Sports Gambling using Credit Cards?

 

As we wrote about previously, sports gambling is all the rage right now. You can hardly watch sports without being inundated with ads for daily sports gambling sites, such as Draft Kings, Fan Duel, and now even the worldwide leader has its own gambling app - ESPN Bet.

As you might have surmised, I am not a fan.

I love sports, and I am not a prude. I don't drink alcohol but have no problem with those that do. And I have no issues with almost any drug - though I don't touch the stuff myself. Everyone should be free to do what they want (within reason).

But sports gambling scares me. You know who has done well historically when the economy is in the tank? Vegas. That may no longer be the case, especially when gambling has become accessible locally for most. Why go to Vegas when you can place bets in the comfort of your own home?

And that ubiquity is what scares me. It's very easy to get "in the action." It's literally a few taps on your phone away.

And with the economy being sluggish to downright awful for most folks, an informed bet seems like free money.

Except that it's not.

Many people gamble on credit cards. Only a select few states disallow gambling online with credit cards. So people are literally gambling with borrowed money. In fact, that's what the Jaguars employee did. You can rest assured that regular folks do the same.

So we're not talking about gambling with the house or car payment, we're now talking about gambling with borrowed money.

This isn't good.

I don't like where this is headed.

As always, we're here to help when money goes missing. But we prefer to be involved on the front end in setting up policies and procedures - before any funds are misappropriated!

 

This article originally appeared on Linkedin.