minds, winning became everything. The result of this understanding does not need any proof. From sport reforms to anti-doping. We read about this evidence all the time. The next stage in the devolution of sports is legalized betting. Winning in sports gambling will eventually replace winning in competition. The real winner won’t be the one practicing sports, or even winning in sports, it will be the one who masters the art of the spread. Most likely, that person will be alternating between poker and football depending on the season. The two activities are very dissimilar but the powerful motivation of gambling addiction is the same.
30 states now legalize sports betting, and an equal number in millions of Americans are expected to bet on the outcome of the Super Bowl this weekend. This is so sad. There might be some benefit in moving all those gambling revenues that exist today in the illegal economy to the taxable economy, but we all know the high costs of addiction and unproductive consumerism. Rational people everywhere should speak up and discourage the nascent trend of legalized sports betting.
