Far be it from me to tell anybody how to spend their hard-earned cash. That’d be downright un-American.
I will say, however, that the current state of sports betting in America has gotten far beyond out of control in recent years, and your sons and daughters will have to contend with an entirely new sports atmosphere than you or I grew up with.
It wasn’t long ago that gambling on sports wasn’t legal, and those who bet on sports back then would tell you that the “gambling environment” has become much safer than it was prior to its federal legalization in 2018.
I even knew a couple of older sports fans back in central Pennsylvania where I grew up who would call a friend in Philadelphia or some place in New Jersey to place their weekly bets.
It was a shady, criminal-infested industry that cultivated numerous scandals in collegiate and pro sports since major sports first became the money-making machine they are today.
Now, that’s not the case. There’s no secret phone numbers or lingo you need to use. You can just open up your phone and select from any number of free-to-download, easy-to-use gambling apps.
Your kids have access to these as well, by the way. Sure, there are age-verification protocols in place to prevent underage use of these apps, but let’s be honest, we all found ways to do things we shouldn’t when we were kids.
Some apps — predicated on the use of virtual currency — completely bypass these age-verification systems legally as there’s no legitimate use of real-world currency.
These social sportsbooks essentially teach children how to gamble on sports with training wheels and kids’ prizes.
It’s gotten to the point where these apps are even letting you trade on sports. Please, don’t ask me the difference, I barely understand sports trading myself.
I’m certainly not saying that I believe gambling should still be illegal. I don’t know if I have a particular stance on it, truthfully. However, it’s clear that “sports” and “gambling” have now been forever linked through this development, and there’s certainly no indication that any professional or collegiate athletic association intends to fight it.
I think what maybe burns me up the most about it all is the hypocrisy. The poster child of sports gambling for generations was, of course, Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball permanently 1989.
In 2022, Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati — the home of the Reds, Rose’s longtime team — announced they would be welcoming a BetMGM sportsbook inside the stadium.
For nearly two years, Rose continued to live on, forever separated from the sport he dedicated most of his adult life to and ineligible for the MLB Hall of Fame, while thousands of people placed bets on sports just a few hundred feet from the same home plate he had more than 3,000 hits at.
Rose was not without his own off-the-field controversies over his 80-plus years of life, but the one that hung him up the most, ironically, was that he was a “degenerate gambler.”
That very same moniker has a home in nearly every male friend group between the ages of 18 to 45.
Everyone seems to be gambling nowadays. And, to be honest, it’s not that big of a deal to me if somebody decides to throw a few bucks down on a five-leg parlay every once in a while just for the thrill of it.
What is a very, very big deal, however, is what Americans are potentially going without in order to supplement this new habit.
It was more than movies, arts, museums, music and concerts combined in 2025, and not even the sporting events themselves — just the overs, the unders, the moneylines and the upsets.
You can bet on pretty much anything, too, and for any reason. When Pope Francis died in April, 2025, there was a ridiculous surge across multiple sports books where bettors heavily favored a Nick Castellanos home run.
For sometime, it had become a common belief that whenever devastating news broke the headlines that morning, Castellanos went deep.
That whole theory stemmed from one meme, and directly impacted the financial decisions of thousands of people nationwide.
There doesn’t appear to be a fix in sight, and to be fair, you can’t necessarily remedy something that people find enjoyable.
Call me crazy, but I’d rather go to the movies, tour a museum or go see Tyler Childers than put that money on whether or not Brock Purdy finishes with more than 2.5 touchdowns on Sunday.
Contact Travis Bradley at tbradley@uniondemocrat.com or (209) 588-4526 for news tips or story ideas. Follow him on X at @howaboutTravis and Instagram @travis_l_bradley.