By Daniel B. Gallagher

But first a note from Robert Royal: I generally don't ask our authors to write on a specific topic because, like you, I'm interested in seeing how the Spirit is moving out there, not just in my own head. But I'm always interested when the Spirit speaks of Dante, whom I discovered all on my own as an undergraduate, and has been with me in ways beyond reckoning ever since. TCT brings all of us, even staff, great, unlooked for surprises, even within the steadiness of the great tradition. Since you're a reader, I know you value that too. So let's make sure this Thing continues for the rest of 2026 and well beyond, in ways that continually surprise and inspire.

Now for today's column...

Ever since I started teaching the Divine Comedy years ago, I've been on the lookout for lacunae. Just when I think I've found one, it turns out Dante has covered it with incomparable sagesse.

Take gamblers. Why don't we find them in Hell? Well, it depends on where we look.

There's no specific infernal circle set aside for gamblers. That's because they're scattered throughout. And that, in turn, is because their true sin doesn't lie in the wager, but in what prompts it, what feeds it, and what stems from it.

Descending into the fourth circle, Dante and Virgil catch sight of the greedy and the prodigal pushing huge boulders in opposite directions around a circle of icy sleet. Each time they run into each other, the greedy shout to the prodigal, "Perché tieni? (Why do you hoard?)," and the prodigal to the greedy, Perché burli? ("Why do you squander?)" (Canto 7) Gamblers are found in both groups, for they can't imagine anyone not betting big when there's so much in the jackpot, just as they can't imagine anyone placing money anywhere but on the table. They hoard money from their families and squander it on slot machines.

More importantly, gamblers inhabit the various bolge ("folds") of the eighth circle reserved for fraudulence. Of particular interest is the fourth bolgia containing sorcerers, diviners, and anyone who attempted to predict the future. With an ingenious use of the contrapasso (the "counter-step"), the Florentine poet depicts the soothsayers with their heads twisted 180 degrees and walking backwards perché 'l veder dinanzi era lor tolto ("because seeing ahead was taken from them"). (Canto 20)

The scene is so pitiful that Dante the poet pauses to address the reader directly, saying, "May God so let you, reader, gather fruit (prender frutto) from what you read." (Canto 20)

The abundant fruit to be plucked from Dante's lines has never been more valuable, in every sense of the word. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been busy lately, making it easier for gamblers to bet on everything under the sun, such as which party will take control of Congress next year and who will win the war in Ukraine.

The dollar figures across prediction market platforms are bound to exceed more than $240 billion this year, a staggering increase from $64 billion last year. At that pace, the industry could easily reach one trillion by the end of the decade.

Like Dante and Virgil, until recently I have been happy to pass the soothsayers by in silence until I understood why Dante the poet interrupts his narrative to remind us how egregious the sins of the fourth bolgia are. He knows that no sphere of human activity is immune from soothsaying madness when so much money is involved, including my 9-year-old's travel-ball team. Apparently, even Little League Baseball is fair game for big bets.

All of this made me revisit the official Catholic position that gambling, in itself, is not "contrary to justice." (CCC 2413) Upon reflection, such teaching makes perfect sense insofar as it highlights the gravity of other things that cause, accompany, and result from it.

The Catechism emphasizes that games of chance become sinful "when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others," or when one becom...