Trump administration pushing aggressive expansion of sports betting

FireDragon76 · 2026-02-20T06:22:23-0600

Polymarket and similar platforms are essentially unregulated sports betting:

Trump admin backs Kalshi, Polymarket—What It could mean for sports gamblers

The Trump administration is backing prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket in a legal battle that could change how sports gambling is regulated nationwide.

www.newsweek.com

Most Protestant churches in the US have historically had a negative view of gambling. At one time many board games in the US didn't even include dice, they used tops or spinners, because dice had such negative associations. Fiorello La Guardia, the iconic mayor of New York during the Depression and WWII, was a committed Protestant (Episcopalian), and even smashed up some pinball machines once in a symbolic act of rejecting the expansion of gambling to youth. It's strange that there's so little comment from the Evangelical movement about the aggressive expansion of gambling, when there used to be widespread agreement among Protestants that gambling should not be a routine part of public life.

Desk trauma · 2026-02-20T06:44:19-0600

FireDragon76 said:
It's strange that there's so little comment from the Evangelical movement about the aggressive expansion of gambling, when there used to be widespread agreement among Protestants that gambling should not be a routine part of public life.

No, it isn't.

Richard T · 2026-02-20T07:20:13-0600

https://globalnation.inquirer.net/296755/trumps-social-media-platform-truth-social-to-allow-betting

Trump's own Truth Social stock symbol DJT is going into betting markets. Anything for a dollar I guess. I just posted an article on Trump's son's who have plans with "stable crypto coins."

Maria Billingsley · 2026-02-20T07:51:35-0600

FireDragon76 said:
Polymarket and similar platforms are essentially unregulated sports betting:

Trump admin backs Kalshi, Polymarket—What It could mean for sports gamblers

The Trump administration is backing prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket in a legal battle that could change how sports gambling is regulated nationwide.

www.newsweek.com

Most Protestant churches in the US have historically had a negative view of gambling. At one time many board games in the US didn't even include dice, they used tops or spinners, because dice had such negative associations. Fiorello La Guardia, the iconic mayor of New York during the Depression and WWII, was a committed Protestant (Episcopalian), and even smashed up some pinball machines once in a symbolic act of rejecting the expansion of gambling to youth. It's strange that there's so little comment from the Evangelical movement about the aggressive expansion of gambling, when there used to be widespread agreement among Protestants that gambling should not be a routine part of public life.

All I can say is......

Just more evil comming out of this administration.

When will Christian supporters wake up! It is undeniable that the facts demand repentance from this allegiance.

Be blessed.

FireDragon76 · 2026-02-20T11:13:09-0600

Richard T said:
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/296755/trumps-social-media-platform-truth-social-to-allow-betting

Trump's own Truth Social stock symbol DJT is going into betting markets. Anything for a dollar I guess. I just posted an article on Trump's son's who have plans with "stable crypto coins."

Betting markets are essentially predatory and extractive... the house always wins, as they say. You aren't just playing against the odds, you're also playing against the broker. A big part of the appeal is ignorance of statistics and reliance on magical thinking, and now days, engagement mechanisms and neuromarketting.

Larniavc · 2026-02-20T11:15:15-0600

FireDragon76 said:
Polymarket and similar platforms are essentially unregulated sports betting:

Trump admin backs Kalshi, Polymarket—What It could mean for sports gamblers

The Trump administration is backing prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket in a legal battle that could change how sports gambling is regulated nationwide.

www.newsweek.com

Most Protestant churches in the US have historically had a negative view of gambling. At one time many board games in the US didn't even include dice, they used tops or spinners, because dice had such negative associations. Fiorello La Guardia, the iconic mayor of New York during the Depression and WWII, was a committed Protestant (Episcopalian), and even smashed up some pinball machines once in a symbolic act of rejecting the expansion of gambling to youth. It's strange that there's so little comment from the Evangelical movement about the aggressive expansion of gambling, when there used to be widespread agreement among Protestants that gambling should not be a routine part of public life.

Grift potential.

FireDragon76 · 2026-02-20T11:33:29-0600

Larniavc said:
Grift potential.

The problem from a traditional Christian moral standpoint is that running a grift on your neighbor is the kind of stuff that prophets in the Bible spend more time criticizing than they do about the sexual behaviors of their neighbors (in fact one of the prophets, Hosea, actually married a prostitute). The conservative movement has reduced a consistent life ethic, a holistic understanding of what human life is for... down to visceral disgust and sexual insecurity about women, gays and transpeople.

Pommer · 2026-02-20T12:22:46-0600

Human beings are remarkably bad at predicting future events (and outcomes of events) but almost nobody believes that they themselves are remarkably bad at these.
This is the basis of gambling.

ThatRobGuy · 2026-02-20T18:17:57-0600

FireDragon76 said:
It's strange that there's so little comment from the Evangelical movement about the aggressive expansion of gambling, when there used to be widespread agreement among Protestants that gambling should not be a routine part of public life.

Not really... "protestant" casts a wide net.

Not all protestants are evangelicals.

There was probably a time back in the 1800's when perhaps it was more stigmatized.

But based on my experience in the times I've been in Casino's, I see a heck of a lot of people in there, and common sense and statistics would dictate they're not all Catholics.

ThatRobGuy · 2026-02-20T18:21:59-0600

Maria Billingsley said:
Just more evil comming out of this administration.

As long as odds are disclosed, what makes gambling inherently "evil"?

It may be stupid and risky, but if we criminalized or prohibited everything that was stupid or risky, we'd have a very different legal landscape. I would've gotten a ticket for eating that spicy steak bowl from Chipotle 20 minutes before my strategy meeting last week.

Maria Billingsley · 2026-02-20T18:34:49-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
As long as odds are disclosed, what makes gambling inherently "evil"?

It may be stupid and risky, but if we criminalized or prohibited everything that was stupid or risky, we'd have a very different legal landscape. I would've gotten a ticket for eating that spicy steak bowl from Chipotle 20 minutes before my strategy meeting last week.

Because prediction markets are dangerous and the President( TMTG) , Truth Predict, just expanded his company to do so. This is self dealing.
When will MAGA see the evil in this administration.
Let us reason....PLEASE!

ThatRobGuy · 2026-02-20T20:35:43-0600

Maria Billingsley said:
Because prediction markets are dangerous and the President( TMTG) , Truth Predict, just expanded his company to do so. This is self dealing.
When will MAGA see the evil in this administration.
Let us reason....PLEASE!

I'm not a MAGA person

But we can't base our reasoning on "what did Trump support these last few days? Okay, we need to oppose that"

A) It's subject to change in a few days

B) It would undercut our own previous arguments on certain matters/issues

Let's just be real...pretend there were no Trump, and it was just some stereotypical classic republican cracking down against gambling. Liberals would find a reason to defend the right to gambling, right?

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater... A republican doing something in defiance of what the most staunch religious people want should be considered a win, not a loss.

FireDragon76 · 2026-02-20T23:09:49-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
Not really... "protestant" casts a wide net.

Not all protestants are evangelicals.

There was widespread agreement among Protestants of all kinds that gambling was sinful as late as the 1980's. Did everybody refrain from gambling? No, peoples lives have always been complicated. That doesn't mean it wasn't a real consensus.

ThatRobGuy said:
There was probably a time back in the 1800's when perhaps it was more stigmatized.

But based on my experience in the times I've been in Casino's, I see a heck of a lot of people in there, and common sense and statistics would dictate they're not all Catholics.

That's due to secularism and religious indifference. Peoples lives are no longer shaped by the social ethics of Christianity as much as they once were, they are shaped by market logic, which increasingly looks like gambler logic.

Pommer · 2026-02-21T00:36:05-0600

Maria Billingsley said:
Because prediction markets are dangerous and the President( TMTG) , Truth Predict, just expanded his company to do so. This is self dealing.
When will MAGA see the evil in this administration.
Let us reason....PLEASE!

If the President desires to use his office to enrich himself, that’s “fine”, says I.
Make it a bit “difficult“ though, and make him fight for it, lest he does something “else” if he gets bored of it.

ThatRobGuy · 2026-02-21T08:35:10-0600

FireDragon76 said:
That's due to secularism and religious indifference. Peoples lives are no longer shaped by the social ethics of Christianity as much as they once were, they are shaped by market logic, which increasingly looks like gambler logic.

Given that our governmental structure is supposed to be based on secularism and religious indifference, then that would be mean that decisions about expanding gambling being made for secular reasons, and not making legal decisions based on catering to a religious viewpoint, would be the correct approach then, right?

I think this is where some people on the left undercut their own previous arguments a bit.

All throughout the 80's-2000's, one of the top critiques the left made about the GOP was surrounding how the GOP had been captured by the "religious right" (Falwell, Dobson & Co.) and were trying to govern based via Evangelical-favoring policies.

Yet, any time a republican comes along who breaks away from that paradigm to any degree, the first critique that gets lobbed is to call people out for not demanding strict adherence to religious principles.

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Trump administration pushing aggressive expansion of sports betting

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