Good morning!

Last Sunday’s Super Bowl was the biggest one-day gambling event in history. What was once a family-friendly football game has become a billion-dollar betting bonanza.

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Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal sports-betting ban in 2018, legal wagering has exploded in America. The Super Bowl has been the nation’s largest single-day betting event ever since, and this year shattered previous records. The American Gaming Association estimated a record $1.76 billion in legal sports bets, up about 27 percent from last year’s $1.39 billion.

Add to that prediction markets like Kalshi. This one platform, which has gone supernova since its launch just five years ago, reported over $1 billion in trading volume tied to this year’s game. That’s a 60 percent surge from its prior peak, Bank of America estimated.

Super Bowl prop bets enable people to wager on an astonishing array of minutiae: coin toss outcome, national anthem length, quarterback passing yards, rushing attempts, halftime song order, celebrity appearances, Gatorade color on the winning coach, even whether a broadcaster will use a certain word.

The Super Bowl’s betting surge exemplifies a broader epidemic. Gambling revenue in America topped $60 billion last year. Legalized betting has infiltrated every corner of society. The casino is no longer a building on the edge of town but an app in the pocket, open 24/7.

This surge represents a dangerous normalization of gambling as entertainment. Only after seeing its reach, its engineering and its moral logic do the broader dangers come into focus.

Gambling is highly distracting and addictive. Especially with live betting and micro-wagers, it exploits the brain’s reward circuitry, training the mind to crave unearned gain. It stymies patience and work ethic in favor of impulse and chance. It preys on the vulnerable—the anxious and the ambitious alike. It erodes character. It often entraps people in debt, corrodes trust, normalizes secrecy, fractures families, and leaves despair in its wake. “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house …” (Proverbs 15:27).

Society’s growing addiction to chasing quick riches is bound to end badly. The house always wins, and we all lose.

Will the U.S. Let Hamas Keep Its Guns?

Donald Trump’s administration might redefine what it means for Hamas to “disarm.” The New York Times reported yesterday that a draft document from the Trump-led Board of Peace indicates that phase two of the ceasefire could require Hamas terrorists to surrender larger weapons that can strike Israel but allow them to retain small arms like automatic rifles.

• Details are unclear, but the news appears to indicate yet another compromise with terrorism, a betrayal of Israel’s basic safety and security, and another sign that Board of Peace negotiations will not produce peace.

Complete disarmament of Hamas is part of President Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, signed by Hamas and Israel in October. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in December that Hamas possesses roughly 60,000 automatic rifles.

• It is dishonorable, dangerous and treacherous for the U.S. to demand anything short of full disarmament from mass-murdering terrorists in a territory where they tyrannized their own people, used them as human shields, stole supplies, launched rockets toward civilians, launched the massacre of 1,200 people, kept 250 people hostage, and committed war crimes against civilians and Israeli forces battling to recover their people—and their corpses.

On Sunday, Hamas official Khaled Meshal said he didn’t want his group to surrender its weapons, as doing so could make the people of Gaza victims. On January 28, Hamas Political Bureau deputy chairman Moussa Abu stated that Hamas never agreed to disarm.

In the four months since the Gaza peace plan was signed, there has been no movement on Hamas’s part to compromise on disarmament, but now there is apparent movement on the part of the United States to compromise on disarmament.

Israel, which has complied with U.S. pressure to keep its obligations under the ceasefire, is reportedly desperate to convince the U.S. to avoid this rumored appeasement.

Ultimately, the Trump administration’s peace plan is delusional. It is an object lesson that mankind is incapable of producing peace.

U.S. Handing NATO Commands to Europe

The United States will hand over all three of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s joint force commands to European nations, nato confirmed yesterday, part of an ongoing plan to cede more leadership over the alliance to Europe. However, Bible prophecy shows this American-approved strategy will ultimately enable the establishment of an anti-America superpower.

• Italy will take charge of Joint Force Command Naples.
• Britain will take charge of Joint Force Command Norfolk.
• Germany and Poland will take charge of Joint Force Command Brunssum.

The U.S. will take charge of nato’s Maritime Command, headquartered in Greater London, and will maintain its strategic leadership over Naples, Norfolk and Brunssum. However, these three commands, responsible for the Mediterranean flank, North Atlantic-Arctic flank and eastern flank, respectively, will be led by Europeans at the operational level.

German Press Agency reports that as part of the restructure, Germany will occupy more top positions in the alliance’s military command structure than the U.S. in the future.

The plan will likely take months to fully implement, but it converts U.S. rhetoric about Europe taking care of its own defense into reality. The U.S. is not only allowing but pushing for this change as it devotes greater effort to deterring China and other threats. It is confident that Europe will not use its increased autonomy and military spending to resist or attack its current trans-Atlantic ally.

Germany sought to dominate Europe and then the world in two world wars. Empowering Germany in this way, even as Europe is growing more hostile toward the Trump administration and the U.S. in general, will prove to be a fatal mistake, according to Bible prophecy.

Europe’s rise is a sign that the worst calamity in human history is soon to strike. To learn more, read our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches Europe’s Push Toward a Unified Military.”

IN OTHER NEWS

European Commission president calls for a two-speed Europe: “Our ambition should always be to reach agreement among all 27 member states,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a letter to other EU leaders on Monday. “However, where a lack of progress or ambition risks undermining Europe’s competitiveness or capacity to act, we should not shy away from using the possibilities foreseen in the treaties under enhances cooperation.” According to the treaties, a minimum of nine countries can agree to deepen cooperation without the rest of the member states. Revelation 17 reveals that a core group of European nations led by “ten kings” will emerge out of the present union.

EU planning mass drone production: The EU published an Action Plan on Drone and Counter-Drone Security on Wednesday that advocates massive expansion of drone production and development of an anti-drone defense system. Magnus Brunner, commissioner for internal affairs and migration, said, “With today’s Action Plan, we have more arrows in our quiver to counter threats to our security and use this technology as an advantage, including by launching a new Counter-Drone Center of Excellence, establishing an EU Drone Incident Platform and spending €400 million on drone and counter-drone technology.” Step by step, the EU is developing sophisticated joint military capabilities.

nato prepares to protect Greenland: nato launched “Arctic Sentry” today, a new military exercise designed to secure Greenland and the High North area of operations. The exercise follows Denmark’s “Arctic Endurance” exercise, which first deployed troops on January 15 and is scheduled to continue throughout the calendar year. U.S. President Donald Trump recognized “Arctic Endurance” as opposition to his plans to acquire Greenland and threatened retaliatory tariffs on the European allies involved, before relenting. The nato exercises are notionally designed to demonstrate that nato can protect strategic areas from Russian and Chinese threats. But Bible prophecy warns that the greater threat to the U.S. is actually Germany and Europe.

Netanyahu in Washington: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C., meeting with American diplomats Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner yesterday and is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump today. Netanyahu is reportedly making this trip out of concern that U.S. negotiations with Iran will ignore Israeli interests. He is scheduled to return to Washington next Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Board of Peace and an American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference. Whatever the results of these talks, the way that Americans treat Israelis’ security is a matter far more consequential than most people realize.

Canadian school shooting: Nine people were killed and 27 injured in a school shooting at the community of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in the Rocky Mountain foothills. The killer, a boy who reportedly identified as a girl and whom authorities are calling the “gunperson,” apparently committed suicide. British Columbia Solicitor General Nina Krieger called the attack “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.” Such tragedies bring much introspection yet few answers to the most important questions. To understand the deeper reasons for such atrocities, read Trumpet executive editor Stephen Flurry’s article “The Motives for Mass Shootings.”

fbi finds irregularities in Fulton County votes: Search warrant affidavits unsealed yesterday lay out the fbi’s justifications for seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots and other materials related to election fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, during the 2020 presidential elections. One affidavit, written by fbi Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans, led to a judge signing off on a search warrant of Fulton County’s election facilities. This search was carried out on January 28 when the fbi seized more than 650 boxes of ballots and other 2020 election materials. The corporate media is reporting that the affidavit relies on misleading and disproved claims about the 2020 election. Yet Evans openly acknowledges in the affidavit that some of the allegations have been substantiated. Thus, the investigation aims to determine whether the “deficiencies” in Fulton County were more than the clerical errors that Democrats and other Fulton County apologists claim them to be. It has already been shown that 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election were illegally certified yet still tabulated in the state’s final count. Now the fbi is trying to determine if the county was stolen by accident or on purpose.