John Stonestreet – Family Council

Betting on the Final Four: The Scourge of Sports Gambling

Apr 9, 2025John StonestreetGamblingGambling, Sports Betting

This past weekend, Houston, Auburn, Florida, and Duke battled it out in the Final Four in what is considered the event of the year for hoops enthusiasts and a second Super Bowl for sports gamblers. In fact, this year’s tournament featured commercials in which the NCAA discouraged gamblers from harassing players in person and online, as well as several games in which players were loudly criticized for either scoring or not scoring late in the game. This had nothing to do with principles of good sportsmanship but for what the last-minute behaviors meant for the over/under.

An estimated $3.1 billion was expected to be legally wagered on this year’s tournament, a 12% increase over last year. During First Round games in Denver, I personally witnessed fans (all young men, to be specific) loudly cheering and booing the score of a game already decided, not because their favorite team had won or to honor an outstanding performance by a player. They were rooting for the spread.

America is only a few years into widespread legalized sports gambling, but the results are in. This industry is devastating for individuals and families, and is corrupting sports. In an article for The Atlantic, Charles Fain Lehman stated the truth bluntly: “Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake.” More and more data supports his claim.

Today, in 38 states plus Washington, D.C., there are no meaningful regulations for sports gambling. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that paved the way for states to regulate their own industries. Since then, sportsbooks have raked in over $300 billion.

Obviously, this money did not come from a preponderance of winners. In fact, Lehman argued, the return of sports gambling “has caused a wave of financial and familial misery” that “disproportionately falls on the most economically precarious households.” In other words, those who have the least money to lose do the vast majority of losing.

The damage is enormous. For every dollar spent on betting, household investing fell by an average of two dollars. Since 2018, there have been large increases in over-drafted bank accounts and maxed-out credit cards. Legalized sports gambling has increased “the risk that a household goes bankrupt by 25 to 30 percent,” and it has caused debt delinquency to surge.

This financial strain, in turn, worsens social pathologies. According to research cited by Lehman, an upset loss for an NFL home team correlates to a 10% spike in male domestic abuse. Overall, states with legalized sports gambling have seen an estimated 9% increase in “intimate-partner violence.”

Given this data comes from the same states just a few years apart, it is highly unlikely these correlations are mere coincidences. Sports gambling is causing financial ruin and domestic violence in homes. As Lehman put it, measuring this industry is more than counting dollars and cents. It is counting the cost to human lives, especially to women and children dragged into a destructive and addictive pastime.

In the age of smartphones, betting has become easier than ever. Wagers can be placed on virtually all aspects of a game, from individual pitches to how long the national anthem lasts. People can make bets from home without traveling to the seedy part of town. Notifications in eye-catching apps and a deluge of catchy ads with false promises open the industry to people who might never have otherwise gambled.

And legalized sports gambling corrupts sports. Tennis players, Olympians, and NBA referees have all been caught fixing games and matches. Last year, the NFL suspended five players for gambling-related violations, and a Sportradar analysis found a 250% year-over-year increase in suspicious matches in basketball alone. Since the beginning of the year, college basketball players from Fresno State and the University of New Orleans were suspended for gambling violations, as was an umpire from Major League Baseball. My experience is that it has also corrupted the fan experience. My time in Denver was negatively impacted by a young man who yelled for two straight games, not for or against either team that was playing, but at the referees who, he believed, were fixing games so he would lose his bets.

According to Lottery USA, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in over 302.6 million. Powerball is roughly one in 292.2 million. For comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about one in a million. The odds are only slightly better in sports betting because, as the adage goes, “The house always wins.” Sportsbooks don’t make $300 billion in six years by minting millionaires out of their customers.

The national experiment with sports gambling has failed miserably. Laws are often necessary to protect freedom and the common good. Though “consenting adults doing what they want with their money” sounds like freedom, it is as misleading as the idea of “consenting adults doing what they want with their bodies.” In both cases, poorly defined freedom enslaves, addicts, and harms others. In both cases, so-called “consent” is anything but consensual for the innocent parties dragged along, and whose lives are ruined as a result.

This scourge of an industry is based on a distorted view of freedom that leaves people in bondage. That should be more than enough reason for the American people to call off all bets and reverse on sports gambling, again.

Why the HENRYs Aren’t Happy: Guest Column

Mar 6, 2025John StonestreetCultureChristianity, Culture

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted a group of people called “The HENRYs,” an acronym for “high earner, not rich yet.” The piece showcased earners with incomes well into the hundreds of thousands who still feel they are living paycheck to paycheck. According to author Callum Borchers, “The essence of being a HENRY is feeling a gap between what you have and what you think you need to be comfortable.”

Of course, it’s true that prices on many things, from housing to eggs to childcare, have never been higher. But some of the HENRY’s featured in the article have more than the economy to blame. For example, one mentioned her hefty student loan debt and Audi car payments as weighing down her list of expenses. Others seemed to find social status in living in very expensive cities while still trying to keep up with the Joneses. As Borchers noted, “What these high earners consider essentials might be termed luxuries (or nonsense) by the rest of us.”

What people believe to be truly essential perhaps, more than anything else, reflects their deepest loves and allegiances. “Where your treasure is,” Jesus said, “there your heart will be.” Today, with food supply relatively secure and basic necessities widely accessible, we are told to pursue happiness, which will come in the accumulation of things. But that is not the way happiness works. Studies show that once our most basic needs are met, there is no significant difference in levels of reported happiness in correlation with level of income. In other words, money can buy security, but it cannot buy happiness.

When Jesus told how difficult it is for the wealthy to come to Christ, He was probably referencing a level of security most of us have achieved. It’s less about the amount earned, and more about what we look to in order to secure our worship and devotion, and to fill the “God-shaped hole” each of us has. One must choose to serve either God or mammon, a term that refers to more than just money. But those who tie their contentment to the number of commas in their bank account will never truly find it.

The discontentment of the HENRYs is deeply connected to the larger, culture-wide crisis of what life is about and who we are. Simply put, we look for meaning and identity in all the wrong places. Comfort is not a big enough cause for which to live. Neither is luxury, especially the kind achieved through debt. (U.S. household debt is now over $18 trillion.)

In Romans, Paul lists generosity as a gift of grace, alongside service, teaching, acts of mercy, and other ways of living for others. As David Bahnsen described in his book Full-Time, a Christian vision understands our work as a calling, the way we steward what belongs to God and fulfills our creational calling. It is not merely a means to store up what is, in the end, perishable. Bahnsen’s book summarizes the inherent connection between work and the meaning of life, and what that means for how we should think about wealth.

This is why Christians have hope in all economic times. This hope is an incredible witness to the One who made us, but especially in times when we just lose sight of what life is about. We’ve been bought with a price, even greater than what eggs cost these days.

Request a copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/February.

Pixar’s LGBTQ Reversal: Guest Column

Jan 20, 2025John StonestreetLGBTLGBT, Transgender

If this were a movie trailer, I might begin this commentary with the line, “In a world where Dylan Mulvaney almost destroyed Bud Light. . . .” As it turns out, the 2023 incident when a transgender activist crashed sales of America’s best-selling beer was a turning point. Since then, we’ve seen a number of companies respond to public pushback on gender ideology. In fact, the latest example may be the most surprising.

A couple of weeks ago, Hollywood Reporter revealed that the animation giant Pixar’s new original streaming series Win or Lose “will no longer include” a planned transgender storyline. A spokesperson for Disney confirmed the report, explaining,

When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.

This welcome news could not be more different than the tune Disney has been singing for years. In 2017, the director of the live-action Beauty and the Beast trumpeted its “exclusively gay moment.” 2022’s Lightyear featured a same-sex kiss, and Disney’s Strange World featured a gay relationship. And of course, it’s a big change from 2022, when then-CEO Bob Chepek led Disney in open political activism against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Chepek ultimately lost the battle, along with his job.

In all these instances, there was no hesitation by Disney to push “certain topics” on children or their parents. What is behind the about-face? Perhaps it’s because Disney and its studios have experienced their own “Mulvaney moment.” According to Hollywood Reporter, Pixar decided to remove the trans subplot in Win or Lose about the same time as major layoffs in that studio and in its parent company. Those cuts followed a steady lineup of box office flops involving LGBTQ themes. In fact, Disney has been bleeding out financially for a while, with one news site describing how “high-budget movie failures, combined with challenges in their streaming and theme park operations” left the Mouse House in a “rocky” spot by the second half of 2024.

The idea that parents are best suited to handle these controversial topics with their kids would have been viciously denounced back in 2020 as “homophobic” and “transphobic.” Scathing opinion pieces in The New York Times and other outlets would have called consumers to boycott and punish Disney. Apparently, even at the happiest place on earth, times are changing.

There are other examples. A former Pixar employee told IGN that Inside Out 2, which released in June, was also supposed to include an LGBTQ subplot. However, writers were told to make the main character “less gay.” As it turns out, the “less gay” film turned the year around for Pixar, earning its biggest box office return ever.

While it’s too early to declare victory here, it does feel as if an ideological fever has broken. Woke ideology, especially on the issue of gender, has culturally faltered. In fact, more companies and candidates see it as a financial and political liability.

If an entertainment juggernaut like Disney is forced to give up on the propaganda, what does that mean for this movement that has seemed untouchable for so long? What does that say about the proclamation that certain beliefs and activists are “on the right side of history” and Christians on the “wrong side”?

Perhaps the most important lesson to take from Disney’s and Pixar’s about-face is to soundly reject the “inevitability narrative.” Cultural degradation is not certain, and Christians do not have to perpetually retreat. Sometimes, pushing back makes a difference, especially for companies forced to feel the bottom line and for politicians forced to feel it at the ballot box. If enough people are willing to stand up and challenge powerful interests promoting perversion, history can appear to switch sides … or at least slow its march in the wrong direction.

Ironically, we have Dylan Mulvaney to thank for this shift, at least in part. Trans activists pushed too far and too fast. However, there are plenty of others: Billboard Chris, Riley Gaines, Ryan Anderson, Alliance Defending Freedom, Abigail Shrier, and the 1792 Project are just a few, notable woke warriors. Not on that list are the churches and pastors and Christian leaders who thought the risk of speaking out would be “too costly” for their platform or would “get in the way of the Gospel.” They were the ones on the wrong side of history.