So asks the main character in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. The vice of gambling — and the sad delusions it entails — is one of humanity’s permanent afflictions. As Andrew C. McCarthy explains in the new issue of National Review, the corrupting influence of today’s sports gambling is cause for alarm:

Gambling was never an honest pursuit. Yet, when it was illegal, its stigma and adjacence to other vices — loan-sharking, substance abuse, prostitution — limited participation in it to a hard core. Pools drawn from the demimonde were but a fraction of today’s gargantuan wagering streams. The lack of communications-era tech also kept things in check. . . . It wasn’t possible, with a few taps of your phone and a credit-card-backed account, to bet live on whether a shot would swish through the net, a pitch would cross the plate, or an attempted field goal would sail wide of the uprights.

Also in the new issue, Charles C. W. Cooke surveys the landscape of legal weed in America and . . . comes away coughing and holding his nose like the rest of us. A supporter of legalization, Charlie nevertheless thinks that we have not, as a matter of law and social comity, figured out how to deal with its consequences:

Over the last ten years, voters in many parts of the United States agreed to stop using the government to superintend pot smokers. They did not agree to be dominated by them. If the primary consequence of this hospitality is a perpetual cloud of smoke, those voters will come to regret that decision.

Andrew Stuttaford looks at an anti-vice movement that’s gaining steam. Have you noticed “mocktails” on every menu? Are you hearing it said that even moderate drinking is bad for your health? A new temperance movement is upon us. “The idea that adults’ choice of food and drink, even if unhealthy, should be largely left up to them is rapidly being consigned to the past,” writes Andrew.

Much of America’s media will be talking up this trend . . . in order to spur it along. Happy stories will be told about sober fads, however evanescent. We’ll read more about the sober-curious, about teetotal celebrities, zero-proof drinks.

Beware of where this is heading: the anti-alcohol agenda “is bound to include higher taxes.”

As Thanksgiving approaches, we trust that, when taking a break to sit down and read by the fire, you’ll find that the new issue offers a rich and varied feast of material:

• Philip Klein on Ted Cruz’s leadership in the fight against antisemitism, left and right
• Jim Geraghty on a reporting trip to India (and his effort to avoid falling into the Ganges)
• James Rosen on meeting his idol, Paul McCartney
• Luther Ray Abel, in Our Spacious Skies, on fulfilling his yen for the freedom found atop a motorcycle on the open road

You’ll also find an enlightening array of book reviews and arts coverage, with starring roles for Clint Eastwood, John Updike, Benjamin Franklin, and, in what might be called a clown show, Kamala Harris.

Or, if you’d like to receive the next twelve issues of the print magazine in the mail, try the print-and-digital bundle for just $52 (that’s 60 percent off the cover price). The bundle is the best way to support NR’s conservative journalism.

Jessica Hornik Evans
Managing Editor
National Review