A bad bet for the poor: our collective addiction to "gaming" may be costing the weakest among us a lot more than their shirts.

POKER SEEMS TO HAVE REPLACED PROFESSIONAL wrestling as the sport to watch on cable. Most nights you can find at least one table full of celebrities calling, raising, or bluffing one another, while a pair of not-so-hushed commentators explains why the actress from The West Wing or CSI should fold her hand and move on. Better our children should learn to wrestle.

Gambling, or "gaming," as the industry now prefers, is pretty popular on network TV, too. Prime-time shows once portrayed gamblers and casino operators as shady characters, but on NBC's Las Vegas Big Ed Deline (James Caan) and his crew of friendly hosts and hostesses are sweet, hardworking folks eager to provide their guests with an enjoyable and safe holiday. And on CSI Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his team investigate every sort of crime going on in Las Vegas except organized gambling. Here gambling isn't a felony or a vice; it's just entertainment.

Gamblers and gambling have also had starring roles in several films. In John Dahl's Rounders (1998), Matt Damon is too good at big-stakes poker to waste his life practicing law. In Mike Hodges' Croupier (1998), Clive Owen plays an ice-cool roulette dealer who prefers excitement to love. Neal Jordan's The Good Thief (2002) casts Nick Nolte as a sympathetic gambler who pays his debts by burgling famous art, and Wayne Kramer's The Cooler (2003) has William H. Macy playing a guy so unlucky that his touch jinxes whole casinos.

No one should be surprised that gambling is so popular on TV and at the movies. Over the past few decades we have moved from a nation where gambling and gamblers are largely suspect to one in which our government and society support and depend on the gaming industry.

In 1964 New Hampshire introduced the first state-sponsored lottery. By 1978 New Jersey--the third state to sponsor a lottery--became the second state to legalize casino gambling. A decade later Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, legalizing gambling on reservations. Today 39 states run lotteries, 37 states allow casinos, a host of tribes run 369 gambling operations in 29 states, and every state but Hawaii and Utah has legalized gambling.

In 1993 legal gambling revenues in the U.S. totaled $34 billion. Last year they reached nearly $73 billion, about $30 billion more than Americans spent on movies, sports, music, and theme parks combined.

Strapped for cash, more and more states have turned to lotteries, casinos, racetracks, riverboat gambling, and keno games to balance their budgets, and in the process governors and legislatures have gotten addicted to the gambling industry. Last year casinos paid more than $4 billion in direct taxes and contributed tens of millions of dollars to electoral campaigns. In Florida the gambling industry spent more money on a casino referendum than both of the men running for governor spent on their campaigns.

Like other addictions, the states' dependency on gambling revenues is on the upswing, and governors and legislatures are forever looking for new ways to fleece their citizens.

Two years ago Washington's governor thought folks there needed another 2,000 locations to play keno. Last year Pennsylvania decided people betting at the local racetracks would like slot machines installed, and California's governor told native tribes they could have unlimited slot machines in their casinos--the old limit of 2,000 per tribe seemed too paltry. Not to be left behind, Florida is now installing slot machines at their racetracks, Michigan has approved more gambling, and Oklahoma just created a whole new lottery.

DEFENDERS OF LEGALIZED GAMbling talk about the jobs and revenues casinos and lotteries bring to the state or tribe, and it is easier to pass gambling referendums than to raise taxes. Still, legalized gambling has numerous hidden and not-so-hidden costs; there is no such thing as a "free" casino.

Studies show between 1 and 2 percent of adults in this country--perhaps as many as 5 million--are pathological or addicted gamblers, while about three times as many could have a serious gambling problem. A Harvard study reports that between 3 and 8 percent of adolescents in this country are "uncontrollable" gamblers. According to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission, pathological gamblers are more likely to "commit crimes, run up large debts, damage relationships, and kill themselves." And the widespread legalization of gambling has increased the number of pathological gamblers in our society.

Indeed, a number of studies on gambling and casinos indicate that problem gamblers exhibit higher rates of depression, bankruptcy, domestic violence, and suicide than the rest of the population. On top of that, introducing casino gambling in a region has been shown to raise the local incidence of bankruptcies, domestic violence, and suicide.

Problem gamblers are not just an unfortunate side effect of America's increased reliance on gambling; they are the engine fueling the gaming industry's--and government's--profits. Somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of gambling losses in this country are incurred by problem or pathological gamblers. About 5 percent of those who buy lottery tickets account for more than half the total sales. Without problem gamblers states could not reap huge profits from the gaming industry and legislatures would be forced to raise taxes to pay for new schools and roads.

But it's not just problem gamblers and their families who pay for America's increasing dependence on the gaming industry. State-sponsored gambling takes an unholy share of its profits out of the wallets of the poor.

Like the cash-strapped states that have turned to gambling to supplement their revenues and balance their budgets, a disproportionate number of America's regular gamblers are in tough financial straits. Far too many of the folks placing most of the bets and buying most of the lottery tickets come from the ranks of the poor and working class.

A preponderance of gambling venues and outlets--like fast-food franchises--are located in or near poor and working-class neighborhoods, and the largest percentage of those betting on races and lotteries make less than $15,000 a year. Families with incomes of less than $10,000 buy three times as many lottery tickets as households earning more than $50,000. State-sponsored gambling is a huge regressive tax that falls disproportionately on the backs of the poor.

CATHOLICS HAVE HAD THEIR HAND IN the gambling till a long time, using bingo and other games to raise funds for schools and parishes, and Catholic moral teaching has never viewed gambling as intrinsically evil or wrong. The Catholic position on gambling has been that gambling, like drinking, was all right in moderation but should be avoided if it becomes a problem.

But even if gambling doesn't become a problem for the vast majority of Americans who buy a lottery ticket or place a bet, what do we owe the millions of those for whom gambling is a life-wrecking addiction or an unjust tax? Is it really acceptable to keep taxes low by profiting from an industry that takes so much of its money from addicts and the poor?

In 1 Corinthians Paul agrees that Christians can eat what they like, not worrying if their food has been offered to "idols." Still, he warns his readers to "take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak" and reminds them that "when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ" (1 Cor. 8:9-12).

We might follow the same rule when it comes to state-sponsored gambling, giving up our own freedom to enjoy and profit from this lucrative entertainment lest it become a stumbling block and a millstone to millions of our weak neighbors. The House (and Senate) should stop betting against the poor.

Patrick McCormick, professor of Christian ethics at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.