Washington Post Editorial Board Says Legalizing Sports Betting Was a ‘Terrible Bet’

The Washington Post is doubling down on its position that the legalization of sports gambling in the United States has been a detriment to society and has failed to achieve the promised benefits its supporters said a regulated sports betting industry would deliver.

A stock photo shows a man placing a mobile sports bet on a soccer game. The Washington Post opined this week that the liberalization of sports betting in the U.S. has been a detriment to society. (Image: Getty)

The Editorial Board is among the most influential opinion teams in the country. The third-largest newspaper in the United States and most circulated paper in the Capital Beltway region is no fan of legal sports betting.

In a titled, Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Terrible Bet, the 11 editors jointly published their opposition to the infiltration of legal, regulated sportsbooks across the country.

With societal ills and sports scandals on the rise, Congress should rein in the betting industry, the editorial opined.

The opinion piece claims that sportsbooks have acted irresponsibly in targeting habitual bettors who lose more often than they win. Those who win more frequently are limited or banned.

Legalized sports betting was supposed to enable gambling companies to identify and weed out problem bettors. Instead, the opposite has happened: High rollers who lose are targeted and courted as VIPs, showered with quick credit and other perks, and encouraged to gamble more to chase their losses, in industry parlance. Those who actually win big get limits imposed on how much they can bet, the editorial read. 

Scathing Critique

In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court said PASPA the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act violated anti-commandeering interpretations of the Constitution. The landmark decision gave states the right to decide if sports betting is allowed.

The gaming industry has since won over lawmakers and/or voters in and Washington, D.C. Their pitch was that legal sports betting would rid the black market, create new jobs and tax revenue, better protect bettors with consumer safeguards, and benefit professional sports by increasing fan engagement. The Post says the hype has largely been a balk.

Many promised benefits, such as eliminating illegal betting, have been more modest than expected or have not materialized. State tax receipts from legal gambling have varied but often disappointed, the editorial continued.

Scandals have tainted professional sports. One out of three high-profile college athletes reports , the opinion added. 

WaPo: Congressional Action Needed 

The Post editorial believes Congress must intervene.

There has been little or no movement in Congress since September 2018, when Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) warned at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing that there are some people who will get hurt, and hurt very badly if Congress fails to act. It shouldn t take another six years for those concerns, finally, to be heeded and translated into national reform, the editorial concluded.

That isn t entirely accurate, as Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal s (D-CT) received a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month. The legislation seeks to put a series of federal guardrails on the sports betting industry.

They include a ban on sports betting ads between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. and during all live sports programming, affordability checks on high-volume bettors, and a ban on the use of credit cards to fund online sportsbook accounts.