Dear Reader,
When Odysseus sailed past the sirens, he did not trust himself to resist them. He assumed he would fail. So he ordered his crew to fill their ears with wax and lash him to the mast, with instructions to ignore whatever he shouted once the singing started. That story is not about a weak man. It is about a man sober enough to build the restraint before the music began.
I have been thinking about that passage while watching what has happened to betting in this state. Wisconsin legalized online sports betting this year through tribal operators. Within weeks the attorney general sued Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket and Crypto.com for running what he called illegal sports betting here. The federal commodities regulator turned around and sued Wisconsin. A federal judge has now said the state is better positioned than Washington to address the risks of gambling addiction. Ahead of the August 11 primary, the Elections Commission warned voters they could face a felony for wagering on a race they vote in. We opened the front door and are now suing everyone who came through the window.
Set the lawyers aside and look at the product. More than half of all wagers are now placed while the game is still being played, on questions as small as whether the next pitch will be a ball or a strike. The siren song is that the reward arrives in seconds instead of days. In North Carolina, calls to the state problem gambling hotline more than tripled as mobile betting rolled out. When one Canadian province opened its market, nearly all of the increase in helpline traffic came from adolescent boys and young men.
Illinois collected more than 2.6 billion dollars in gambling taxes last year and spent less than one tenth of one percent of it on treatment. What is Wisconsin’s number?
I am not asking anyone to ban this. Prohibition would only hand the business to operators no one can regulate. I am asking for rope that allows people to “tie themselves to the mast” so that they don’t go off the deep end into gambling addiction: deposit limits, self-exclusion that actually works, an end to push notifications aimed at people who already tried to quit, and no advertising built for kids. Addiction can make even the strongest person say and do destructive things. We need to help people who recognize their vulnerability and want to lash themselves to the mast.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here