"Credit delinquency rates, primarily driven by missed payments on credit cards and auto loans, rose about 0.3% overall in states where sports betting is legal, despite legal sports bettors making up only 3% of the population. But, looking only at the 3% of the population who took up sports betting after their state legalized it, credit delinquencies spiked by more than 10% among gamblers. Credit delinquency means credit payments are at least 90 days past due."
Not sure I have much sympathy here. Gambling is such a voluntary personal choice, some serious weight has to be given to adults being response for being adults. That said, it's also a known addiction, so there's that.
Exactly the kind of nanny state mentality we all expect from NPR.
You're exactly right. These are grown ups and in a free society grown ups get to make stupid decisions about how to spend their money.
Also, a 0.3% increase isn't what most people would call a "surge". More like a barely perceptible increase.
The only thing I'll add though is that peoples' bad decisions genuinely cause an externality. For example, if they turn towards theft or fraud to cover their gambling debts. Or even what I call the "moral externality"... in a democratic society people vote to use public money to help those who are struggling, even if their struggles are entirely their own fault.
Yes, but fraud and theft are already crimes and "public money" is just a euphemism for theft and fraud.
If crimes are appropriately punished, then you end up with the socially optimal amount of gambling and theft and fraud.
Fair on the first point, but as to the euphemism, it doesn't really matter what you think; they're gonna point their guns at you and take your money to bail out other peoples' bad decisions regardless. So, a case could be made that I'd rather them point their guns at the people making bad decisions to force them to stop making those bad decisions.
How well do prohibitions work at keeping junkies clean?
I'd rather them not bother and stop using that as a pretense to rob and threaten innocent people.
Hang on, speaking as the 3% in question, it's not my fault that making myself poor qualifies me for the bailout. Just because the statists use my poverty as the pretense, doesn't mean my property rights should be infringed to keep me from becoming poor. I would just transfer that additional money to leveraged stock trading. You can't correct one NAP violation with another.
If anyone should have guns pointed at them, it's the people already pointing guns at us. They make me accept your money. There was no moral externality until they collectivized my personal problems. I'm not the one executing the theft so let's leave my dice games alone.
Exactly
are these literal guns?
Shoot the ones stealing, externality solved
Who do you think OP listens to?
and I downzapped him
A lot of mainstream corporate media
including NPR
Yes, the corporate press mostly sucks because they do the bidding of the state, so NPR is in that club.