On Tilt
January 23, 2026 at 05:03AMIn case you haven’t watched any professional sports in the last decade, the firewall between athletics leagues and betting is officially ash. For the latest Harper’s cover story, Jasper Craven looks at his own gambling habits, and heads into the belly of the beast—Las Vegas—to see how the sportsbook explosion has affected Sin City and its visitors. Odds are, you’ll be entertained . . . and more than a little worried.
In my research, I had noted the costs of gambling addiction: bankruptcy, alcohol-use disorder, intimate-partner violence, divorce, suicide. Gambling addiction is, in some sense, also especially vexing to treat. You can’t quit money cold turkey, and it looms especially large in recovery, with gobs of it needed to climb out of gambling debt and reclaim stability. These conditions threaten relapse, keeping alive the fantasy of a lucky roll in a high-stakes room. As one gambling-addiction specialist explained: “I’ve never had a late-stage alcoholic say, ‘If I get drunk just right, my liver will heal.’ ”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/01/22/on-tilt/
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