The sports betting industry sometimes uses imagery of shadows to argue for the legalization of online gambling apps. This scare tactic should be brushed aside.
Let’s examine a recent op-ed from the Sports Betting Alliance, a lobbying group for the legalization of traditional, house-banked online sports betting. It appeared in The Dallas Morning News on July 10 under the line, “Texas already has gambling. Let’s bring it out of the shadows”:
“Sports betting is hardly an unfamiliar concept to Texans. Most people understand what it is, how it works and the potential risks involved.
“The real issue isn’t about whether Texans can recognize gambling when they see it. It’s about whether Texas should keep leaving sports betting in the shadows or let Texans decide whether the state should build a legal, regulated framework with rules, safeguards and accountability.”
I added emphasis to the “in the shadows” part of the paragraph. It matters in an otherwise unremarkable and boilerplate op-ed arguing for the legalization of online sports betting.
‘Out of the Shadows’ is Tone Deaf
I want to briefly discuss how gambling addiction, including addiction to sports betting, typically involves secrecy. Legal gambling thrives in the shadows because addiction does.
The majority of industry revenue comes from heavy users, people who lose excessive sums of money. Many of these people have a devastating addiction. Due to shame and stigma, an individual’s gambling addiction can remain hidden from sight for years. The lucky ones eventually get help and enter recovery.
Without addiction, the legal online betting industry wouldn’t exist as it does today. It wouldn’t have operators and suppliers valued in the billions of dollars. It wouldn’t have an industry able to amass a $70 million war chest to influence state-level races this election cycle.
Online sports betting, legal or offshore, is fundamentally a shadowy business on the consumer level because many users keep their friends, family, coworkers, etc., in the dark about their gambling. Many non-gamblers are also negatively impacted by gambling, as one addiction typically harms five others.
How Policymakers Should React
Texas, like states such as Georgia and South Carolina, is a target of both online sports betting and brick-and-mortar casino lobbying. All forms of gambling involve addiction that worsens in the shadows, but none worse than gambling on your phone.
As of July 2026, 31 states had legal house-banked online sports betting. The industry’s growing unpopularity, due in part to its social impacts, should show policymakers that they should reject expansion of the industry into their state.
For states with legal online sports betting, new laws are needed to beef up regulation, such as the Bettor Health Act in Massachusetts. Ohio has gone further with a bill to delegalize online sports betting, a policy framework that other states should consider.
At the federal level, policymakers should pass the SAFE Bet Act to create uniform federal standards. Congress should also close the loophole that has allowed so-called prediction markets to offer dangerous online sports betting in Texas and other states without legal betting.
A real way to bring gambling out of the shadows is to enact effective policies, backed by independent research, to prevent widespread addiction.
