Hapless Habits

North Dakota found itself at the center of a Wall Street Journal article this week, though maybe not for the reasons one would think: “How a Youth Wrestling Club Became a Multimillion-Dollar Gambling Operation,” the piece’s headline reads.

The feature highlights the state’s “unlikely experiment”: to fund various charitable or civic causes, nonprofit groups and charities were given leave to install “Las Vegas-style machines in restaurants, bars, and other establishments and watch the money roll in.” But, probably more than anyone expected, the money did roll in. Many of these tax-exempt groups are now generating income “faster than they can spend it.” Some have bought pubs. One runs four bars.

Plenty of folks are calling the policy into question, as a result. Beyond that, though, the phenomenon points to a cultural habit that for a few years now has been gaining traction, especially among the young: gambling. According to this NPR piece, “The majority of young men in Generation Z are gambling.” Some of it’s happening at casinos or by way of e-tabs at bars and restaurants. But much more of it is happening online. Young people are putting money down on sports or pop culture events or politics. “Placing a bet is as easy as checking the weather on your phone,” the NPR piece notes. During March Madness alone, Americans bet more than $3.3 billion.

It’s a topic that’s tricky to invoke a principled stance around because the lines to be drawn around gambling aren’t necessarily crystal clear: gambling’s not intrinsically “bad” in the way that, say, pornography is. It’s not necessarily a grave sin to bet on a basketball game or a political election. But betting larger and larger sums of money on hundreds of basketball and football and baseball games, and hundreds of political elections, over a long stretch of time … that seems not quite right.

And indeed, this is an area where a principled stance, especially at this cultural moment, feels really necessary. If NPR is right about the prevalence of gambling, that’s a lot of people being pulled into a behavior that can get very addictive very quickly, and with sometimes ruinous consequences. The financial side of it is one thing – as one college student said, some of his friends have “lost some pretty big money.” But the personal, psychological, and even spiritual side of it is another. Both because of the way electronic media already draws users in, and because of the “high” gambling in and of itself gives, habitual online gambling is one place where we’re at serious risk of losing our freedom. We’re at risk of becoming slaves to something that’s well beneath us. The line may be harder to see – when one goes from gambling “socially” to becoming more dependent on “the rush” than one ought to be – but the line is there, even so.

This surge in gambling has been happening largely out of view. But lots of people, now, are asking that there be more regulation around online gambling that especially protects the young. And indeed, there isn’t much regulation around it at all currently. And, it does seem to be the state’s job to protect the vulnerable, insofar as it’s able to.

But it’s also just worth noting, at a personal level, the kind of risk involved in getting caught by this sort of habit. Living life online has had lots of troubling effects on young people. And for young men, the primary population getting roped into the gambling scene, perhaps one of the biggest effects it’s had is in getting them stuck, lost in life, unsure of their purpose and meaning. Consistent gambling isn’t likely to help that experience. So it may just be a habit that’s worth exercising extra prudence around. It may in fact be a habit that’s worth staying a good arm’s length away from.