There’s a great scene in the 1996 movie Swingers, when the main characters, Mike Peters and Trent Walker, two unemployed actors living in Los Angeles, take a trip to Las Vegas to help Mike get over a breakup. Mike, our primary protagonist, brings with him just $300, but only wants to bet $100, because he can’t afford more than that. Once our dapper duo makes it to the blackjack table, Mike is told that the minimum bet is $100.
Mike responds that he doesn’t want to bet it all. The dealer kindly suggests Mike take a seat at a lower-stakes table, where the camera pans over to show a group of what we can affectionately call “middle-class” players, not the “money” looking guys, he and Trent hoped to project.
But that’s where Mike ends up because he doubled down on eleven like you should and lost.
I know precisely how Mike feels because I am Mike every time I step into a casino—which isn’t very often – feeling like the guy, behind the guy, but behind even that guy – the one who doesn’t make a lot of money and brings practically none when he spends a night out gambling.
I’ve been to Las Vegas once – for the standard bachelor party. Much like Mike Peters, I was unemployed and in my own Swingers movie scene, and I took out $200 because that’s all I could afford over the long weekend.
When we loaded our suitcases into the shuttle to our casino hotel, my buddies relentlessly made fun of me. One told our driver, who immediately joined in the mocking, shaking his head in judgment. I sat in the backseat, embarrassed.
The $200 was gone after a day spent betting on college basketball games, where I didn’t win once.
For the longest time, gambling was seen as taboo in society, done behind closed doors, hidden, and associated with organized crime. It was considered a sin, and Vegas was its capital city.
But sinning can be considered fun, and gambling is no exception. It’s an itch to be scratched by those who need to score quick cash or fulfill the rush of winning and beating the system. Of course, there are consequences to such temptations, and people prone to addiction can succumb, and much like alcohol, become overwhelmed and have their lives ruined.
Perhaps I’m well aware of my own addictions (cigarettes, purchasing baseball hats), that I have stayed away from the temptation of gambling, knowing nothing good will come from my partaking. This is not a moment to pat myself on the back, but a confession that while I find gambling to be a fascinating activity, the truth is I don’t gamble because I downright stink at it and don’t care about sports that much anymore to figure out if I can improve.
Being an idiot has been immensely helpful in this situation.
Society no longer sees gambling as the vice it once was, and gambling has become more accepted in the 21st century. Popularity in sports betting has increased since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Murphy v. NCAA, allowing states to set up gaming licenses to permit bets on sporting events, building on the expansion wave of casinos throughout the country a decade earlier through ballot measures.
So while Las Vegas may still be a destination, you don’t have to travel far to step into these glistening castles and try your luck at the lower stakes blackjack table, or place a bet on a game. There’s likely one just right down the street, or across town. If traveling is still inconvenient, you can pull out that massive computer that fits in your pocket and, with a few taps of your finger, immerse yourself in the gambling world, instead of using it to call your mother and tell her you love her.
While sports betting and gambling are legal, they’re also illegal. Last Thursday, it was wild to see that the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested three guys associated with the National Basketball Association on the day the 2025-2026 season tipped off for engaging in two different illegal gambling schemes. The investigation netted a sitting NBA coach, a current player, and a guy who managed to be both in his career just because he was friends with LeBron James.
I’ve thought about how crazy gambling, especially sports betting, has become over the past few years. Without trying to sound overtly old, when I was a kid, Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose was suspended for life by the baseball commissioner for betting on baseball games. A year earlier, I watched the movie Eight Men Out, the story of how members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series. I remember cheering for John “Hot Rod” Williams, a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player arrested in college for point shaving. These moments of game interference and outcome fixing were few and far between.
Now it feels like this sort of thing is a regular occurrence. I don’t think it is much of a coincidence that the gaming industry has ballooned during this same time, with venture capitalists’ investment, and Wall Street, to form tech gaming companies founded and run by people with MBAs. Because of the ease and access, sports betting in the United States hit a record revenue in 2024, with $13 billion in bets placed. This topped the previous record of $11 billion the year before.
Sinning is not only fun, but expensive.
It’s also annoying.
Gambling has spilled into every aspect of sports, that you can’t avoid it. Turn on a football game and watch commercials about how to gamble from those tech sports betting companies that are now officially sponsors of the NFL, MLB, and the NBA. There’s a college football podcast I listen to for the stupid enjoyment it can be. The beginning of every episode lists out the phone number of the state’s gambling addiction line, while encouraging listeners to join the BetMGM Rewards program, where if you place a $10 bet and lose, MGM will magically give you another $1,500 to place more bets. I have no idea how that works, but I’m smart enough to know that is not a benevolent move by these billionaires. I also have a friend who works in the sports media industry, has a daily show working with MGM, and puts out opinions on how he sees the betting lines – all in the spirit of enhancing the game beyond the score.
The constant barrage of betting makes the game less enjoyable. This summer I watched pitchers for my beloved Cleveland Guardians, throw balls into the dirt only to find out that large amounts of money were placed on the prop bet (based on propositional betting, where you place bets outside of the outcome, like the first pitch being a ball), that when it hit, the gambling police of these sports betting companies went nuts and alerted Major League Baseball. The players were suspended and their careers remain in limbo. Last year, MLB had to deal with a massive gambling controversy with its best player in the league and the bets his interpreter made over the years, using his name.
I wonder what the 2026 season will bring.
I won’t try to moralize the idea that gambling shouldn’t exist. Our Commander in Chief used to be a casino executive, and the country found no harm in his past business practices or any destructive action to the country, for that matter. Every pro league stayed away from putting a team in Vegas; now multiple leagues make it their home. But when I see millionaires continue to engage in illegal activity to their own ruin, I can’t help but think about the destructive nature that sports betting has on our society, especially for guys like me. When we talk about billions of dollars being transferred, it has to come from somewhere, and studies show that people are going bankrupt and ruining their credit scores. I feel like we could have seen this coming.
Vegas ends up playing a small role in Swingers. I hope one day we can say the same thing about sports, but I’m not sure we can put the toothpaste back into the tube.
What do you think about gambling in general? What about the athletes and sports gambling? Is it out of control?
Apologies for the late Saturday essay. It’s been a week! I’ll see you on Monday.
I supported the idea of legalized sports betting in Ohio, but after seeing it implemented I’ve done a complete 180. Horrible idea that never should’ve happened.