Warren Buffett on Sports Betting: ‘It’s a Tax on Stupidity’

Legendary American investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett does not hold a charitable view of those who gamble their money on sports.

“It’s a tax on stupidity,” the former Berkshire Hathaway CEO said during a recent interview with CNBC. He added that “rich people love it, because they don’t have to pay.”

There’s proof of that in the numbers.

According to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy think tank, more than $2.89 billion in tax revenue was generated in 2025 alone. Those revenues ultimately come from sportsbooks’ net winnings after payouts to winning bettors.

“To the extent that states raise money from people who—the dollar really means something to them—it actually relieves the taxes on me or other rich people,” Buffett said. “It’s not direct, but it’s the net effect.”

Despite the benefit to rich people like him, Buffett wants the system to change.

“I don’t like things that make a sucker out of people,” Buffett explained. “I don’t think the function of the government is to play its people for suckers.”

According to Front Office Sports (FOS), “Currently, 40 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of legalized online sports betting.”

The recent, rampant growth of online sports betting has created a massive money-making enterprise that makes everyone (sportsbooks and state governments) rich except for the gamblers.

Whether gambling is a “tax on stupidity” can be debated. However, there’s no debate that it is a tax on the poor and lower middle class.

As Adam Hoffer, director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation, tells Front Office Sports, “governments know” that poor people are more likely to gamble than wealthier households. And yet, they make it easier and easier for poor people with an inclination to gamble to wager their meager funds as freely as possible.

And that inclination is definitely there, as Front Office Sports reports.

“People do indeed want to gamble. U.S. sports betting revenue rose to $16.96 billion in 2025, a nearly 23% increase from the year before, according to the American Gaming Association. Overall handle—the total amount of money bet on sports in the country—was up 11% at $166.94 billion. State-regulated sportsbooks generated $3.71 billion in taxes last year, up 32.4% from 2024.”