Why do people like to gamble? I asked a gambler. Me.

A new report finds that sports wagering causes financial harm - lower credit scores, higher bankruptcy - in the 38 states where it's legal. So what's the kick? I interviewed myself for some insight.

Since the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing sports gambling, 38 states have adopted it and Americans have embraced it. In the first five years, nearly $300 billion has been wagered on sporting events, the vast majority of that online. In the 30 states and District of Columbia that allow online betting, television commercials promoting gambling apps, many featuring actors such as Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart and Aaron Paul, are inescapable. 

As many as three-fourths of Americans are reported to place at least one bet a year, and 10 percent bet at least twice a week. Of these, a tiny percentage of people will become problem bettors - people who lose more than they can afford and, in the worst case, gambling addicts. Does that mean for everyone else, it's harmless entertainment? A new report found that, short of financial ruin, legal sports betting has a negative impact generally. 

“We observe a small but significant decline in the average credit score,” the report, The Financial Consequences of Legalized Sports Gambling, said. “In states that allow online/mobile gambling, the decrease is roughly three times larger, suggesting that legal sports gambling does worsen consumer financial health, especially when mobile access is allowed.”

It's not just credit scores. In the states with legal sports betting, bankruptcies and loan delinquencies increase. The report found that these problems disproportionately affect lower-income men

"Past research has found that ease of access may exacerbate gambling-related financial harm, as individuals can place bets anytime and anywhere, leading to increased gambling frequency and expenditure," according to the report by Brett Hollenbeck of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, Poet Larsen of the University of Southern California and Davide Prosperio, also of USC.

I wanted to discuss these findings and explore the allure of gambling, so I interviewed a gambler. Me. To be sure, I am only an occasional, low-stakes bettor. But even from that limited experience, I have some first-hand insight into the psychology of gambling and how easy it can be to get sucked into it.

photo credit: saitowitz

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RC: When was the first time you ever placed a bet, Ron?

RC: I’m not entirely certain, Ron. After grad school, I went back to L.A. where I grew up and I'd sometimes drive or fly to Vegas with my friend Brent and we’d hit the casinos. I didn’t have a lot of money so I’d play 21 for anywhere from two to five bucks a hand. If I lost $40 — which usually didn’t take long — I would quit. My goal was often just to stay at the table long enough to get one of the free drinks brought around by the cocktail waitresses. I remember once, we both lost all our money and went to one of those 24-hour check cashing places - strange places - and wrote checks for more money, which we promptly lost. We ended up with just $3 between us and had to persuade a taxi driver to take us to the airport for that. The driver grudgingly agreed. On the way to the airport, he was shaking his head.

RC: So that was the extent of your gambling? Just the occasional casino foray?

RC: That was my introduction. Later, I started going to the horse race track. Hollywood Park — it was on the site of what’s now So-Fi football stadium — was close to my parents’ home, so I would go there ,but eventually Santa Anita, also in the L.A. area -- a beautiful track -- after I moved to New York, to Belmont and Aqueduct. For a while, I became a real student of the sport and learned how to interpret the past performance charts in the Daily Racing Form.

RC: Did you ever make much money?

RC: Rarely. But once in a while, I’d win a medium to long shot or a parlay. I have to say it’s a real adrenaline rush to bet on a horse and watch it thundering into the home stretch and win. It’s a thrill different from anything else in sports to see these magnificent beasts just flying down the track and, if you’re down at the rail, to hear the furious pounding of what sounds like a cavalry charge. And on top of the sheer excitement of the race, to win money. It’s a fantastic feeling. It really was. I thought of it as getting free money. Obviously, it isn’t free. Just the opposite. Most people lose. Sooner or later. Or sooner and later. But that’s how it feels at that moment. 

photo credit: Jessica M. Cross

At one point, I really got into horse racing. When I was in grad school, when I 21 years old in New York City where off-track betting was legal, I had an OTB account to place bets by phone. Again, tiny wagers. Rarely more than $10 on a race. I do remember though actually going out to Aqueduct race track in Queens with maybe $10 on me. It soon became $2 and I decided to bet it on a parlay in the feature race of the day. There was a great horse named Forgo. Enormous gelding. One of the all-time great race horses. So I bet a combo of Forgo and whatever horse I thought was second best. So I bet it in that order. Forgo/the other horse. That was the last of my money. There were ATMs at the track. I bet my last $2 on this race. I didn’t even have a subway token to get home. Luckily, my bet hit. I made maybe $15.

RC: Do you still go to the race track?

RC: Not really. I was a fan for about 5 years but then I gradually lost interest. I think the last time I went to the track was for work. When American Pharaoh won the triple crown at Belmont Park. That was 2015. I got to interview Steve Cauthen, the legendary jockey, which was very cool.

RC: Do you believe in luck?

RC: Yes, I do. I’m not religious or a believer, and yet I believe in luck. And I'm superstitious. I hate the number 13. I will not walk where a black cat has just passed. I don't walk under ladders. When I play craps, I hold the dice in my fist and blow on it, which I know is ridiculous, but I do it. 

RC: What about sports betting? You have been able to bet on sports in Vegas casinos for many years. Did you ever do that?

RC: Yes. Sometimes, I’d bet on college football. But not often and not much, I didn’t really bet on sports until I was a young reporter at the New York Daily News in the late 1970s. In those days, the Daily News had something like ten what they called craft unions. These were pressmen -- guys who'd operate these huge printing presses. They'd wear these funny white paper caps. Printers. Bundlers. Delivery drivers. People who set the type by hand. Some of those jobs had already begun to be replaced by automation. But the unions, which were very powerful, could shut down the paper by going on strike - they did it in 1978 - so they were able to protect their members while allowing the automation to proceed. What that meant was there were lots of guys - they were men, white men - who had a job but  nothing to do. Their jobs had been automated. So , instead of working, they’d hang out in this big room all day, smoke cigarettes, probably discreetly drink booze, and play cards. The room was nicknamed the rubber room. Well, some of the guys in the rubber room were book makers. Bookies. Once a week they'd send a guy up to the newsroom who would go from desk to desk handing out these yellow slips of paper that had the weekend’s pro and college football games and the point spread for each game. You could bet as little as a dollar, mark off your picks — 3 games, 5 games, 10 games, whatever — and give this guy the money. If you won, he’d come by on Monday and give you your winnings. It was very popular in the newsroom. I would sometimes bet a parlay card. One day, a buddy of mine asked me if I wanted to go downstairs and meet the two of the guys who ran these weekly parlay cards. Of course, I said yes. We go downstairs. It's a whole other world from the newsroom. It has the look and feel of a pool hall in the 1940s. Guys just hanging out, playing poker. The room is thick with cigarette smoke. I was the only Black person there, which drew some curious stares. My friend introduced me to Carmine and Louie. Nice guys. Probably in their 50s. Heavy New York accents. Characters. So, after that, I started placing bets with them by phone. When I left the News after a couple of years, that was the end of that.

RC: Did you ever get into any kind of financial trouble from gambling?

RC: Never. In that respect, I guess I had good luck. But, as I said, I never place large wagers. There’s an expression, “Bet with your head, not over it.” I always bet well under my head. Part of it is that I wasn't making much money and I was cheap. I was afraid to lose what little money I had. But I still liked the thrill of making a tiny wager. It seems almost contradictory, doesn't it? A cheapskate willing to gamble. But, as Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.”

The only time I bet what I considered was a lot of money was when I bet $100 on the great Affirmed, ridden by Steve Cauthen, who won all three Triple Crown races in 1979. A hundred bucks was an enormous amount of money to me. But I believed in Affirmed and he won all three of those races and they were all incredibly close. In the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, Affirmed beat his arch rival Alydar by just a matter of a few inches.

RC: What exactly is the kick? I know lots of people who don’t gamble who say it's because they might lose money. It's too stressful.

RC: That’s how non-gamblers think. There’s nothing enjoyable in it, only the stress of possibly losing their money. They are by definition risk averse. That might even be the rational perspective, though I’d say a life devoid of all risk would be pretty boring. On the other hand, the gambler thinks, “I might win.” And then he or she wants or needs to find out. There’s only one way to know. 

RC: It sounds anxiety provoking, not fun. 

RC: I think for some people it’s like a chance to get something for nothing. Like I said earlier, it seems like free money. But there’s something else going on too, I think. In the movie The Gambler with James Caan — great movie by the way and I got introduced to Mahler’s music from the soundtrack — Caan’s character is a college professor who’s a hardcore gambling addict. He falls deep into debt to some very bad people. At one point, his bookie feels sorry for him and says, “I don’t get it. why do you do this?” And James Caan tells the guy he gambles for “the juice.”

The juice is the rush that comes from the risk which is really what gambling is all about, the allure. It’s the electric charge you get as the little ball skitters around the roulette wheel; when the croupier deals the card; when the race horses burst from the gate; when the basketball game or football game or baseball game is underway. It’s the giddy feeling of possibility. The possibility of winning or willing yourself to win in the face of the much greater likelihood that you will lose. When you do win, it’s magical. All of this is real and measurable. There are actual biological effects from gambling, the release of dopamine in the brain. Losing, on the other hand, is unpleasant. 

RC: What do you think about current legal sports gambling? In a lot of states, including New York, betting is as convenient as clicking on an app on your cell phone. 

RC: And that’s the problem, or potential problem, for some people. It’s too convenient. I have two online betting accounts. I think I have about $12 in one, and, last I checked, 47 cents in the other. So, unless I inject a lot more money into my accounts, I can’t get into too much trouble. So, in theory at least, unless I go berserk, I’m not in jeopardy of squandering my pension and life savings anytime soon. But that’s me, now. Other people surely bet over their heads and it’s easier than ever to do. Pick up the phone, click, click, click. You place your bet. One of the dangers of going on a losing streak — which is inevitable — is that it can provoke in some people this crazed impulse to immediately place another bet, often a bigger bet to make back what you just lost. Once you get caught up in that frenzy, forget about it. You can go from losing a little money to losing a lot of money very quickly. The accessibility of your favorite gambling app makes it too easy to go on one of these benders. For some people - a minority but still a lot of people - it's just too easy to start betting and the next thing you know, you're in too deep. Gambling addiction, at its worst, is a nasty thing. I recently read a biography of Pete Rose. He was hardcore. It happens to some people and it's horrific. I’m not even going to get into the potential for athletes themselves to get corrupted and try to affect the outcome of a game they’re in. It’s already happened.

RC: A lot of people imagine that legal or illegal gambling leads to financial ruin. Obviously it can for some people, but are those concerns true when you look at it broadly? 

RC: That report that came out about the effects of legalized sports betting on people’s personal finances is eye opening. In the states with legal sports gambling, the average credit scores have declined. Not a lot. One percent. But that’s a statistically significant harmful effect. The researchers dug deeper and found that the most susceptible people were young, male, and lower-income. If you don't have a lot of money, obviously, you are not in a position to waste what you have gambling. It's like an added tax.

RC: Are you arguing that therefore sports gambling should be illegal?

RC: I’m arguing that legal sports gambling does harm some people financially. Is that collateral damage okay? Maybe one place to address at least an aspect of it is by restricting the heavy promotion that you see incessantly on TV in states where it’s legal. That stuff is seductive and potentially destructive. Cigarette ads were banned for contributing to a behavior which had potentially severe health consequences. Are potentially severe financial consequences less important?

RC: Does the government have a legitimate interest in protecting people from the consequences of their own behavior? Or maybe the better question is: when is it the government's responsibility to protect people from themselves? When is it not? 

RC: There are traffic signals at intersections and heroin is illegal. Why? Because government decided to restrict or control such matters to protect the best interests of individuals and of society. You shouldn’t be shooting heroin because it’ll mess you up, turn you into an addict and possibly kill you. Uncontrolled intersections are dangerous. People would crash into one another without stop lights. The fuzzy part is where you draw a line. You could make roughly the same case for banning gambling as you can for banning alcohol. In fact, alcohol abuse has surely destroyed far more lives than betting on NFL games or horse races. There is a stronger case for banning cigarettes than for banning sports betting. Booze and cigarettes are legal, but we should ban sports betting? I don't know. But I do find that report on the financial harm from legal sports betting to be credible and concerning. If we acknowledge that there are harmful effects from sports betting, then people and their state governments can at least make informed decisions about whether it should be legal in their state, and not pretend that it's just harmless fun or think all they have to do to be responsible is give out the 800 number to Gamblers Anonymous on the gambling apps or in the television commercials.