Bad things happen when lawmakers slap a smiley face on vice, a term defined by Merriam-Webster as “moral depravity or corruption.” Familiar vices include prostitution, the heavy use of alcohol or psychoactive drugs, and gambling \u2013 all of which have been declared legal in some American states. In Connecticut, deep thinkers in the legislature are starting to wonder whether they did their constituents any favors by legalizing sports betting.<\/p>\n
“I am concerned,” said Rep. Maria Horn<\/a>, D-Salisbury, who played a starring role in enacting Connecticut’s sports-betting legislation in 2021. “I’m concerned about what it’s doing to sports, I’m concerned about young people betting, I’m concerned about the increasing blurring between this and prediction markets.”<\/p>\n Anecdotal reports of successful people succumbing to gambling addiction have flourished in the news and social media in recent years. The Oct. 16, 2025 edition of Harvard Law Today chronicled the fall<\/a> of prominent Philadelphia trial lawyer Harry Levant, who “(pleaded) guilty to 13 counts of financial crimes, after using client money to finance his rampant gambling addiction.” Pennsylvania pharmacist Bryan Biehl told Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health’s Kellie Schmitt that his gambling addiction left him $50,000 in debt, depressed and contemplating suicide, before he finally sought professional help. Mr. Levant laid out the problem succinctly: “What we’re looking at is the total normalization of a known addictive product. Does it get any more normalized than when a 9-year-old child visits Fenway Park and sees MGM and DraftKings on the Green Monster?”<\/p>\n Multiple studies of sports-betting addiction are under way. In Massachusetts, a panel of experts fueled by a $2.5 million Gaming Commission grant will embark on<\/a> “a three-year study on the social and economic effects of legalized sports and casino gambling in the state.” The University of Mississippi has established<\/a> a first-of-its-kind Center on Collegiate Gambling, despite the fact the Magnolia State’s Senate, evidently wiser than its counterpart in Connecticut, has blocked legalization of sports betting.<\/p>\n A Hearst Connecticut Media report<\/a>, published April 11, sugarcoats the issue somewhat \u2013 noting the 2021 legislation is feeding tens of millions of dollars into state coffers every year. “(R)evenue for both sports betting and online casino gaming, also legalized in 2021, has increased steadily over the past five years, with sports betting alone earning the state about $29.4 million last year,” according to the report.<\/p>\n The good news is that concern about sports betting flows briskly across party lines. Among the most fervent critics of the state’s sports-betting policies are Reps. Dave Rutigliano, R-Trumbull, and Anne Hughes, D-Easton, who told Hearst CT, “The entire industry is based on the brain science of addiction. It’s not designed for just safe gambling, it’s designed to hook you in.”<\/p>\n U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., administered a dose of tough talk on the Connecticut legislature and the sports-betting industry during a roundtable on youth-sports betting he held in Hartford recently. “There’s no question that there was a foresight failure, and people didn’t see the evils all around the country,” he said. “It’s not just Connecticut. This problem is a national public health-crisis.”<\/p>\n Connecticut legislators are considering several bills to address perceived problems with the state’s sports-betting regime. “Legislation requiring problem gaming services on college campuses passed out of the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee by a 17-1 vote, while a bill proposing various new consumer protections cleared the Committee on General Law 18-2, despite opposition from many of the state’s gambling operators,” Hearst CT reported<\/a>. But this year’s session is scheduled to end May 6, and hundreds of bills await action. Some will die on the vine.<\/p>\n Hopefully, legislators are coming to the realization that the legalization of “moral depravity or corruption,” enacted under the premises that stricter state control will blunt the impacts of vice while creating new sources of revenue, is no way to run a state government.<\/p>\n