The Most and Least ‘Sinful’ American States

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/17

Chip Lupo is an experienced personal finance writer currently contributing to WalletHub. With a background in journalism from Elon University, he has worked across various sectors, including finance, sports, politics, and religion. Chip has expertise in SEO best practices, content creation, editing, and proficiency in Microsoft and Adobe applications. His career spans over two decades, during which he has held roles as a compliance analyst, wire editor, and night city editor. Chip’s passion for media and communications drives his commitment to high-quality content. He discusses the most sinful states in America for 2025 with Scott Douglas Jacobsen. Nevada ranks first, followed by California, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Gambling, drug use, and alcohol abuse significantly impact rankings, with Nevada’s Las Vegas driving its position. Texas moved from seventh to fifth, while Tennessee dropped out of the top five. The least sinful states—Idaho, New Hampshire, Vermont, Utah, and Wyoming—show regional and cultural influences, including religion and low urbanization. The seven-category index tracks vice-related metrics yearly, revealing trends in crime, financial recklessness, and social behaviours. Rankings remain relatively consistent over time.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are back with Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst. We will discuss the most sinful states in America in 2025.

New Mexico has one of the highest rates of drug use, Nevada has the most gambling addictions, and gambling alone in the United States results in losses of approximately $100 billion per year.

Someone call DOGE immediately! The amount of money lost due to smoking-related health issues and productivity loss exceeds $600 billion per year. Harmful behaviour at an individual level, based on personal choices, can lead to high economic costs on a national scale. So, the first big question: Why is this particular report on sinful behaviour important, and how do you frame this study?

Chip Lupo: It’s important because, as you mentioned, each of the 50 states has its vices and virtues, and some states are generally more well-behaved than others. We compare the states across key indicators of immoral or illicit behaviour.

This study goes beyond typical vices like gambling, smoking, and alcohol use—many of which serve as gateways to more serious issues such as domestic abuse, hate crimes, bullying, sex offences, and violent crimes.

Jacobsen: Now, the top five—are these the most sinful states? Nevada is the most sinful state by a landslide, followed by California, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.

Some of these rankings are surprising. While Nevada ranks first in multiple categories, some of these states rank lower in certain areas, such as excesses, vices, or violent crime. It’s interesting because there isn’t always a clear-cut reason why these five states rank the highest, aside from the index itself, which factors in multiple elements, including anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses, greed, lust, vanity, and laziness.

So why do these rankings vary so much? In other studies, it’s often clear why a state ranks first, second, or third, but that’s not always the case here.

Lupo: Let’s start with Nevada. Of course, Las Vegas is the gambling capital, and unfortunately, in a state like Nevada, what happens in Las Vegas influences the entire state. Las Vegas drives many of Nevada’s issues, both positive and negative.

This is largely gambling-driven, and as I mentioned before, gambling often triggers other illicit behaviours. But what’s particularly interesting about Nevada is that, aside from gambling, it ranks high in other vices. For example, it has a high number of fast-food establishments per capita, ranks fourth overall in the share of adult coffee drinkers, and ranks seventh in the share of the population using marijuana.

Then, of course, we get into gambling itself. Nevada ranks first for the number of casinos, first for gambling-related arrests, first for the share of the population with gambling disorders, and first for persons arrested for embezzlement per capita.

That last statistic is key because embezzlement is often tied to gambling. Many casinos and gentlemen’s clubs operate as cash-only businesses, making it difficult to track where all the money is going.

So, it’s not surprising that Nevada ranks high for embezzlement arrests. Additionally, it ranks first for the number of persons arrested for prostitution or commercialized vice per capita.

Now, looking at some of these other states—take, for example, California and Louisiana—both have high violent crime rates. Louisiana ranks fifth, while California ranks sixth. Whether or not that directly ties into vices, a lot of it could be influenced by illicit drug use and alcoholism. In many cases, these two factors go hand in hand.

Texas, however, presents an interesting case. Overall, Texas has a fairly low crime rate and a relatively low number of registered sex offenders. However, it ranks high in bullying, hate crimes, and the number of hate groups per capita. As Texas continues to grow as a business hub, with more companies relocating to the state due to its business-friendly climate, it also ranks high in identity theft complaints per capita, fraud complaints per capita and thefts per capita.

Texas ranks high in adult coffee consumption and other lifestyle indicators in other areas. Interestingly, Texas ranks second overall in Google search interest for adult entertainment, which measures searches for pornographic websites. The state also ranks high for persons arrested for prostitution and commercialized vice. In summary, across all these states, crime and other societal issues often correlate with vices such as drug use, alcohol abuse, and excessive gambling.

Jacobsen: If we look at the least sinful states, the bottom five—Idaho, New Hampshire, Vermont, Utah, and Wyoming—we see an interesting trend. These states rank much closer than the top five, which are significantly spread apart, particularly when you factor in Nevada’s extreme scores. Although these states rank lower on the “sinfulness” scale, they aren’t necessarily morality outliers. What explains their rankings?

Lupo: This is where regional trends come into play. The bottom-ranking states share some common characteristics. Many are in the Mountain West, while two—New Hampshire and Vermont—are in Northern New England. One key factor is that these states tend to have a more homogenous population with a predominantly white demographic.

The areas where these states tend to falter are in bullying and hate crimes. However, their overall violent crime rates remain relatively low. A major reason for this is that these states are sparsely populated and lack major urban centers. Unlike California, which has Los Angeles and San Francisco, or states like Nevada, Louisiana, or Texas, which have large cities such as Las Vegas, New Orleans, Houston, or Dallas, the bottom-ranking states do not have large metro areas where crime rates typically surge.

Because of this, inner-city crime is not as much of an issue in these states. Another interesting factor is the religious influence in Idaho and Utah. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has a strong presence in both states, shaping cultural attitudes toward vices. Residents in these states tend to have lower rates of alcohol abuse, and even caffeine consumption is lower than the national average. Additionally, gambling is nearly nonexistent—neither Idaho nor Utah has commercial casinos, and Utah is one of the few states without a state lottery. The cultural deterrent against gambling is deeply embedded in these states, influencing overall behaviour and vice-related activities.

Jacobsen: The metrics in this study are particularly interesting because they first include the most categories of any of the reports you’ve shared with me. There’s also a wide range within each category. The weighting system scales from less than one point to over four points, ensuring an even distribution of how different factors are valued.

However, when looking at categories like vanity, excesses and vices, and anger and hatred, the index is highly detailed, with many subcategories. In contrast, jealousy and lust only have three subcategories each. What does this mean in terms of data analysis and metric construction? Given the large number of subcategories, how do you ensure the balance and accuracy of such a robust index?

Lupo: That’s where it gets tricky. This hasThis study has seven major dimensions, and within those, we’re breaking things down into 55 individual metrics. The challenge is ensuring that each of those metrics is fairly represented without overemphasizing one aspect over another.

When people hear the term “sinful,” their minds often jump to vices like lust or greed. However, these vices intersect with other factors, snowballing into broader issues such as crime rates, economic instability, or social behaviour. For example, under the excesses and vices category, we include a debt-to-income ratio metric, which measures how much debt residents have relative to their household income.

This is significant because high debt levels can be linked to gambling behaviour. If someone excessively gambles, they likely accumulate debt to cover daily expenses. While this metric may have a lower weighting, it’s an important indicator of financial recklessness. Including such nuanced measures makes the study more comprehensive, highlighting individual behaviours and their wider economic and social consequences.

Jacobsen: Can you track changes year over year? By this metric, or a similar one, are states becoming more virtuous or sinful over time? I’d be curious about that.

Lupo: The rankings are fairly consistent from year to year. Most metrics have remained unchanged from 2024 to 2025, so much of the 2025 rankings are based on 2024 data.

Nevada is still ranked number one as the most sinful state. The top five states have remained mostly the same, but there was one notable change: Tennessee was ranked fifth in 2024, scoring high in anger and hatred, excesses and vices, and lust. However, it dropped out of the top five in 2025. It’s also not in the bottom five, meaning it likely saw a significant decline in sinful behaviours overall. That’s an interesting shift.

Meanwhile, Texas moved up from seventh to fifth. The other rankings saw minor changes:

• Nevada remains first.
• Louisiana dropped from second to fourth.
• California moved up from third to second.
• Florida moved up from fourth to third.

The biggest takeaway is Tennessee’s sharp decline, which is worth noting, even if the 2025 numbers aren’t fully available yet.

Jacobsen: Chip, that’s all the questions I have for today. I appreciate your time again.

Lupo: All right, Scott. As always, we appreciate your interest. 

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