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The game ends. The player walks off, sits down, and picks up the phone.
Before the sweat has dried, the messages are already there. Not from friends. From strangers. Some are angry. Some are cruel. Some mention the player’s children by name.
None of these people have ever met the player. Most of them were cheering an hour ago. What changed was not the player. What changed was a number on a betting slip.
Sports betting harassment has become serious enough that the biggest leagues in North American sport have just asked for something they have never asked for together: a way to shut these people out of betting for good.
And there is a story in the Bible, in a small town called Lystra, that shows exactly how this happens. A crowd tried to worship a man as a god. Before the same chapter ended, it threw stones at him until it thought he was dead.
What the Leagues Are Asking For on Sports Betting Harassment
On Tuesday, 15 September 2026, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, together with their players’ unions, sent a letter to gambling regulators in 35 US states and Washington, D.C. (ESPN reported the details).
They asked for three main things:
- A lifetime ban from legal sportsbooks for anyone who harasses or threatens athletes, coaches, officials, team staff or their families.
- A simple, shared way to report threats, so evidence can reach regulators and police without getting lost.
- One shared exclusion list, so a person banned in one state cannot simply bet in the next one.
The letter did not soften its language: “Threatening the safety of an athlete or their family members over a sports bet crosses a bright ethical and criminal line, and it is entirely unacceptable.”
A handful of states, including Ohio and Massachusetts, already have rules like this. The sportsbooks’ own trade group said it welcomed the effort.
One detail drew criticism. No women’s league was part of the letter. The head of the WNBA players’ union, Terri Carmichael Jackson, called that “deeply disappointing,” given what she described as “very public and troubling incidents of betting-related harassment experienced by our members over the past several seasons” (Yahoo Sports).
So this is not a problem for one sport, one country or one kind of athlete. It is a problem with people.
How a Person Becomes a Line on a Betting Slip
It used to be that you bet on a team. Now you can bet on one player. How many points will she score? How many rebounds will he get? Will he miss this kick?
These are called player “prop” bets. And it is not hard to see why they make things personal. If your money rides on one man’s numbers, then one man is standing between you and your money.
In that moment, the player stops being a person to you. He becomes a line. A figure that went over or under.
The president of the NBA players’ union, Fred VanVleet, put the weight of it plainly: “We carry all of the burden, all of the risk and danger that comes with the association to gambling.”
(If you are wondering what the Bible says about betting itself, that is a different question, and a bigger one than it looks. We took it on in what the Bible says about gambling. This article is about something else: how quickly admiration turns.)
The Town That Tried to Make Paul a God
Around the middle of the first century, the apostle Paul and his friend Barnabas walked into Lystra, a small town in what is now central Turkey.
There was a man there who had never walked. Acts says he was “a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked” (Acts 14:8). Paul looked at him and said, “Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked” (Acts 14:10).
The crowd went wild. And notice what they shouted:
“The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” (Acts 14:11)
They named Barnabas after Jupiter, the king of their gods. They named Paul after Mercurius, the messenger god, “because he was the chief speaker” (Acts 14:12). The local priest brought oxen and garlands to the city gates, ready to sacrifice to them (Acts 14:13).
Here is a detail most people read straight past. A Roman poet named Ovid, writing a few decades before Paul arrived, told a famous story set in the hills of Phrygia, the region right next door. In it, Jupiter and Mercury walk the earth disguised as ordinary men. Nearly everyone slams the door on them, and the one old couple who takes them in is rewarded.
Nobody can prove the people of Lystra had that story in mind. But if they grew up in that part of the world hearing tales like it, their reaction makes a lot of sense. Two strangers show up. A miracle happens. Do not make the same mistake twice. Give them everything.
Look closely, though, at what the crowd actually loved. It was not Paul. They did not know Paul. They loved what had just happened in front of them. They loved the result.
“We Also Are Men of Like Passions With You”
Paul and Barnabas did not enjoy the moment. They tore their clothes and ran into the crowd, shouting:
“Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein.” (Acts 14:15)
In other words: we are just people. Stop it.
Then Paul said something beautiful about God. God had been good to that town long before any miracle, he told them. God “gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17).
See the difference? The crowd’s love came after the result. God’s goodness came before anyone had done anything to earn it.
Even so, Luke writes that “with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them” (Acts 14:18). They barely stopped the crowd from worshipping them.
Same Crowd, a Few Verses Later
Then this happens:
“And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” (Acts 14:19)
It is worth reading that carefully. Paul and Barnabas were Jewish themselves. The trouble came from a small group of men who had already opposed Paul in two other cities and followed him to this one. They did not do it alone. They “persuaded the people.”
The same people who had brought oxen and flowers to the gate were now throwing rocks.
How does a crowd go from worship to stoning so fast? The answer is right there in the story. Their love was never really for the person. It was for what the person could do for them. The day he stopped being useful, and someone loud gave them a reason, the love had nothing underneath it.
That is exactly what the leagues are describing. Nobody writes threats to a player they love as a person. They write threats to a player they loved as a payout.
A crowd that loves you for your results will turn on you the day the results stop.
The Part of the Story Almost Nobody Tells
Here is what happens next, and it is the part worth carrying with you.
Paul did not die. “As the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe” (Acts 14:20).
He walked back into the town that had just stoned him.
And a little later, he went back again. “They returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch” (Acts 14:21), encouraging the people who had come to believe there, and telling them honestly “that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
Why go back to the place that hurt you most? Because not everyone in Lystra was the mob. Some people there had actually listened.
A few years later, Paul came through Lystra one more time, and Acts records this: “behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus” (Acts 16:1). Timothy. The young man who became like a son to Paul, and who got two whole letters in the Bible addressed to him, came from the town that stoned Paul.
Paul never forgot what happened there. Near the end of his life, writing to Timothy, he named it: “Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me” (2 Timothy 3:11).
He was writing to someone from Lystra. About Lystra. The crowd had tried to make him a god, then tried to kill him. And somewhere in that same town, one person saw him as a person. That relationship lasted the rest of Paul’s life.
If You Have Ever Felt Like a Number
Most of us will never get a threat from a bettor. But plenty of us know the feeling underneath it.
The worker who is praised while the targets are met and ignored the week they are not. The parent who is only noticed when something is not done. The friend who only hears from people when they need a favour. The athlete whose whole name has become a statistic. We have written before about what happens to a player’s sense of self when the career ends, and it is the same fear: if I stop producing, will anyone still want me?
Lystra is a strong answer to that fear. A crowd’s love depends on your results. God’s does not. God was sending rain on that town before a single person there knew God’s name. You were made on purpose, before you had done a single useful thing, and that is not something a bad week can undo.
And there is a second, harder lesson. Every one of us is capable of being the crowd. It does not take a betting app. It takes a moment where someone lets us down and we forget they are a person.
What You Can Do Today
- Say the name, not the number. Next time a player, a referee or a co-worker costs you something, say their full name out loud and one true thing about them that is not a result. It takes ten seconds. It turns a line back into a person.
- Put a night between the result and the reply. If a result makes you want to post something about someone, write it in your notes app instead and read it tomorrow morning. If it still seems fair after sleep, it is probably fair. Most of the time, it will not be. If the anger surprises you, our free How Well Do I Handle Anger? check takes a few minutes.
- Be someone’s Timothy. Think of one person who mostly hears from others when something goes wrong: a coach, a teacher, a manager, a relative who does all the work. Send them one message today that has nothing to do with what they do for you. Just tell them you are glad they are who they are.
Two Things Worth Writing Down
- Where in your life do you feel valued mostly for what you produce? What would change if you believed God’s regard for you came before any of it, the way the rain came to Lystra before the miracle?
- Think of the last time you turned on someone in your head because they let you down. What were you really losing in that moment, and was it ever theirs to protect?
A Prayer for When You Feel Like a Number
God, I am tired of being loved for what I can do. Some days I feel like a score that has to go up or I stop mattering. Remind me that You were good to me before I ever earned anything, and that my worth is not decided by a crowd. And when someone lets me down, stop me before I become that crowd myself. Help me see the person, every time.
A Question Worth Arguing About
Should betting companies be responsible for the way their products turn fans against players, or does the blame sit entirely with the people who send the threats? Tell us where you land in the comments.
Share This
- In Acts 14, a crowd tried to worship Paul as a god. A few verses later, the same crowd stoned him. That is what happens when people love you for your results instead of for who you are.
- Five major leagues just asked for lifetime betting bans for people who threaten athletes. Nobody threatens a player they love as a person. They threaten a player they loved as a payout.
- The town that stoned Paul is the town Timothy came from. Paul went back. Not everyone in the crowd was the mob.
Questions People Ask About Sports Betting Harassment and Acts 14
What did the sports leagues ask regulators to do about betting harassment?
On 15 September 2026, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, together with their players’ unions, sent a letter to gambling regulators in 35 US states and Washington, D.C. They asked for a lifetime ban from legal sportsbooks for anyone who harasses or threatens athletes, coaches, officials, team staff or their families; a streamlined system for reporting threats to regulators and law enforcement; and a shared exclusion list so that a person banned in one state is banned in the others.
Why are athletes being harassed by sports bettors?
Many sportsbooks now let people bet on an individual player’s statistics, such as points, rebounds or strikeouts, rather than only on which team wins. When money depends on one player’s performance, some bettors who lose direct their anger at that player personally, often through social media messages and sometimes through threats aimed at the player’s family. The major leagues’ September 2026 letter described these threats as crossing “a bright ethical and criminal line.”
What happened to Paul in Lystra in Acts 14?
In Acts 14, Paul healed a man in Lystra who had been unable to walk since birth. The crowd decided Paul and Barnabas were gods, calling Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurius, and a local priest prepared to offer sacrifices to them. Paul and Barnabas stopped them, insisting they were ordinary men. Shortly afterward, opponents who had followed Paul from Antioch and Iconium persuaded the crowd to turn on him, and Paul was stoned and dragged out of the city, left for dead. He got up, went back into the city, and later returned to Lystra again.
Why did the people of Lystra think Paul and Barnabas were gods?
The people of Lystra saw Paul heal a man who had never walked, and they shouted in their local language that the gods had come down in human form (Acts 14:11). The region had old stories of gods visiting in disguise; the Roman poet Ovid told one about Jupiter and Mercury visiting the neighbouring region of Phrygia as ordinary travellers. It cannot be proven that the people of Lystra had that particular story in mind, but it helps explain why they reacted to a miracle by preparing a sacrifice.
Was Timothy from Lystra?
Acts 16:1 records that when Paul returned to Derbe and Lystra, a disciple named Timothy (called Timotheus in the King James Version) was there, and the context places him in Lystra. Timothy became one of Paul’s closest companions, and two New Testament letters, 1 and 2 Timothy, are addressed to him. In 2 Timothy 3:11, Paul reminds Timothy of the persecutions he endured “at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra,” which means Paul was writing about the stoning to someone connected to the very town where it happened.
