What we’re betting

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

A journalist set out to understand America’s sports-betting boom by stepping into it himself—despite deep, moral reservations about gambling.

WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney says what followed reveals more than just how betting works.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: McKay Coppins is a respectable Mormon dad. 

Last summer, his editors at The Atlantic made an intriguing offer related to his upcoming article about American sports-betting. They would stake him $10,000 to wager on the 2025 NFL season. 

Coppins hesitated; both by temperament and conviction—he’s not a gambler. His bishop was not keen on the idea either, but since it was an assignment and not his own money, permission granted.

What happened? 

The title of the resulting article should give us a clue: “Sucker: My Year as a Degenerate Gambler.” 

It’s not like he wasn’t warned. Nate Silver, the well-known statistician, told him if he came out one penny ahead, he would be in the top 2% of sports gamblers. 

Sharing his experience with Hanna Rosen on Radio Atlantic, Coppins admitted:

COPPINS: Everybody loses money gambling, you can't really win. And I knew that intellectually, right? The house always wins, this is like the one thing everybody knows about gambling. But what’s kind of amazing in retrospect is that I didn’t really believe him. I heard him, but I was like, "But I could be in that 2%."

During the season he became more obsessed, anxious, angry, and irrational. Around Christmastime, he went ballistic when a bad call during a Cowboys game lost him 500 dollars, experiencing a state known as “on tilt.”

As he explains:

COPPINS: It is a term that I learned in the course of my reporting and then experienced-- I was “on tilt.” “On tilt” describes kind of the emotional frenzied state that a gambler gets into when they start making really unwise decisions, and for the next two weeks basically I was on tilt.

Finally, after a grueling Super Bowl game on which he’d placed 22 bets and won two, Coppins signed a self-exclusionary form, removing himself from all sports-betting platforms.

Since 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down federal laws prohibiting sports betting, online gambling has exploded. FanDuel and DraftKings now control over 70% of the market, relentlessly pushing apps that allow viewers to place bets even while watching the game.

Americans who aren’t interested in sports can still scratch their gambling itch on Polymarket and Kalshi, where users bet on virtually any geo-political or cultural event.

According to Tarek Mansour, cofounder and CEO of Kalshi:

TAREK MANSOUR: The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.

He predicts betting markets will soon supplant social media.

Meanwhile, credit scores sink and bankruptcy claims rise. 

Recent studies indicate that problem gamblers have a higher rate of suicide attempts than alcoholics or drug addicts.

But the main problem isn’t gambling. It’s coveting and idolatry.

In Exodus 20, the LORD speaks directly to His people, pronouncing the Ten Commandments in a voice of thunder. Commandments Two through Nine address actions: you shall do this, you shall not do that. Commandments One and Ten aim at the heart: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “You shall not covet.”

Displacing God and desiring unearned goods are the origin of sin. Eve was first tempted to be her own god. Then she coveted forbidden fruit. 

Breaking those two laws led to breaking everything in between, for as it happens, the first and the last commandments are impossible for humans to fully keep.

Other gods trespass on sacred space; unlawful desires lurk in back rooms and byways. “We will do everything the LORD has commanded,” His people promise, then and now. Except the first thing...and the last.

When a nation becomes wealthy and self-indulgent it craves ever more wealth and self-indulgence. The United States is not uniquely sinful, but our system, so conducive to freedom and prosperity, was the first to make covetousness pay off.

Freedom and prosperity are the very things God promised His people if they kept His commandments. That was a big “if,” then and now. 

But we can look to our perfect Commandment Keeper, and guard our own hearts against subtle and not-so-subtle temptations.

For WORLD, I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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