Tag Archives: Derek Brouwer

The Gambling Industry Is Evolving at Warp Speed. Our Laws Have Fallen Behind.

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I’ve been pondering a post about the gambling industry since print refugee Derek Brouwer’s insightful story was posted on February 3 — if you missed it, please go back and read it. But things have escalated tremendously, and the situation is quite a bit worse than it seemed when Brouwer, reported on all the holes in Vermont’s oversight of legalized gambling.

It almost seems quaint to list the issues Brouwer identified, but let’s have a go.

  • The gambling industry is growing rapidly, up by nearly 20% in 2025 compared to its legalized debut in 2024.
  • Betting on football and basketball are flat, while the growth is in relatively obscure sports. Which by their obscurity, are more prone to fixing and other abuses. And gambling on sports you know nothing about is a big flashing indicator of addictive behavior.
  • “A complete picture of Vermonters’ sports betting habits is not available” because the regulatory agency “publishes very limited data.”
  • Vermont collected $7.2 million in taxes from the regulated industry — but spent less than 15% of that on programs aimed at problem gambling.

That’s all plenty bad. But the prediction markets are throwing a big ol’ bomb into Vermont’s patchwork oversight regime.

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It Wasn’t the Best Week to Roll Out Your Ebenezer Scrooge Impression

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Last week, the Budget Adjustment Act sailed through the House on more or less a party-line vote, with Republicans raising whiny objections over a penny-ante increase in funding for the General Assistance Emergency Housing program. Gov. Phil Scott did his share of whining as well, and there’s been some talk of a possible BAA veto. Which, if it happens, would be utterly ridiculous.

But amidst all the Republican whining, the most ignorant, shameful, bigoted remarks actually came from a Democrat. Stay tuned for more on that.

This all happened against the backdrop of a tremendous piece of journalism that dropped the day of Scott’s comments and the day before the House’s BAA debate: a story by Vermont Public‘s Liam Elder-Connors and Seven Days‘ Derek Brouwer exploring how many unhoused people have died in Vermont, a statistic the state has so far declined to keep. With that story on the front page, it was a bad time to bitch about an extra $1.8 million in motel vouchers.

The two reporters found that “at least 82 people in Vermont… died between 2021 and 2024 while appearing to reside in an emergency shelter or outdoors.” That’s almost certainly an undercount; no one in Vermont officialdom tracks that number, nor does anyone seem interested in doing so. Outgoing Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said it would be “very challenging” to collect such data.

Not as challenging as, say, sleeping outside in the dead of winter, but sure, let’s only keep the easy statistics.

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However Much We’re Taxing the Gambling Industry, It Isn’t Enough

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There’s a fire raging somewhere out there, and it’s only a matter of time before it arrives on our doorstep with devastating consequences. And we are not ready for it, not at all.

As you might have gathered from the headline, this isn’t about an actual forest fire, but about America’s biggest growth industry: Online gambling. There was a fair bit of coverage in our media earlier this year after legalization took effect, as initial returns suggested that the business was a big hit in Vermont. But what finally got me to write was a recent episode of The Distraction, a studiedly goofy sports-themed podcast with occasional forays into more serious stuff.

Like the November 14 edition, featuring football writer Arif Hasan. He’s a lifelong gambler himself, but he has a clear-eyed view of gambling’s impact on individuals, the sports world, and society in general. There’s a whole bunch of scary stuff in the interview, and more in an article he recently published (which is partly behind a paywall). But here’s the thing that prompted me to write.

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Bennington Still Pooping the Bed on Racial Equity

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Ah, Bennington. Gateway to southern Vermont. Scrappy little town with loads of history. A downtown worth an afternoon’s ramble. The Blue Benn Diner. Bakkerij Krijnen.

And a police department that may be the most racist in Vermont.

And a town government that steadfastly, blindly supports its racist police.

This time, the cops and the town have literally chased an interracial couple out of town. And the couple, with the help of the Vermont ACLU, has filed a complaint with the state Human Rights Commission.

Will this get Bennington’s attention? Eh, probably not. After all, the town has continued to support its police department after a Black man was railroaded to prison only to have his conviction overturned, having the cops’ racist approach to traffic enforcement documented by a UVM researcher, and seeing a consultant hired by the town describe a “warrior mentality” in the BPD that had “sown deep mistrust” between community and cops.

The details of the latest case, as reported by Seven Days’ Derek Brouwer, are grim.

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