How Betting Apps Turn Suburban Dads Into Degenerate Gamblers

McKay Coppins is a suburban dad with a mortgage and a minivan. He is also, by his own description, a practicing Mormon who had never gambled before. The Atlantic magazine staked him $10,000 to spend a year betting on sports. What happened next is a cautionary tale for anyone with a smartphone.

His cover story, 'Sucker: My Year as a Degenerate Gambler', is the most honest account yet of how sports betting apps transform ordinary people into compulsive gamblers. And it lands at a moment when the industry has achieved near-total cultural saturation.

The numbers

Since the US Supreme Court struck down the federal sports betting ban in 2018, Americans have wagered more than half a trillion dollars on sports. Roughly half of all men aged 18 to 49 now have an active account with an online sportsbook.

Coppins describes excusing himself from the family dinner table to lock himself in his bedroom and place bets. He found himself watching games until late at night, scrolling 'frenetically' next to his sleeping wife in search of angles to exploit with live bets.

We took an ancient vice. long regarded as soul-rotting and civilizationally ruinous. put it on everyone's phone, and made it as normal and frictionless as checking the weather. What could possibly go wrong?

— McKay Coppins, The Atlantic

Chesterton's fence

Coppins invokes the English writer G.K. Chesterton, who wrote about two people encountering a fence across a road. One demands it be torn down. The wiser one says they should first find out why it was built.

For most of human history, gambling was heavily regulated and socially stigmatised. Ancient wisdom from Aristotle to George Washington treated it as spiritually corrosive. Washington warned that 'every possible evil' could be tied to gambling: 'It is the child of avarice, the brother of inequity, and the father of mischief.'

The Supreme Court, in Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion, made no effort to consider why Congress had built that fence in the first place. He simply ruled it unconstitutional and moved on.

Australia's problem

The American experience should alarm Australians. This country has the highest gambling losses per capita in the world, losing approximately $25 billion annually. Sports betting represents the fastest-growing segment.

The Murphy government banned gambling advertising during live sport in 2024, but the apps remain readily available. Industry data suggests more than 1.1 million Australians have active sports betting accounts.

The betting industry has been designed, with deliberate precision, to exploit psychological vulnerabilities. Live betting options multiply every few seconds during a game. Push notifications alert users to 'profit boosts'. The interface is gamified to deliver dopamine hits with every interaction.

Coppins' conclusion

By the end of his experiment, Coppins understood why his bishop had warned him to be careful. The apps are designed to make winning feel like skill and losing feel like bad luck that can be corrected with the next bet.

His wife, initially excited about potential winnings, watched him become someone she didn't recognise. stressed, distracted, checking his phone constantly. The $10,000 stake from The Atlantic provided a safety net most gamblers don't have.

Coppins doesn't say how much he lost. But his account makes clear that the question isn't whether sports betting apps can ruin lives. It's why we decided to put them in everyone's pocket.

The regulatory response

Australian governments have moved faster than their American counterparts to address gambling harm. The Murphy government's advertising ban during live sport was the most significant reform in decades. But the apps themselves remain readily available, the odds just as alluring, the dopamine hits just as carefully engineered.

Reform advocates argue advertising bans are necessary but insufficient. They point to deposit limits, mandatory pre-commitment systems, and funding for treatment as essential complements. The gambling industry argues it already supports responsible gambling initiatives.

What neither side disputes is the trajectory. Sports betting is growing faster than any other form of gambling. The companies are becoming more sophisticated at targeting users. The apps are becoming more addictive by design.

Coppins' experiment was funded by The Atlantic. Most gamblers fund their experiments themselves. with savings, credit cards, and eventually money they cannot afford to lose. The bishop who warned him to be careful knew what he was talking about.