Big Protests, Bad Bets

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | April 12, 2025

The Hands Off! protests of a couple weeks ago were impressive in their size and scope. According to various media reports, gatherings took place in some 1,400 American communities with nearly 600,000 people signing up in advance (per CNN), and even more participating.

Locally in Traverse City, 4,000 people reportedly showed up to express their displeasure with a variety of issues. Protests even occurred in several European cities including Paris and London.

Quickly organized, possible in the digital era, the demonstrations were an indication of at least some Americans' displeasure with the tariffs, budget cuts, and nasty rhetoric coming from the current administration. Given the comparatively mild previous turnout to a protest targeting Elon Musk, it is clear that at least for now, the depth of anger, confusion, and concern is significant.

According to CNN and their on-scene reporters, the Hands Off! participants were a bit older than the young folks who typically attend rallies. Many of the issues—protecting Social Security and Medicare, for example—also skewed a bit older.

Of course, it was a gathering of mostly those who would self-identify to the left of center, so it was an opportunity to express concerns about protecting the environment, civil rights, voting rights, LGBTQ+ issues, women’s reproductive rights…the usual list of causes and concerns, now more realistic than theoretical. The number of issues, and they’ve all been impacted, might actually work against the protesters because there is no overriding single point of focus other than their dislike of the current president.

Trump supporters and Republicans, who have no one to support but don’t like the protests, had a different take on the demonstrations, or at least some did and predictably so. It was, one self-identified “White House insider” said, the work of “left-wing radicals” funded by…go ahead and guess…yes, funded by poor George Soros, who is accused of financing pretty much everything, though there is no evidence he funded much of anything. And that is a lot of left-wing radicals.

Additionally, there is likely zero chance any of this will have the least effect on the man making the decisions that have so upset so many. Trump is oblivious to all of this, now focused on giving himself a giant military parade on his birthday, June 14.

It’s an open question if the anger and angst of those now so exercised can be maintained over time. Maybe, since the real pain of the budget cuts and tariffs is not yet manifested in higher prices and fewer services directly impacting us, the worst is yet to come.

But the protests will be for naught unless they can be translated into voter registrations, campaign volunteerism and contributions, and ongoing action on multiple fronts. It won’t require a “blue wave” in the 2026 midterm elections to make a real difference, but the flip of just a handful of house and senate seats. But protests alone creating change, no matter how loud or well attended, won’t be a good bet.

Speaking of betting, the recently completed NCAA basketball tournaments brought us another example of how pervasive sports gambling has become. According to the American Gaming Association (AGA), $3.1 billion was bet on the men’s NCAA tournament alone, and that does not include casual office pools. Another $4 billion was bet on college football.

(There is no research yet on the impact, negative or otherwise, the payment of college athletes has on betting, but there is a feeling the potential for trouble is high.)

The unquestioned king of gambling generation is the National Football League (NFL). The AGA estimates a staggering $35 billion was bet on the NFL last year, and, when all gambling on all sports is included, legal sportsbooks took $150 billion worth of bets in 2024, a 22 percent increase over 2023.

It’s not as if all this online gambling is without consequence.

According to NerdWallet.com, one in seven sports bettors actually go into debt just to make bets. And there is now more than just sports betting online. Seven states, including Michigan, allow forms of casino gaming online that produced $5.9 billion worth of taxable income, revenue which has grown 12-fold since 2019.

Michigan actually leads the seven states with legal online gambling with nearly $2 billion bet last year. It is not clear that is anything of which we should be especially proud, even though there are no statistics directly linking gambling to criminal activity like stealing to pay debts. There is, however, some data on the likelihood of financial troubles for online gamblers.

Research at bretthollenbeck.com indicates legalizing online gambling increases the likelihood of the gambler’s personal bankruptcy by 28 percent within two years. That’s not so good for those families, and flashing a Gamblers Anonymous contact on the back-end of the ubiquitous gambling television ads isn’t much of a help.