On Election Day, Missourians will decide on a state constitutional amendment legalizing sports betting. If Amendment 2 passes, Missouri would be the 39th state to legalize sports betting. And if experience and recent research are any indication, it would cause more harm than good.
The amendment restricts advertising to minors and requires criminal background checks for gaming operators. Companies will have to provide information on gambling addiction, such as those rapid-fire disclosures at the end of gambling app ads. Also, we’re told that gambling proceeds would be directed toward education. Supporters of a yes vote claim that tax revenue may be as high as $38.7 million by the end of the fifth year.
But at what cost?
Charles Fain Lehman of the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research recently provided a litany of studies detailing the wreckage that sports gambling has wrought. He writes, “Six years into the experiment, the evidence is convincing: Legalizing sports gambling was a huge mistake .”