Why making Americans bet with cash could protect people from gambling problems

Filed 1h ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

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Matt's Blues

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Paul Goyette from Chicago, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Gambling revenue in American casinos and sportsbooks hit $79 billion in 2025, up nearly 20% in two years, while prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket add billions more outside state regulation entirely. The piece cites scandals including a police chief accused of embezzling $4.5 million to bet on sports and a soldier charged with insider trading on classified military operations via prediction markets.

The author, an economist, proposes requiring cash for all gambling transactions, arguing that pulling out physical hundred-dollar bills creates friction and visibility that apps and cards eliminate. He notes roughly 20 million Americans are estimated problem gamblers, about 6% of the population, and that prediction markets bypass state protections like age limits and in-person requirements.

He is candid that outright prohibition is a dead letter: states are hooked on gambling tax revenue, media outlets on gambling ad dollars, and leagues on the engagement gambling drives.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Asking a gambler to walk to an ATM before losing his shirt is a modest idea, and modest ideas rarely survive contact with an industry this profitable. The states cashing the tax checks and the leagues cashing the sponsorship checks have no reason to slow anybody down. Friction is bad for business, and business is the whole point here.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Matt's Blues · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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