America’s gambling problem has a new face, and it looks suspiciously like yours. Or your brother’s. Or the guy next to you at Mass who keeps checking his phone during the homily.
A recent Ohio State University study found that religious affiliation does almost nothing to prevent sports betting. Catholic men ranked among the most enthusiastic gamblers in the dataset. The pew and the parlay, apparently, get along fine.
It trains people to seek deliverance through randomness rather than work, discipline, family, or faith.
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Americans love believing that gambling addiction belongs to someone else: the degenerate, the Vegas burnout, the man at the racetrack, clutching losing tickets and emitting fumes that could strip paint.
Bottoming out
That stereotype has expired. Online gambling has democratized self-destruction, and the business of bottoming
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