"Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling" | Amanpour and Com...

Mar 14, 2025 #amanpourpbs

A huge and potentially dangerous market is surging within the U.S.: Sports Gambling. 

The business has grown massively since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling allowed states to legalize it. 

Might there be a cost to people's lives? 

Author and historian Jonathan D. Cohen investigated the subject for his new book. He tells Michel Martin what he learned.

  

Book by Jonathan D Cohen

 

 

Jonathan D Cohen

Author

Jonathan D. Cohen is a program officer at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the co-editor of All In: The Spread of Gambling in Twentieth-Century United States

Jonathan D. Cohen is the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Senior Program Officer for American Institutions, Society, and the Public Good at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, where he is the lead staffer for the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy.

Jon is the author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling (2025) as well as For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America (2022), which was featured in the New Yorker and has been cited or reviewed in a wide variety of national and local outlets, including CNN, CBS Morning News, and the BBC. 

He is also the co-editor of two volumes: Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen (2019, with June Skinner Sawyers) and All In: The Spread of Gambling in Twentieth-Century United States (2018, with David G. Schwartz). 

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and many other outlets. 

• Prior to joining the Academy, he served as financial writer and editor at Tiger Capital Group. 
• He completed his B.A. at McGill University and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia.