Here is why gambling is bad: Winning Is Almost Impossible. Certainly, winning (which is actually rare) at gambling is a good feeling, but there are countless instances of losses. Think of someone who has been consistently buying lottery or spinning the roulette wheel for the past 20 years but never got lucky. With only one chance out of 37.
Sports betting has never been more visible in our society than it is today.
Major sports media outlets like ESPN and CBS have sections on their websites dedicated to coverage of gambling and handicapping. Al Michaels seems to allude to the point spread or over/under in almost any game he broadcasts, and recently-retired announcer Brent Musburger now heads up a sports betting information network based out of Vegas. And the Supreme Court is currently in the middle of hearing a case from the state of New Jersey, which could lead to sports betting becoming legal across the United States soon.
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Here’s the thing: It should have been legal a long time ago. With all forms of online gambling continuing to explode in popularity, it makes no sense that sports betting in particular is singled out as if it is an especially immoral activity.
Here are 7 reasons why it’s silly that sports betting isn’t legal.
1. Everybody Does it Already
And I’m not even talking about March Madness brackets, NFL survivor pools, fantasy leagues, and Super Bowl squares, all of which are forms of sports betting as well.
According to a UMass Lowell-Washington post poll that was released in September 2017, approximately 20% of sports fans have placed a bet on a game. Meanwhile, the American Gaming Association claims that approximately $4.2 billion was wagered on Super Bowl XLIX between the Seahawks and Patriots, and that 97% of those wagers were placed illegally.
Listen, I understand the argument that just because everybody does something doesn’t mean it should be legal. If that were the case, we could all pirate movies and software to our heart’s content, or drive as fast as we want down the highway.
While downloading creative works without paying for them is stealing, and driving 100 miles per hour on the freeway puts everyone in danger, sports betting doesn’t hurt anybody (as long as it’s done responsibly and recreationally, at least). If governments are concerned about protecting gamblers from themselves, why do they allow casinos (where the house has an insurmountable mathematical edge on games like craps, roulette, blackjack, and slots) while prohibiting sports betting (where a player’s skill at least gives them a chance to win)?
If everyone’s already doing it and everyone wants to continue doing it, governments might as well legalize it and make it a safer past-time for everybody involved.
2. It’s Already Legal in Certain States
New Jersey’s ongoing attempt to have the Supreme Court repeal PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) highlights the absurdity that sports betting is legal in Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon, but prohibited everywhere else in the country.
Ironically, PASPA was first sponsored twenty-five years ago by a New Jersey senator (Bill Bradley), who was looking to stop the spread of sports betting across the country. The four states that currently offer sports betting (in some form or another, though Nevada is the only state that permits single-game sports wagering) were grandfathered into the act because of their past laws allowing it.
A lot of things have changed since PASPA was passed. Almost all states currently have lotteries, gambling in general is a lot more accepted in our culture, and the internet has enabled all of us to gamble without borders, making the Wire Act of 1961 (prohibiting gambling across state lines) obsolete as well.
The biggest issue with PASPA, however, is that it appears to be unconstitutional. According to lawyer Daniel Wallach, at least five Supreme Court justices have indicated they agree that PASPA, “Violates the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle, which forbids the federal government from commanding the states to implement federal laws or policies that would interfere with state sovereignty.”
Boiled down, it’s not fair that some states can offer legalized sports betting while others can’t.
3. Sports Betting is a Game of Skill, Similar to DFS
Earlier this decade, when daily fantasy sports were first introduced into the mainstream, organizers had managed to find a loophole in anti-gambling laws. Since DFS was termed to be a “game of skill,” it wasn’t subjected to the same restrictions that sports betting faced under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
I can agree that DFS is a game of skill (in which the knowledge and expertise of a player gives them a better chance of winning, similar to poker), but that doesn’t mean it’s not gambling. And if DFS is allowed because it is a game of skill, then sports betting should be as well.
Sports betting is not the same as pulling the arm on a slot machine or buying a lottery scratch card. When you bet on sports, there are things that you can do to improve your chances of winning. Breaking down each team’s statistics and looking at recent performance to assess their probability of winning the next game is a skill. So is understanding odds, and so is knowing how to read the sports betting market in order to get the best possible number on your wager.
There’s still a lot of luck that goes into winning or losing a sports bet, but you can say the same thing about DFS, where an injury to a key player or a flukey interception can win or lose you your contest. If DFS is permitted in most states because it is a game of skill, sports betting should be treated no differently.
4. Betting is a Big Reason People Watch Sports
Sports are the toy department of life. They’re a vice, a diversion, a way for us to escape our jobs, our stresses, and our problems for a few hours. Otherwise, investing all of this time and emotion into supporting guys we don’t know scoring more points than other guys that we don’t know doesn’t really make that much sense.
Betting on games actually makes more people watch more sports. According to the American Gaming Association, people who bet on NFL games watch 19 more games per season than people who don’t bet. And not only is watching sports a healthy past-time in my opinion, it also boosts the ratings of the TV providers, which boosts advertising revenue, which boosts the economy.
Okay, so maybe I’m getting a little bit carried away here on this point. But if we’re going to invest time and emotion into watching sports, why not get everything out of it that we can? If our favorite teams or players aren’t playing tonight, let us have some other reason to watch the games. If point spreads and over/unders didn’t exist, I can’t see many people staying tuned in for a Patriots/Browns blowout in the fourth quarter.
5. Game Fixing Isn’t Going to Happen
The biggest reason that professional and college leagues oppose sports betting (publicly, at least, which is a point I’ll get into next) is the concern about game fixing.
Seriously? Maybe in 1970, when the average salary of a baseball player was around $30,000 per year. But now that even the most marginal of professional athletes is making close to 7 figures, I don’t see many taking a phone call from Fat Tony and agreeing to throw a game.
College is a different scenario in that respect, since the athletes don’t get paid (though I’d still sign up for a full ride scholarship), but that’s all the more reason to legalize sports betting. Having regulation in place brings sports betting out of the shadows and into the sunlight, providing a transparency that would make it easier for authorities to identify and investigate suspicious betting patterns.
You don’t hear much about match fixing in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, jurisdictions where sports betting is legalized, regulated, and monitored closely. Meanwhile, over the past fifteen years in the United States, we’ve seen Toledo university football players admit to point shaving, and former NBA referee Tim Donaghy plead guilty to allegations that he manipulated the point spread outcomes of games through his calls.
6. Leagues Want Legalized Sports Betting
The National Football League can pretend all it wants that it’s against gambling. We all know what the injury report is for, and why the NFL monitors teams’ adherence to it so closely. Let’s just say it’s not so that Tom Brady’s aunt knows if her nephew has a boo-boo.
I do believe there was a time when other sports leagues were genuine in their anti-sports betting stance, but that time is now over. Leading the charge is the NBA, with former commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver both recently going on record with their pro-betting regulation views.
“Let’s go all the way and have betting on sports. It’s okay. It’s going to be properly regulated… that gives a way for states to make more money, for leagues to be compensated for their intellectual property and for the federal government to take (away) illegally bet money and put it through the federal coffers,” Stern said in a public statement in 2015.
Silver went one step further by writing a column for the New York Times, concluding it by saying, “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
The NHL granted an expansion team in 2017-18 to Las Vegas, where it has held its annual end-of-season awards show for years. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders will be moving to Vegas as early as 2019. Major League Baseball maintains that they’re anti-gambling, yet have partnered with DFS sites in the past.
Let’s drop the charade. Sports leagues know it’s in their best interest to have regulated and legalized betting on their games. Their only hesitation is that they haven’t yet figured out the best way to capitalize financially on it themselves.
7. Regulation Would Generate Lots of Tax Dollars
Nevada was one of the states hit hardest by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, when many people suddenly found their home worth significantly less than the amount they still owed on their mortgage. But residents of the state might have been much worse off had the Nevada government not been benefiting from sports betting-related income for decades.
Even though Nevada charges its casinos just 6.75% tax on gross gaming win (the total profit after paying customers’ winnings), gambling continues to line the pockets of the Silver State. According to a Nevada Resort Association estimate, gaming revenue collected by the tourism and hospitality industries accounted for about 46% of the state’s general fund in 2010.
Other states have already turned to lotteries and casinos as a way to raise money for education, public safety, transportation, and other needs of their residents. But by keeping sports betting illegal, they’re missing out on a massive cash cow.
According to Forbes contributor Darren Heitner, the legalization of sports betting across the United States could generate more than $6 billion annually in tax revenues by the year 2023. The states would need to sell an awful lot of scratch tickets to come up with that sort of revenue.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was the talk of the NFL this season. The first-year starter out of Texas Tech took over the starting job when Alex Smith was traded to the Washington Redskins in the off-season. To say that Mahomes exceeded expectations in his first season at the helm for Kansas City would be quite the understatement as he lit the league on fire.
Mahomes became just the third quarterback ever to pass for fifty touchdowns in a season, the other two guys that did it are Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, maybe you have heard of them. Mahomes also joined Manning as just the second signal-caller ever to throw for fifty touchdowns and five thousand yards in the same season. Any time that you are mentioned in the same breath as guys like Manning and Brady, you are in some elite company. And the fact that Mahomes did it in just his first year as a starter makes it all even more impressive.
Not only was Mahomes named to the Pro-Bowl, but he was also named first-team All-NFL. The rumor swirling around this week says that Mahomes is looking at getting a five-year contract extension worth a reported $200 million dollars. That would be the biggest contract in league history by a huge margin, both in total value and per year value. The current biggest contract in NFL history was the $150 million extension that Matt Ryan signed with the Atlanta Falcons in 2018. And the highest per year value belongs to Aaron Rodgers who is getting $33 million a year from the Green Bay Packers. The Mahomes deal would dwarf both.
When you start throwing around numbers like $200 million and names like Brady and Manning, you have to take a step back and wonder, is this guy as good as we all think he is? What if I told you that at this point in his career Mahomes was overrated? In this article, I am going to break down the three main reasons that I think Patrick Mahomes is overrated and isn’t worth all that money. Let’s get started!
He Struggled When It Mattered
As good as Mahomes was this year, and he was jaw-droppingly good for most of the season, when it mattered most, he struggled. Let’s take a look at the Chiefs four regular-season losses and how Mahomes performed in each of them. The Chiefs lost their first game of the season way back in week six when the Chiefs went to Foxboro and played the New England Patriots. Mahomes threw two costly interceptions against the Patriots in the first half, and it cost the Chiefs as they were down 24-9 at halftime and could never quite dig out of that big hole. It was understandable for him to struggle as Bill Belichick is known for his ability to force young quarterbacks into big mistakes. Mahomes had a huge second half, and the Chiefs made a game out of it, but Mahomes looked human for the first time in his career as he had a 14-2 TD/interception ratio coming into the game.
That brings us to the Chiefs next loss, the week eleven loss to the Los Angeles Rams. This game was billed a potential Super Bowl preview as these were the two best teams in each respective conference at the time. And when you look at how the season ended up shaking out, that wasn’t far from the truth as both teams ended up playing in their conference title games. Its tough to be too hard on Mahomes for this one as he did throw for 478 yards and six, count ‘em six scores.
This loss falls firmly on his shoulders as had five turnovers. Including an interception with twenty-five seconds left on the clock that ended the game. Yeah, his stats were eye-popping in this one, but in the end, you can’t turn the ball over five times and expect to win.
The next loss for the Chiefs came just a couple of weeks later in week fourteen at home against the Los Angeles Chargers. People may have forgotten that this was a huge game for the Chiefs. All they had to do was win at home, and they would lock up the division title and a first-round bye in the playoffs. Instead, they lost the game and had to scramble late to win the division on a tiebreaker. Once again, when it mattered most, Mahomes struggled.
Against the Chargers, Mahomes passed for just 243 yards, his lowest total of the season. He also got sacked twice and fumbled. The second sack was a big one as it came on a crucial third down and resulted in the Chargers having a short field on the next possession. A possession they used to score the game-winning touchdown as time expired.
That brings us to week fifteen against the Seattle Seahawks. With the division title on the line, and the Chiefs badly in need of a victory, Mahomes once again failed to throw for 300 yards, and his team lost. Not throwing for at least 300 yards isn’t exactly a sin, but when you look at a season where Mahomes had thrown for 300 yards or more in ten of his first thirteen games before this one, it was an underwhelming performance.
We all saw what Mahomes was able to do in the playoffs against the New England Patriots. In the second half, he led his team to a big comeback and was able to send the game into overtime. But many of you might forget just how awful Mahomes was in the first half of the game. Mahomes hit the locker room with an abysmal four completions for just sixty-four yards and no touchdowns. It was the biggest game of his career by a wide margin, and Mahomes completely no-showed in the first half, and his team dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t completely dig out of.
His Production Fell Off Big After Kareem Hunt Was Suspended
Through the first eleven games of Patrick Mahomes career, he looked like the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. He threw for at least 300 yards in nine of those eleven games and had at least three touchdowns in eight of them, including four or more scores in six different games. The Chiefs were 9-2 and looking like the Super Bowl favorites in the AFC. Then the kick heard around the world happened and Kareem Hunt was kicked off of the team. I won’t go too far into what Hunt meant for this team, but he was coming off of a rookie season that saw him lead the NFL in rushing and had accumulated over 1200 all-purpose yards through eleven games.
The guy was a legit superstar and one of Mahomes biggest weapons. What makes the truly great quarterbacks so great is the fact that they can get the job done with any teammates you put beside them.
Manning, Brady, Brees, they rarely had consistent running games, and they seem to have a new group of receivers every year. But when Mahomes lost his big-time playmaker, his numbers took a nosedive. In the final seven games of the year without Hunt, including the playoffs, the Chiefs went 4-3, and Mahomes threw for 300 yards just one time.
Mahomes really struggled to stay upright as well as he was sacked fourteen times in those seven games. To put that in perspective, Mahomes was only sacked twelve times in the Chiefs first nine games. Once teams realized they didn’t have to defend against the run, Mahomes just wasn’t the same guy.
One Hit Wonder?
So, we saw what Mahomes can do when he is surrounded by weapons, and we saw what he can do when he gets to run up the score against bad teams in games that don’t matter all that much. And really, the results were quite staggering. This kid is surely talented and one of the more exciting players to enter the league in a long time. The question is, can he do it again? If you look back in NFL history, you will see all kinds of quarterbacks that had one amazing year, and then faded into obscurity.
Whether it is injury, coaching changes, team changes, or whatever the case may be, these quarterbacks never lived up to their hype after having a breakout season. Remember Derek Anderson in 2007? He was fifth in the league with 29 TD passes and top ten in passing yards with nearly four thousand yards. He has been mostly a career backup ever since. How about Steve Beuerlein for the Carolina Panthers in 1999? Beuerlein led the league in passing yards with over 4,400, besting Hall of Famer Kurt Warner at the height of the greatest show on turf St Louis Rams, while throwing thirty-six touchdowns. He was out of the league three years later.
Or how about maybe Robert Griffin III? He led the NFL in completion percentage as a rookie and looked like he would dominate the NFL for years to come. He didn’t. RG3 was out of the league within a couple of years and is just now making a return as a career backup. And the list goes on and on.
Wrap Up
Reasons Gambling Should Be Legal
Yeah, the eye test tells us this guy just might be different from the busts of the past, but are we going to let one strong season turn this guy into the highest paid player in NFL history? I have seen this story play out before, and it tends to end badly. Now, if Mahomes can show me that he can play at an elite level in the games that matter the most, and that he doesn’t need to be surrounded by elite weapons at every skill position to succeed, which he had when he was playing his best (Travis Kelce at tight end, Tyreke Hill at wide out, and Kareem Hunt at running back) then maybe you start talking long-term deal for big money. But until then, it seems way too risky.
Why Gambling Is Wrong
I like to get wrapped up in the hype of a young flashy new guy just like the rest of you, but the NFL is a business. And when you look at an investment of $200 million dollars in a guy that has one good year under his belt, that is speculative at best and reckless at worst. Three years from now I might consider him “worth” that type of money, but as of today? Yeah, I’m not buying it.