Sports betting, which has exploded in America in recent years — especially right here in New York — is finally getting the thorough inspection it deserves from Congress. May the heightened scrutiny lead to smart new laws making it harder to take advantage of compulsive bettors who have trouble on their own finding the line between fun and dangerous obsession. It was more than a decade ago, in 2013, that Albany allowed limited betting on sports through sportsbooks at the few casinos spread around the state. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal ban on plunking down cash to pick winners and losers and spreads and place all kinds of exotic prop bets, leading to a rush of states, now 38 and counting, to get in the game. All that accelerated when internet companies eager to get people to tap their phones to lose — er, wager — $100 or $1,000 or more. Since 2021, the legislators and the governor here welcomed mobile sports betting, blowing past a state Constitution that clearly bans almost all forms of betting, relying on the ridiculous fiction that bets placed on cellphones are “at” casinos because computer servers happen to be there. The result has been many billions of dollars changing hands — last month, a headline screamed, “New York mobile sports betting handle hits record $2.32 billion in October” — and problem gambling rising sharply. We’re not Puritans; we strongly supported the legalization, taxation and regulation of cannabis in New York (of course, the execution of that policy has been royally botched). If not for the fact that the plain language of the state Constitution bars gambling except at up to seven casinos, we’d be OK with well-regulated betting on football, basketball, baseball and other sports. The tax revenues are nice enough. But there need to be robust controls that make it harder for people, and especially vulnerable people, to get sucked into the vortex. That’s not what we’re seeing in New York or America as a whole right now. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last week held an important and informative hearing exploring national regulations. Just how big is this head-full-of-steam industry? In the last quarter alone, Americans bet more than $30 billion on sports. In-game bets, in which people bet second to second on what might happen next, are up, as are all kinds of bizarre, exotic prop bets. The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that 2.5 million people per year struggle with compulsive gambling; there were nearly 15,000 bets per second placed online in the last Super Bowl. New York Rep. Paul Tonko is co-sponsor of legislation that would ban advertising during live sporting events — which is now rampant; prohibit operators from accepting more than five deposits from a customer in a 24-hour period; require “affordability checks” on customers before taking large wagers; prohibit the acceptance of deposits via credit card, and more. Whether or not one endorses each and every measure, reasonable people should agree that sports betting, promoted as seductively as cigarettes ever were, has suddenly become a costly and corrosive economic force. It’s time for government to stop counting the dollars and look for reasonable ways to rein it in.