The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Betting Apps Are Targeting You And Your Family

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00:00:26.800 Once upon a time, gambling was something done in back rooms in smoke-filled basements.

00:00:33.060 Now, one in five Americans has a sports betting app right next to their Bible app.

00:00:39.420 In 2024 alone, Americans legally wagered nearly $150 billion on sports.

00:00:47.260 Nearly all of it, 95%, was done online.

00:00:51.240 No dice, no bookie, just tap, swipe, and lose.

00:00:56.800 For over a century, both American law and Christian conscience agreed that gambling was a vice,

00:01:03.580 not merely a private sin, but a public threat. It corrupted sports, from the 1919 Black Sox scandal

00:01:11.960 to Pete Rose. It bankrupted homes. It bred addiction. So in 1992, Congress passed the

00:01:19.300 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, barring states from legalizing sports betting.

00:01:25.640 The goal was to shield young people, uphold the integrity of sports, and slow the spread of a morally corrosive practice.

00:01:34.060 That restraint lasted 26 years, until the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in 2018.

00:01:42.780 Since then, we've witnessed a cultural transformation, not a thoughtful repraisal of risk and reward,

00:01:50.180 but a full surrender to the gods of revenue, entertainment, and ease.

00:01:56.100 And that surrender has been lucrative.

00:01:59.040 Lobbyists promised lawmakers untold tax revenue.

00:02:03.160 Tech companies engineered betting apps that are frictionless, addictive, and nearly impossible to close.

00:02:10.780 Now children can stream an NBA game and place a live bet on who misses the next free throw.

00:02:17.640 The app encourages it. So does the league.

00:02:21.460 But is it just harmless fun? A little added thrill to the game, perhaps?

00:02:26.080 Or is it something deeper? A system designed not to entertain, but to exploit?

00:02:33.060 When gambling apps track your every wager, target your weaknesses, and make it easier to bet than to withdraw,

00:02:41.180 is that still freedom? Or is it a new form of bondage?

00:02:45.460 And what happens when Christians get pulled into the system?

00:02:49.760 For centuries, the Church understood games of chance as morally precarious, if not downright dangerous.

00:02:57.960 Not because randomness is sinful.

00:03:00.980 After all, the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.

00:03:07.700 But rather, because gambling treats chance as profit, and profit as providence,

00:03:14.200 It tempts us to see fortune as fate and risk as recreation.

00:03:20.840 So, what are we really looking at here?

00:03:23.400 A neutral technology that needs guarding or a predatory industry that preys on disordered

00:03:29.800 loves promising fast money and delivering slow ruin?

00:03:34.840 This episode is brought to you by our premier sponsors, Armored Republic and Reese Fund,

00:03:41.060 as well as our Patreon members and our faithful donors.

00:03:45.440 You can join our Patreon by going to patreon.com forward slash rightresponseministries,

00:03:52.420 or you can donate by going to rightresponseministries.com forward slash donate.

00:03:59.600 So today we trace the long Christian view of gambling, from biblical cleromancy to digital

00:04:05.960 entrapment, and ask whether the modern church has fallen silent just as Mammon found a new

00:04:13.260 app store. So, let's dive in.

00:04:24.540 All right, here we are, here we are. We're going to be talking about gambling today,

00:04:28.140 as you've just seen from the cold open. Michael, you have outlined this episode

00:04:32.280 just right off the cuff uh right off the cuff from the outset um i can't help but think

00:04:38.320 there's so many like there's just so many things that i didn't think about when i was younger more

00:04:42.980 and more things pop up and i just can't get away from the fact that um the state uh really does

00:04:49.260 have i think a god-ordained vested interest and um in controlling a lot right like libertarianism

00:04:57.140 has no guard against what we're discussing today yeah um you know get off my lawn um you know like 0.53

00:05:04.600 maybe your lawn stays green for a while but the rest of the nation goes to hell in a handbasket

00:05:09.780 like i you know i've always just you know thought you know like let's just be conservative and you

00:05:16.020 know so just a small state is a righteous state you know small government that's the way to go

00:05:20.680 and don't get me wrong there are plenty aspects of our government you know a managerial state

00:05:26.660 a welfare state you know plenty plenty items um that that need to be much smaller but um but there

00:05:33.060 are other items uh where the government actually is called by by god i mean romans 13 is fairly

00:05:39.860 expansive to punish evil doing and so then the question is like okay so how many different forms

00:05:46.100 are there of evil um is there economic evil is there you know is gambling evil um a company

00:05:52.900 preying on the poorest of the poor. Is that evil? There's a lot of evil beyond just, you know,

00:05:59.580 assault, you know, on a public street corner. And so the government actually has a calling by God

00:06:06.720 to be involved in these kinds of things. And just a free market that allows for, you know, anything

00:06:12.800 goes is not actually keeping with scripture. That libertarian sentiment is still alive and well

00:06:19.480 today even though many of course they don't caucus with the libertarian party just here in texas

00:06:23.560 state representative brian harrison who's great on for example like the sanctity of life protecting

00:06:28.360 the unborn and other moral things he voted against texas's thc ban because he said hey the government

00:06:33.400 right they don't have a role to regulate this well no i do think that actually the government does

00:06:37.320 have a role in regulating harmful and addictive thc products they're putting in drinks they're

00:06:42.040 putting in candies kids are getting a hold of it whereas libertarians has like well i mean people

00:06:46.360 should be free to consume purchase manufacture sell and that sentiment still today people voting

00:06:52.920 going nope government hands off we should be able to do what we want right best case scenario is

00:06:58.680 the strongest libertarian argument can be made in the most virtuous society right and even then

00:07:05.960 some of these things whether it's i mean they didn't have online things like we do now but

00:07:10.440 prostitution and gambling and things like that have been strictly regulated throughout american

00:07:14.680 history from the very beginning when arguably we were at the most virtuous and the most self-ruled

00:07:19.400 and self-governed. So, yeah, Joel, you have a good point there. Well, we are going to be talking

00:07:25.020 about gambling and specifically about the rise of online gambling and specifically online gambling

00:07:31.380 encompasses the apps and the sports betting that happens. And so this is something that I was

00:07:39.660 thinking about, well, what's a topic that would be helpful? And someone actually mentioned it in

00:07:43.340 chat i don't know a week or two ago and i thought we kind of we kind of cater to the manosphere a

00:07:48.360 little bit and statistically the manosphere is the group of people that is getting into this the

00:07:54.040 fastest and the most and so i thought well it's a good thing to talk about and um we we're not at

00:08:00.320 least i'm not going to come out and say gambling is inherently sinful right there are forms of

00:08:05.640 gambling this has actually been um something that has been talked about i was shocked at how much

00:08:11.740 the church has talked about this from the very beginning, like all the way back. And as I'll

00:08:18.740 show with some of the quotes, a lot of the early fathers and even the scholastics, even Calvin,

00:08:26.900 you know, they said, we can't find biblical justification to call the act of gambling

00:08:32.100 sin. But we can go so far as to say it's so unwise and so dangerous that it should be banned.

00:08:38.240 And so it's a situation where the church has taken a position largely that even though it's not objectively sinful, the dangers surrounding it were such that the state has a vested interest in stepping in and getting involved.

00:08:52.020 So a couple of just opening facts to kind of justify why we're talking about this.

00:09:00.460 Sports banning as we see it now, which I'll get into more later, was not legal in the United States until 2018.

00:09:06.500 OK, so before 2018, you had to be in Las Vegas or what's the other one in the East Coast, New Jersey, Atlantic City, yeah, to do some of these sports betting.

00:09:21.260 But by and large, you had to be there in person to do legal sports betting.

00:09:26.480 In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling and made it the Supreme Court didn't make it legal.

00:09:34.500 legal they removed the uh federal statue that made it illegal um that regulated it um so that's

00:09:43.580 just 2018 that's not that long ago in 2022 seven billion dollars were were gambled in sports betting

00:09:51.740 it was a dark year last year last year i could see i could see what madness drove them to that

00:09:57.200 no no no no seven billion is nothing okay last year was 150 billion oh wow so we went from 2018

00:10:04.420 to zero to 2022 7 billion to last year 150 billion just on sports betting alone online sports betting

00:10:11.960 so this is a steep rise uh really really steep rise we talk sometimes about the value of

00:10:19.100 industries this one is one that is on the rise um up to 23 um sorry 95 percent of that's happening

00:10:28.260 with online betting platforms or apps right so you can go on your on your computer or right on

00:10:33.920 your phone. You don't have to call someone. You don't have to be in a casino. You just click of

00:10:37.940 a button on your phone. That's 95% of that $150 billion. And right now, 40 states allow sports

00:10:44.820 betting. 34 allow it online or through apps. So this number, the $150 billion, does not even

00:10:53.040 include large states like California and Texas. Both of them still do not allow online sports

00:10:58.460 betting at all. And so the two most populous states in the country are not even part of this

00:11:03.460 figure and it hit 150 billion last year in texas you can't do it no cannot do you uh do you have

00:11:10.040 stuff on advertising later on a little bit yeah i just have to say like this is it's incredible how

00:11:15.880 much this has been pushed this was not i mean some of it is organic because people want to gamble for

00:11:20.040 money but i mean my goodness the last few years i'm sure we have all we've sat through the ads

00:11:23.960 on television we've seen them on our phone they've been presented to us on social media

00:11:27.500 literally in billboards bet bet bet bet that's been a huge part of the rise yeah and not only

00:11:33.720 that but it's being built into um like live streaming services so if you pay to watch the

00:11:39.000 nba or something like that scrolling along the bottom now will be things like bet on if he makes

00:11:43.720 the next free throw or you know and just boom click of a button you're you're betting a couple

00:11:47.940 bucks or however many bucks you want and so it's all being integrated and that's one of the

00:11:51.920 criticisms is that it's so seamless and the the the safety provisions are so hidden you have to

00:11:59.060 click this button and this button this button this one just to set a minimum or a maximum bet for

00:12:03.900 yourself but you can almost immediately bet you know a ton of money very easily so there so we'll

00:12:09.660 get into that in a minute what I wanted to start with just briefly is actually a little bit of the

00:12:14.420 history of what Christian thought has been on this topic. So games of chance and casting lots

00:12:22.280 have been around almost from the beginning of history. We have evidence of it. But throughout

00:12:29.400 Christian history, there has been an attempt over and over again, and I know this because

00:12:33.840 the theologians who write about it argue against it time after time after time. There's been an

00:12:39.200 attempt to say, well, the Lord himself encouraged the casting of lots, the Urim and the Thurim,

00:12:45.200 for making decisions. And this has been something that you talk about, like some theology gets

00:12:50.800 settled and some never really does. This argument, it's in the early fathers, Augustine

00:12:58.420 deals with it, and then in the scholastics it's dealt with, Calvin dealt with it. That argument

00:13:04.720 comes up over and over again. So it is true that the Lord called people to use lots. And the guiding

00:13:14.060 principle seems to be when there is a decision or a resource that needs to be parceled out and there's

00:13:20.540 no real perceptible better way to do something. It just really is six dozen of one, half a dozen

00:13:29.480 of the other to determine an equitable distribution. And so mom brings home popsicles and the kids all 0.97

00:13:37.600 want to take a turn. Who gets the strawberry one? That's the favorite. You draw straws, right? And

00:13:43.660 then the kid with the longest straw gets to pick first. That sort of distribution of resources or

00:13:49.280 a decision that really has no other guiding principle. It could be this decision or this

00:13:54.460 decision. We're going to appeal to the Lord's providence, which is really what the Urim and

00:13:58.040 the theorem were and we are or casting lots for instance drawing of lots to choose judas's

00:14:03.420 replacement that was an appeal to god's providence not a casting yourself on the winds of chance as

00:14:09.640 it yeah and it wasn't like we're going to cast lots for anybody to you know like matthias yes

00:14:15.740 that's true they got all the way down to two guys on merit you know so they first looked at like

00:14:20.600 who's been here since the beginning of jesus ministry you know who's who was a witness of

00:14:25.960 his resurrection right jesus only appeared to a select few yeah it was large you know over 500

00:14:31.560 witnesses but still that narrows it down you know quite a bit and uh and so like here are all the

00:14:37.440 criteria that have to be met in terms of wisdom in terms of character in terms of providence that

00:14:43.260 that this person has been a witness and been with us you know for this period of time and witnessed

00:14:47.900 these events um and when they got done with all the merit-based criteria they had whittled it down

00:14:54.540 to two so like you can't look at that decision nobody should look at the decision and say the

00:14:59.660 apostles made it merely on the basis of chance no merit got them down from a virtually limitless

00:15:06.280 sea of people right to two and what they're saying is that like we narrowed it down as far as we can

00:15:11.400 go and we've and we've presented every single piece of criteria we can possibly present and

00:15:17.300 these two um have equally yep you know um surpassed each of these criteria to where uh we have we have

00:15:25.060 a tie uh we actually have a tie so in this case it's like you know a football game one's not a

00:15:31.080 seven one's not an eight right yeah there's a football game flipping a coin before the game

00:15:35.360 starts to see who's going to kick off correct all right that's you know no leadership structure

00:15:39.440 either so this is not a wife going to her husband right man i don't know we're arguing about this

00:15:43.640 he's like we're really not she's like okay fine i'll flip a coin over it it's the husband say

00:15:47.640 yeah master slave it's the master say but in that context there was not even a first among equals

00:15:53.000 really with the apostles like they were just they were apostles it's the early church no

00:15:57.080 instructions they say okay we're literally in this case every other recourse is gone yeah we'll cast

00:16:01.240 the lots yeah yeah yeah um nate i'm going to skip the first quote let's go to quote number two the

00:16:05.880 one that starts with clement of alexandria so i'm going to read some quotes from i thought a really

00:16:09.640 helpful article um i'm going to say the title of it in case the listener wants to go look at this

00:16:14.760 article later it was very long and um well written the article is called what does it profit gambling

00:16:21.160 in the christian tradition by jordan baller and it's found on the acton institute so this is one

00:16:26.920 of the quotes from his article he says clement of alexandria articulated a balanced and nuanced

00:16:31.640 perspective on wealth and its power administration riches he says which benefit also our neighbors

00:16:37.880 are not to be thrown away for they are possessing possessions in as much as they are possessed and

00:16:43.720 goods in as much as they are useful and provided by god for the use of men and they lie to our

00:16:49.720 hand and are put under our power as material and instruments which are for good use to those who

00:16:55.720 know the instrument so also a poor and destitute man may be found intoxicated with lusts and a man

00:17:02.120 rich in worldly goods, temperate, poor in indulgences, trustworthy, intelligent, pure,

00:17:08.700 chastened. His point was, whatever resources God has given you, whether you're rich or you're poor,

00:17:15.980 God expects faithful use of them. And in there, he talks about skillful use of them, but also

00:17:21.480 a use of them that's going to have an eye to benefiting your neighbor. And Clement was making

00:17:30.120 the case there that games of chance have no benefit to your neighbor. They don't provide

00:17:35.040 any sort of meaningful employment for your neighbor or any sort of reliable income.

00:17:40.700 And basically, he was saying, you're really running the risk of squandering away the money

00:17:45.560 that God has given you for your benefit, for your use, and also for looking out for your neighbor.

00:17:52.260 Quote number three, this is about Thomas Aquinas. And so he says in the article,

00:18:00.120 Thomas Aquinas makes distinctions between participants in games of chance, especially whether someone has been taken advantage of in the relationship.

00:18:10.060 He treats gambling profits in the context of whether such money can illicitly be given as alms.

00:18:16.160 Quote, this is what Aquinas now says, the winnings themselves of gamblers are prohibited by law.

00:18:20.660 If one has played with someone who has the power to dispose of what is his, if he is drawn into the game and loses, he can seek restitution, writes Aquinas, because he has been taken advantage of by someone like a professional swindler.

00:18:35.340 If the one drawn into the game by the swindler wins, however, quote, he is not bound to return

00:18:40.860 the winnings, but the man who has lost is not worthy to receive, nor can he illicitly keep,

00:18:47.000 unless positive laws were abrogated anywhere by the opposite custom.

00:18:50.700 What he's saying here is if you're swindled or taken advantage of into a game of chance

00:18:55.100 that you either didn't realize or you didn't realize it was rigged against you from the

00:18:59.300 beginning, if you lose, he's saying lawfully, by natural law, you would have the right to

00:19:06.860 seek retribution. You were basically stolen from. But I do find it funny, he says, but if you

00:19:11.940 happen to beat the swindler at his game, too bad. The swindler knew he was getting into. So I thought

00:19:17.560 that was an interesting perspective. He's based on usury too, Aquinas. He didn't play.

00:19:22.460 Yeah, absolutely. Quick quote from Luther. This is number four. Now, this is interesting because

00:19:29.140 the question of usury and gambling um some people tried to say it was the same thing and some did

00:19:35.420 not i just for the record luther's position was money won by gambling is not usury either yet

00:19:41.440 it is not without self-seeking self-love and sin so he was saying money gained by usury is not

00:19:49.120 gained by being productive money earned by gambling is also not really um earned by being

00:19:55.840 productive lawfully productive but he's saying they're not the same thing but even so the money

00:20:01.600 that you gain from gambling he says is not without self-seeking self-love and sin which i thought was

00:20:08.000 interesting um it was totally banned in geneva uh calvin he actually was a representative of the

00:20:14.200 genevan government um before he was a pastor and while he was there he helped institute a complete

00:20:21.840 ban on games of chance throughout the city of geneva we do need to take that with a grain of

00:20:26.720 sand salt because he also banned going to the play and dancing um they're going to the theater

00:20:34.040 and dancing and things like that so it was all part of i guess what what in in calvin's language

00:20:41.220 a body b-a-w-d-i-d-y a body lifestyle or lascivious lifestyle so a couple interesting a couple more

00:20:49.540 quotes here just to kind of set the theological history. So this is quote five, Nate, and he's

00:20:57.240 talking here about Calvin. This is again from the same article. He says, those men who think it to

00:21:04.400 be wickedness to cast lots at all. So here, Calvin goes so far as to say we're banning it, but it's

00:21:10.800 not overtly sinful to cast lots. Those men who think it to be wickedness to cast lots at all

00:21:15.900 offend partly through ignorance and partly they understand not the force of this word writes

00:21:20.480 galvin there is nothing which men do not corrupt with their boldness and vanity whereby it is

00:21:26.440 come to pass that they have brought lots into great abuse and superstition for that divination

00:21:32.680 or conjecture is made by lots is altogether devilish but when magistrates divide provinces

00:21:38.300 this is resources among them and brethren incur their inheritance it is a lawful thing and so

00:21:45.500 Calvin actually found it necessary to defend the just use of lots as a visible display of God's

00:21:53.920 providence against the abuses of gambling for profit and for divination. That's similar to how

00:22:00.940 he is on usury, where he says, look, if it's your income, you're providing nothing of value. Right.

00:22:06.500 But I do recognize practically someone needs some money, they go to their neighbor and that says,

00:22:10.000 hey, I'm giving you $5,000. Give me $5,100 back for it. Recognizing that it's not a strict black

00:22:16.140 and white. Practically speaking, are you providing value? What is this used for? And where the Bible

00:22:21.340 isn't clear, he's neglecting to give a hard and fast rule. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Two more

00:22:27.520 quotes. Quote six. This is from a Puritan named Thomas Gadiger. And so again, quoting from the

00:22:34.180 article um the writer of the article uh says the most substantial and influential work concerning

00:22:41.080 lots lotteries and chants more generally was penned by the puritan divine thomas gadiger

00:22:45.780 in his 1619 treatise of the nature and use of lots he writes that the legitimate use of lots

00:22:52.900 understood and applied um some system pardon me applied this christian teaching how to do with

00:23:00.620 matters of uncertainty or doubt. They could be licitly used to make a determination where there

00:23:06.160 was some epistemic shortfall on the part of humanity. In other words, we don't have the right

00:23:09.880 enough information to make a decision. Thus, asserts Gadiger, a lot is a, quote, event purposely

00:23:16.580 applied to the deciding of some doubt, end quote. Lotteries are from the human side mechanisms of

00:23:22.260 pure chance, and their purpose is to provide some determination in a matter of doubt or uncertainty,

00:23:27.700 Where there is no other rational means of determining ownership, for example, or for distributing some good, then appropriately constructed lotteries can be used as a means of determining just distribution.

00:23:39.900 And then the last quote that I want to read, just because I think it's interesting, is quote eight.

00:23:45.800 Let's jump on to quote eight, Nate.

00:23:47.980 I'm sorry, this is not quote eight.

00:23:52.780 Is that it on the screen, Michael?

00:23:54.880 Well, I'll read that one.

00:23:55.920 gambling may in some instances be morally permissible but it's always dangerous grappling

00:24:00.680 responsibly with these kinds of dilemmas and temptations is a constant feature of life in

00:24:05.120 this faulting world as augustine lamented when i am in trouble i long for good fortune but when i

00:24:09.980 have good fortune i fear to lose it is there any middle state between prosperity and adversity

00:24:14.260 some state in which human life is not a trial the one that i was looking for that i'm not going to

00:24:19.820 read i'm just going to mention that part of the catholic church's catechism for a long time has

00:24:24.600 been a repudiation of all forms of games of chance so um all right so i think what we'll do

00:24:31.680 that even apart from making wages like just playing cards yes okay yep yep which which is why

00:24:41.340 um just to tie this up there's this idea of i don't know any catholic that uh follows that

00:24:48.220 yeah yeah um there's this idea of oh what is it called um stocks of vice so these are

00:24:57.420 investing in companies whose purpose is inherently a vice so that's why um like owning a lottery

00:25:04.300 store or owning a casino or a brothel or that sort of thing like the catholic church put it

00:25:09.900 in the category of a vice and so it would it would be wrong for a catholic in good standing technically

00:25:15.900 to own or invest in a company that is promoting games of chance i see in the same way that it

00:25:23.180 would be so it's not just playing it but it's purchasing that game both okay profiting from

00:25:28.700 yeah i i knew i didn't know that that was a catholic teaching i knew that um historically

00:25:34.380 there were uh baptists that uh that held to that like my own grandfather and grandmother there was

00:25:40.860 was skippo yes there was uno yep and there were dominoes yeah but there were no playing cards

00:25:46.600 i found it here it's quote seven eight if you want to put it up just to just to clarify here

00:25:51.320 not speak out of turn um it says similarly the catechism of the roman catholic church

00:25:55.960 teaches that quote games of chance card games etc or wagers oh i'm sorry are not in themselves

00:26:01.660 contrary to justice they become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what

00:26:06.300 is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others okay the passion for gambling risks

00:26:10.440 becomes an enslavement i'm glad i looked it up yeah me too that that makes more sense yeah

00:26:14.340 yeah that makes more sense otherwise i mean the alternative is if it was just outright you know

00:26:20.920 then i was thinking every single catholic is not abiding by catholic teaching but then i thought

00:26:26.260 but i already think that about catholics i mean that you know so i was like that can't be because

00:26:33.480 that would mean every single catholic doesn't actually know catholic doctrine and follow it

00:26:37.500 and i thought wait a second that is every single catholic right a minute which and i say that with

00:26:41.880 the the utmost due respect that's my favorite thing about um i have lots of catholic friends

00:26:47.280 and that's my favorite thing about them is that um every catholic friend i have is a bad catholic

00:26:51.880 yeah which makes them in many cases a good friend and sometimes a good christian yep so good all

00:26:58.400 right let's hit our first commercial break and then we're going to talk briefly about um how

00:27:02.220 it became legalized in the u.s and then we'll talk about kind of some of the trends and

00:27:06.620 dangers and and just kind of talk through the cultural the net the cultural moment now not

00:27:11.700 what the church fathers said before but how we ought to think about this in our in our time now

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00:31:27.880 All right, we're back.

00:31:28.960 All right, we are back.

00:31:29.740 So as I mentioned earlier on,

00:31:32.900 For a long time in the U.S., sports gambling in particular was illegal.

00:31:37.360 In fact, there are major sports scandals like the members of the Chicago White Sox

00:31:44.980 who gambled on it, threw a game on purpose because they had gambled on it.

00:31:48.680 It was a World Series game, I believe, and they threw it on purpose so they could profit.

00:31:53.660 Pete Rose, one of the greatest baseball players of all time,

00:31:56.480 has been permanently banned from the Hall of Fame

00:31:59.100 because he was found to have been gambling on games.

00:32:02.160 um so for a long time this was seen very seriously in the sports world now you have

00:32:08.520 um professional athletes partnering with betting companies to do their commercials and things like

00:32:14.220 that so we've had um an entire 180 degree perspective change on this topic how would

00:32:22.140 that not manipulate you know or at least present the temptation to manipulate sports like if i think

00:32:28.840 They themselves are banned from betting on it, but they can still promote it so they

00:32:33.000 can get up there and say, yeah, I get that.

00:32:35.180 I get the distinction there.

00:32:36.520 Nate is correcting me.

00:32:37.340 I hadn't seen that, Nate.

00:32:38.600 That's new.

00:32:39.700 June 4th?

00:32:42.180 Two days ago, an article in The Athletic, MLB's reinstatement of Pete Rose was partially

00:32:47.040 influenced by Donald Trump, the commissioner says.

00:32:49.940 Sports betting is back on the menu, boys.

00:32:51.120 There we go.

00:32:51.920 Back on the menu.

00:32:53.100 But yeah, promotion is different.

00:32:55.440 It is, yeah.

00:32:56.120 Not that it's good, but it is different.

00:32:58.840 my thought is that like okay so you you personally can't open an account you know lebron james you

00:33:05.220 know and then bet um but i mean how easy would it be for them just vicariously through somebody else

00:33:11.600 yep to place best friend his brother his and then he has the power to like miss the next free throw

00:33:17.960 or whatever or like you know like you're um you're winning by three points you know and it's like i

00:33:24.480 can I can make this last shot you know and win by five but I bet on winning by three right and so

00:33:31.080 I'm going to miss it right I just feel like that just the mere presence of sports gambling um would

00:33:38.840 for me would call into question how authentic you know sports actually are yeah yeah and yeah that

00:33:45.620 is that is a whole conspiracy um that you can jump down that rabbit trail about how all the sports

00:33:51.900 games are all controlled and i i still have a hard time because you cannot you can't control

00:33:59.160 everything in a sports game right you can't control the way the ball is going to bounce or

00:34:02.760 you know all those things anyway that's true um before um 2018 in 1992 uh the u the u.s government

00:34:11.500 the federal government passed something called paspa um paspa was the professional and amateur

00:34:18.500 Sports Protection Act. And what they did was they were trying to accomplish a couple things. They

00:34:26.080 were trying to curb the spread of state-sponsored sports gambling. There was public concern about

00:34:32.260 the growing trend towards legalizing sports gambling, fueled in part by high-profile scandals

00:34:37.340 like the Pete Rose case that we just mentioned now. The other reason why they passed this

00:34:42.880 regulation was to maintain the integrity of professional sports. The sports, the leagues

00:34:48.840 themselves were opposed to states allowing betting. They said that if the states allowed

00:34:55.860 betting, that it could lead to bribery and game fixing, like you just said, Joel, and they cited

00:35:00.540 historical scandals. And they were concerned they wanted to protect young people from

00:35:05.040 the harms of sports gambling. So there were concerns that it would have a negative impact

00:35:11.560 on young people so um what this did and the reason it got overturned is uh congress passed a law

00:35:20.460 that forced states to regulate a federal federal law of some sort the language is a little bit

00:35:29.940 tricky and so um basically it made the states the agents of enforcement of federal protocols and

00:35:37.920 federal requirements. So when the NCAA sued in 2018 and won, it was not even close. It was a

00:35:46.720 72 decision by the Supreme Court, not on the merits of sports betting, but on the constitutional

00:35:52.500 merits that the federal government cannot require states to uphold its federal statutes. And so the

00:36:00.100 reason that it was overturned in 2018 really had very little to do with whether gambling was a good

00:36:05.240 idea or not. It was this constitutional question that states cannot be forced to basically do the

00:36:11.820 government, the federal government's dirty work for the federal government. So the law that was

00:36:15.660 passed in 1992, I believe, did not have enough support to just have legislated a federal ban

00:36:22.580 on sports betting. What they could pass was a requirement that states had to do some of

00:36:29.600 these things on behalf of the federal government. So if we wanted to have a national ban on it,

00:36:35.240 the U.S. Congress would have to just actually pass a national ban on it.

00:36:39.160 What it did was it went back to the states, kind of like abortion,

00:36:42.840 and within a few years now, 40 of the states have allowed sports betting,

00:36:47.820 and only about 10 have continued to ban it the way it had been before 1992.

00:36:53.560 Well, hey, Congress works for us, and they have our best interests at heart,

00:36:56.120 so I'm confident there's legislation coming down the pipe.

00:36:59.280 Absolutely.

00:36:59.940 A matter of days at this point.

00:37:01.280 Yeah.

00:37:01.380 Yeah. And this is this is one that is a little bit tricky constitutionally because it's not clear that the federal government would have within the within the Bill of Rights would have the reach to pass something that theoretically is left up is ought to be left up to the states to determine individually.

00:37:22.360 so um it's it's part of the federal system that we live in yeah all right so let's talk a little

00:37:28.780 bit about the situation now that we have okay i'm going to read a couple of things and point

00:37:34.260 out a couple of facts and figures um so we this is a quote from um the hill.com um it says we have

00:37:44.360 a movement toward expanding what was once considered a sin what was once considered a

00:37:49.040 ice and embedding it at every level of american culture down to kindergarten said timothy fong

00:37:54.220 a clinical professor of psychiatry at the jane and terry uh simile institute for neurosirens and so

00:38:00.600 he is pointing out now that sports betting used to be even when it was legalized only on the major

00:38:07.080 sports or the super bowl or a horse race or something like that now i mean you look at

00:38:12.380 polymarket it's not sports betting i know but it's something it's something different but you

00:38:16.180 can bet literally on on anything yeah um and when it comes to sports betting not only are people

00:38:23.120 betting on major games but they're betting on you know will lebron um dunk six times in this game

00:38:30.780 right and it's even outside of the nba it's going to to very minor uh sports that are not really

00:38:37.200 watched e-sports um and you can place a bet on almost any aspect of that sporting event at almost

00:38:45.100 any level of sporting events and so and you can bet on politics you can bet on politics now yeah

00:38:50.060 you can bet on on really just about it on the fed and whether or not they're going to cut interest

00:38:54.060 rates this month all of that yeah so this guy's point is opening up uh sports betting is actually

00:39:02.060 introducing betting to every element of society where if you want you can literally bet on you

00:39:08.860 know what the gas prices are going to be or who's going to be the next governor or you know all of

00:39:13.740 of these things and so um society now becomes just a kind of a canvas for flips of the of the

00:39:22.040 coin and am i going to get lucky and accurately predict whether an event happens or not right i

00:39:28.200 bet on donald trump to win the popular vote yeah that was correct yep the popular the popular i

00:39:33.560 just believe what were the odds on that uh i think it was about i think it was like a 20

00:39:38.740 i had to be lower than that there's like raw popular vote and then the margins like zero to

00:39:42.880 one percent one to two so i just voted raw i want to say it was like 20 chance yeah yeah yeah so

00:39:49.760 it was a good bet um but to your point like literally we can bet on anything now yeah on

00:39:54.960 anything yeah and the the concern is that it's now it's um what i hear you say michael is it's

00:39:59.760 just such a matter of accessibility at this point correct um that at this point it's um yeah it's

00:40:06.160 just it's you know before you know you would have to fly to las vegas you know or even in older

00:40:11.360 societies you would have to go and find you know the den of thieves you know it's the place where

00:40:16.160 the gambling was taking place same as pornography right so it's all forms of lewdness so pornography

00:40:21.680 it's like it's like well you know people always present you know um the anecdotes you know and

00:40:27.680 say like well there were brothels you know it's like yeah uh but on the terrible dangerous side

00:40:34.160 of town yep and you're you're whole way there you would be you know um being booed and shamed

00:40:41.600 publicly people are seeing you you have a bad reputation literally like most of the upstanding

00:40:48.240 families in the town are not not even going to allow their children to play with your children

00:40:52.160 because you're a public disgrace takes your whole evening right yeah because you like it's this is

00:40:56.880 your you know it's a it's a physical thing like you i mean you even think like um in the 80s you 0.67

00:41:02.240 you know, like people would have to go to like a pornography film store,

00:41:06.900 you know, the porno shop, you know, with porn magazines, stuff like that.

00:41:10.900 But now what it's allowed for is this universal accessibility,

00:41:15.760 but not just a universal accessibility where everyone can do it,

00:41:19.660 but also a universal privacy.

00:41:22.380 So it's, everyone can do it and there are no social consequences.

00:41:26.360 And not just because society is, you know, circling the drain,

00:41:30.040 but you know and and that people may not frown on things that they would have you know 50 years

00:41:35.500 ago but also because of um because of being anonymous that nobody even knows that it's

00:41:41.680 taking place so i don't know how to view that other than saying that that is a promotion of

00:41:46.680 these vices it's a promotion of pornography it's a promotion of gambling and uh and if these things

00:41:53.720 are promoted um it's going to affect everyone but even that it's you know that's another thing that

00:41:59.200 I think makes it so pernicious and sad is that it's not going to, it's going to affect everyone

00:42:05.220 negatively, but not equally. And gambling, I mean, is proven time and time again, like whether

00:42:11.100 it's a lottery or these kinds of, it's always, it preys on the most desperate, you know, it preys

00:42:18.180 on those who are the most impoverished because they view it as their chance to get out of their

00:42:24.960 dire situation and so yeah so i just i don't see how that could possibly be a positive thing

00:42:31.220 and when i think again like romans 13 it's like well you know libertarianism get off my lawn

00:42:36.500 the government this is outside of the government the state's jurisdiction this falls underneath

00:42:41.360 the jurisdiction of the family fathers uh should be teaching you know their sons not to look at

00:42:46.180 pornography you know and fathers should be teaching them good uh financial habits you know and to stay

00:42:51.180 away from gambling it's like yeah but also it it really is evil um right and and the government

00:42:56.920 is actually called by god to bear the sword to punish the evil doer and um and so they're like

00:43:04.360 i think it does fall into this the state and and for fathers it's like yes we want to train our

00:43:10.000 children in the way that they should go um but but you're talking about um every single one of

00:43:16.500 your son's hitting puberty and and yes you like keep him off the internet don't give him a

00:43:21.040 smartphone at the age of you know 13 those things are insane uh but eventually like he's going to be

00:43:26.780 an adult and uh and he's going to it's not just that there's a strip club in town

00:43:32.180 there's a stripper in his pocket that's right and limitless choices of which stripper he wants it to

00:43:38.620 you know and and with that kind of temptation with complete um complete impunity and privacy

00:43:48.100 and also um complete accessibility like i sometimes i look at these things i guess what

00:43:55.160 i'm building up to is i really do think that our society as a whole is um is objectively less moral

00:44:03.100 than previous generations but i also think like previous generations that's right would not have

00:44:10.420 stood a chance yes like i and like benjamin franklin that dude i don't even think he would

00:44:16.940 have been able to to do anything in politics or discover electricity that dude would be looking

00:44:21.220 at his iphone pornography 24 hours a day he'd be like his eyes would be closed over like you know

00:44:27.200 what i mean like it's like thank god he had to go you know all the way to to france you know or 0.83

00:44:31.620 something for his escapades you know like ben franklin would be a just a just porn slop addict 0.91

00:44:38.540 horn dog yeah so like so yes i do think that overall society is worse but it's kind of like 0.89

00:44:44.700 chicken or the egg you know like yes there is an objective abandonment of christ and that's

00:44:49.940 ultimate and fundamental but in addition to that there's like if you don't think that there's more

00:44:55.360 temptation today right right i don't even know how you would argue in the other direction i mean

00:45:00.640 the temptation is absolutely off the charts and so so even if we were as moral as as many of our

00:45:09.180 fathers um we would still be in a worse situation we'd be failing with with far more regularity

00:45:16.060 yeah that's i was going to say why when we talk about politics because there's huge implications

00:45:20.900 on the line you're literally talking about the morality of the people again not literally i can

00:45:25.280 literally make them moral by imposing laws from above but no practically speaking you can promote

00:45:30.080 morality and they have a huge downstream effect like we're not just talking about like do we want

00:45:35.020 the tax rate at 12 for corporate or 11 or do we you know should notaries be open on saturday or

00:45:41.060 closed we are talking about real moral things that have huge implications like it all actually

00:45:46.620 matters and if you're a christian you just well you know government's going to do what it's going

00:45:50.540 to do we should teach our sons to resist like that that's borderline wicked to not say well

00:45:56.060 no no i want the best for my people the best for my nation and i'll take the means to actually get

00:46:00.700 there right and if you're not doing that it is both like so like just to be clear for the listener

00:46:06.380 west is not saying uh therefore fathers are off the hook right now like of course not like we

00:46:11.340 fathers have to do everything they can and the individual is certainly culpable they have to

00:46:16.620 resist that temptation and the call of christ remains the same regardless of how much temptation

00:46:21.680 is present um but but as a christian man and and husband and father um i want to protect my wife

00:46:30.240 and kids and train them um and i also want to call upon the civil magistrate thomas watson said that

00:46:36.000 you know that the civil magistrate the christian prince that he is a nursing father and like what

00:46:41.200 kind of nursing father um goes you know goes into uh the nursery and puts you know vipers

00:46:49.520 or scorpions in the crib with his baby like it's like well i didn't i didn't you know make it i

00:46:55.180 didn't bite him and i didn't make it but i just i just made it available i just put the scorpion

00:46:59.580 in the crib and you know my baby is the one who chose to roll over right right like and get you

00:47:06.220 know stung uh like we would say i mean like that wouldn't that would never hold up we'd say you'd

00:47:12.280 be thrown in jail right and and if you think of the christian prince the civil magistrate as a

00:47:18.540 as a father figure he is a civil father that's what he is civil fathers that's what thomas

00:47:23.920 watson is arguing when he talks about the ten commandments the fifth commandment honor thy father

00:47:28.000 that there are you know there are familial fathers there are ecclesial ecclesiastical fathers you

00:47:34.280 know spiritual fathers ancient fathers uh remembering you know the founding fathers and

00:47:38.960 beyond them the puritans and the reformers and augustine and irenius and um but there is also

00:47:45.200 civil fathers and they're worthy of our respect um in in one regard for sure and potentially two

00:47:52.160 the one regard either way whether they're terrible or whether they're great they're worthy of our

00:47:56.480 respect by virtue of their office and then by virtue of you know their position but then by

00:48:01.600 virtue of their person if they happen to be um a noble um civil father like someone like george

00:48:07.360 washington um is worthy of double respect and and and so my point is if that is their

00:48:15.040 role to be a father and to protect um and to punish the evildoer the one who wants to

00:48:22.560 subvert and supplant and exploit then absolutely i don't i don't know how you can make any argument

00:48:29.600 that the state not only is it their prerogative but that they are morally obligated under god

00:48:34.880 to um to ban uh pornography to ban gambling we were in the room with carl truman this was about

00:48:42.800 three or four years ago and he's like i know he like literally gave these terrible stories of

00:48:47.340 abuse or whatever and he's like i know there are free speech considerations so when it came to

00:48:50.920 banning pornography he kind of hemmed and hawed like well there's free speech in one side but

00:48:55.400 it's also morally bad and i don't know guys you should really wrestle through this all right

00:48:59.620 wrestled through ban it ban it that's the extent of it no i remember that an opc presbyterian

00:49:04.720 minister yeah and professor at grove city college and the guy who promoted amy bird like well that's

00:49:10.300 true to your point joel um one of the kind of the perverse incentives going on with the situation

00:49:15.260 that we have now is the government is supposed to be protecting its people but now one of the

00:49:20.220 major pushes to get state legislatures to legalize sports betting within their state is you're going

00:49:27.700 to get so much money in tax revenue. And so now not only was that what hooked a lot of

00:49:33.140 legislators into it, but there is now an incentive for the state to actually promote

00:49:38.820 to this sort of thing, or at least allow it to be promoted so that they get more and more tax

00:49:44.200 revenue because they tax this at a pretty high rate. Right. Yeah. Well, hail the GDP. That's

00:49:49.320 right. The last thing I was going to say about this is a couple of things just to confirm what

00:49:54.560 we've been saying. There was a Rutgers study recently that found that half of sports gamblers

00:49:59.500 earn less than $50,000 a year. So half of the ones placing these bets are indeed what we'd

00:50:06.900 consider like lower middle class or lower class. The ones who really cannot afford to be doing this

00:50:11.800 sort of thing. Checks out. Yeah. And that desperation and the accessibility causes them

00:50:16.560 to make foolish decisions. Let's go ahead and go to our last commercial break and we'll come back 0.96

00:50:20.900 with some concluding thoughts.

00:50:23.880 America is a country that was founded 0.96

00:50:25.360 for the purpose of allowing Christians

00:50:26.720 to do their duty before God

00:50:28.060 and not to have their consciences ruled

00:50:29.520 by the doctrines and commandments of men.

00:50:31.800 Rees Fund exists in order to see

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00:50:41.180 that we're supposed to obey.

00:50:42.540 Our goal is to find businesses

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00:52:53.300 shipping on orders above $99 for the US only. All right, we are back. We are back. Wes is going to

00:53:00.600 take it from the top here with an anecdote, and then I'm going to talk a little bit about ease

00:53:05.160 of use, ease of access, and then we'll have some concluding thoughts and wrap things up here.

00:53:09.820 Yeah, it came to mind when Joel mentioned the most desperate. I remember it. It's

00:53:13.720 burned into my memory here in austin this is about six months ago or so i was i was in a gas

00:53:17.800 station and i literally walked as i'm leaving i walked by a very heavyset gentleman and he's got

00:53:22.800 a scratch card this is you know he's not doing crossfit let's put it this way very heavyset guy

00:53:28.640 he's leaning on the counter and he's got a scratch card couldn't even make it to his car at home

00:53:32.460 right there on the counter scratching off so i walk by him and i walk out to my left and i see 1.00

00:53:37.360 uh another heavyset this is a black woman in her car literally she has a ticket on the steering 0.66

00:53:42.960 wheel just scratching away i was like what have we become these poor people that are obviously not 0.98

00:53:48.100 doing well and they're here at the gas station this is with five ten bucks that they have to

00:53:52.320 spare just getting these tickets and you're on the counter you're in your car just scratching

00:53:57.100 away hoping for i mean the amount you win from is probably like 20 25 bucks which what do they do

00:54:01.620 but go back and just spend that again on lottery right around that's why they do it there yeah

00:54:05.980 because if they win some money they're going to go back and buy some more immediately this is

00:54:08.980 terrible. What have we done to these poor people? Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So that's interesting

00:54:13.280 because, um, one of the things that they're finding is there are, um, casino gambling still

00:54:22.640 has a little bit of a negative stigma to it. And so there are online, uh, casino apps and sites

00:54:29.380 where you can, um, gamble on playing poker, or you can even do roulette on your phone,

00:54:34.720 things like that so what they're finding is that if if they can get someone to do sports gambling

00:54:41.520 on their phone it's pretty easy to then advertise online casino gambling online roulette gambling

00:54:48.480 online slot machine gambling now here here's a staggering number um let me make sure i read

00:54:54.720 this because it is it's worth reading exactly to get it right um shoot here it is

00:55:04.720 okay um so gambling sports gambling used to be seen as a slow form of gambling you had to go

00:55:12.980 out to a racetrack a horse track or something like that it would take an afternoon you'd place a

00:55:18.780 couple bets and you'd go home now it's become a form of fast gambling like pulling a slot machine

00:55:24.860 so the the online apps and the phone apps get people used to this quick gambling and then they

00:55:31.900 transition them into slot machines or online poker things like that now gambling companies

00:55:37.420 um they if they if they see if they get someone to convert from sports betting to

00:55:44.280 casino betting online they see a 500 percent um a return on a on investment of 500 percent

00:55:55.160 if they can board convert a sports better into a casino gambler and so if they can get someone

00:56:01.480 who's just doing it to be with the guys betting on the super bowl something like that if they get

00:56:05.440 them into opening their phone in the middle of the night pulling on a digital slot machine something

00:56:09.540 like that their cost goes up incredibly and that's that's really the the ease of access one that we've

00:56:16.040 been alluding to for a while is really the most devastating thing here you know to be honest if

00:56:22.000 you've got a group of guys they've got a poker night everyone brings 50 bucks they hang out

00:56:26.500 the winner takes all walks home with 250 something like that they do that once a month it's probably

00:56:32.380 not the end of the world right you take a trip to vegas i don't really like vegas i don't really

00:56:36.820 see the appeal but you've got a budget you go you okay you want you want it like i can't fine

00:56:42.460 the concern for me with vegas would be like the other forms of lewdness agreed agreed but the

00:56:48.520 you pull open your phone in the middle of the night and you're getting a text so this is this

00:56:53.060 is where it gets really shady if you sign up for these services you start getting notifications you

00:56:58.300 start getting text messages you start getting emails that say things like lebron james is about

00:57:03.180 to shoot a free throw do you want to bet five dollars right now yes i do real quick before he

00:57:07.900 gets that free throw in and so you're getting hammered with emails with text messages with

00:57:12.600 notifications on your phone then you get into the casino gambling you pull up your phone in the

00:57:23.040 you've just spent $6,000 on your casino app.

00:57:26.800 The ease of access is really the most,

00:57:30.800 well, one of the most concerning things.

00:57:32.580 So here's a couple of things for the listener to be aware of.

00:57:35.620 And these have been criticisms

00:57:38.040 of some of these online apps.

00:57:40.420 They involve a signup process that it's frictionless

00:57:43.360 and often lacks age verification

00:57:46.540 or effective age verification.

00:57:47.700 All you have to do is press, yes, I'm over 18, right?

00:57:50.620 That's the only age verification, or 21 in some states.

00:57:55.580 It says that it will allow you to gamble a lot of money,

00:58:02.380 but make it very hard for you to set a maximum amount.

00:58:06.280 Like if you know that you don't want to spend more than $20 on a day,

00:58:10.360 to find that setting is three or four or five different screens deep.

00:58:15.840 But if you want to, right as soon as you open it up,

00:58:18.860 gamble $40 right away, it'll do that very easily. So the ease of gambling compared to the difficulty

00:58:25.420 of setting up safeguards and things like that. Same thing with Instagram, like when people try

00:58:30.360 to limit their time, the app is not incentivized to limit time to show you less advertisers. So

00:58:35.300 they're never going to build in a strong like, hey, we're starting the day off. Do you want 10

00:58:39.360 minutes? That'll be all we give you. We'll maybe give some suggestions, but that's about it. Yes.

00:58:43.400 there have been pushes to require that um uh users have a minimum amount in their bank account like

00:58:50.540 so if their bank account goes below a thousand dollars or something like that they can't use

00:58:54.680 the betting app anymore and those have been largely turned away these companies don't care

00:58:59.820 if someone's bank account is dwindling thousand five hundred two hundred now we're negative

00:59:03.860 you know 120 there's no like people have asked them to build build in those safeguards and they've

00:59:10.100 been very resistant and reluctant to do so um prompts to place another bet appear immediately

00:59:16.840 as soon as you play so you get the text message about lebron james shooting the free throw

00:59:20.820 yes and then immediately the app opens up and you've got oh this other game is going on in this

00:59:26.400 game and yet last week you bet on this hockey game and so it's just this endless it's kind of

00:59:31.580 like the way casinos are designed to keep you in their maze getting out um these these are built

00:59:38.020 into the phones now the apps are designed with the colors and the dopamine hits there's little

00:59:43.580 micro like you you placed five bets you get an extra five dollars for free you know and you earn

00:59:49.940 all these rewards by the more bets you place things like that casinos it's uh it's the lighting

00:59:54.540 it's the uh the temperature it's the design on the carpets the you know all these different things

00:59:59.820 like all the way down to the carpet and then uh some casinos historically have even uh pumped

01:00:05.660 higher amounts of oxygen uh in the hvac oh interesting you know to keep you more alert

01:00:11.700 so that you don't get tired and want to go home for fatigue don't fall asleep you have money to

01:00:16.520 lose yeah so like at every single level i mean uh another you know common um element of casinos

01:00:23.260 is uh there's no windows right so you can't you can't see like the sun's going down or the sun's

01:00:29.600 coming up it went down and came up and i didn't notice no no and so it's the same concept it is

01:00:36.820 the same concept i'm going to close at least my portion of this by just i'm going to read this

01:00:41.600 to make sure i get it right so this is to be fair it's core correlation it's not causality

01:00:46.300 okay we don't know if there's a there's a definite cause between these two but um here's here's

01:00:53.100 something from um a study that was done by northwestern university by the end of their

01:00:58.080 sample period so they they tested um households in states where or they followed households in

01:01:05.420 states where gambling online sports gambling was made it was made legal by the end of their sample

01:01:10.380 period researchers saw that nearly eight percent of households were involved in gambling the

01:01:15.420 previously zero now eight percent these bettors on average spent a thousand dollars eleven hundred

01:01:22.360 per year on online bets the amount of money people put into legal sports gambling rose while

01:01:28.060 it rose their net investments fell by nearly 14 percent for every one this this is crazy and again

01:01:35.300 it's correlation not causality but for every one dollar a household spent on betting it put two

01:01:41.220 fewer dollars into savings and investments which that's very interesting right so not only are you

01:01:47.640 losing the money but you're also not then doing something with the money to get a return on it

01:01:53.100 The researchers also found that this greater access to sports gambling increased general participation in lottery games outside of sports betting, particularly among households that frequently overdraw their bank accounts.

01:02:08.360 This, they note, raises concerns about the amplification of risk-taking behavior.

01:02:12.680 So the sports betting leads to lottery, leads to casino, things like that.

01:02:15.740 last thing overall these changes to speak people's spending patterns led to decreased credit

01:02:21.020 availability increased credit card debt and a higher incidence of overdrawing from bank accounts

01:02:26.040 the researchers note that the effects were particularly acute among households that were

01:02:31.060 least able to afford it pushing them even even deeper into debt wow yeah it's really sad any

01:02:38.160 final thoughts from you wes not really no no well there you have it kids stay away from gambling

01:02:45.560 um but you know larger theological application is um we do we we have to think through the state

01:02:52.760 um if we're going to have a christian theology of government in the state um that's that's

01:02:58.400 something that we really have to think through because i think some of the uh the old tropes

01:03:02.640 that we uh would wheel out you know uh historically of just you know libertarianism get off my lawn

01:03:09.540 just a small state um yeah like yes this the state shouldn't be um a managerial state that's

01:03:17.760 holding every single citizen's hand you know through uh you know we don't you know the state

01:03:22.440 is bloated don't get me wrong um but there are other areas where it's actually too small i think

01:03:27.900 that for me that's one of the big takeaways is um and not just from today but over the last couple

01:03:32.880 years as i've thought about this is i think if we had a christian state um it would be significantly

01:03:38.380 smaller and in some cases non-existent in some areas. And then it would actually shock us in how

01:03:44.960 big it would be in other areas that actually do fall under its God-given jurisdiction. It actually

01:03:51.680 pertains to thwarting the evildoer. And I think that gambling is one of many examples of something

01:04:00.960 that the state has to police, that it has to... Well, and just to add on to that, it wouldn't

01:04:06.800 necessarily mean that the state had to be bigger it would wield more authority right it would say

01:04:12.180 this is against the law and obviously there would have to be some enforcement mechanism that's what

01:04:16.940 i mean i know what you mean but like my point is what we're saying is the state needs to wield

01:04:22.080 authority in the proper areas which might mean it's influencing life in areas that we're not used

01:04:27.140 to but that doesn't necessarily mean they need 120 000 armed anti-gambling agents going out right

01:04:34.500 Like it wouldn't take much to make it illegal and you crack down on a few

01:04:38.560 people, throw the book at them. And then that's, that's it. You know,

01:04:42.240 that's true. Yep. Yep. That's true. Yep. Yeah. All right.

01:04:44.840 Well thank you guys for tuning in and we will see you next time.

The NXR Podcast - June 11, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - Betting Apps Are Targeting You And Your Family

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