This depresses me — the notion of legal betting on sports in most, if not all, U.S. states.

It could happen, perhaps as soon as next year.

The Supreme Court this week decided to hear the state of New Jersey’s appeal on legalized sports gambling — which Jersey, always a leader in taste and good sense, is keen to start up.

And what do we have to look forward to?

Take a look at Great Britain.

By American standards, where a residue of resistance to humankind’s most common vices remains, Great Britain is a sports gambling free-for-all.

Punters, as they are known in Britain, not only can bet on just about any sports event anywhere in the world, they can quit their bets during the action — buying out of a losing position at something less than 100 percent of the original bet, or taking a lesser reward for quitting while ahead (but with the event still ongoing).

I know this because I watched some of my colleagues in Abu Dhabi do this pretty much every hour of the day. Checking the feeds, the updates, the latest offers.

So don’t think this will be about walking over to the corner shop (London alone has 1,000 betting parlors.) on an NFL Sunday and then waiting for the games to end. Sports gambling is a nonstop process.

Even though the only people who win at gambling are those who own the gambling sites.

In Britain, legal bettors collectively lost 13.8 billion British pounds — or more than $17.8 billion — in gambling in the 12 months that ended in September of 2016. That is more than $270 lost — handed over — to gambling outlets for every man, woman and child in the UK.

(What is it gamblers allegedly say when shooting dice? “Baby needs new shoes!” Baby would get them a lot sooner if the player gave up gambling.)

We could also look forward to gambling establishments advertising all over every sports stadium — as they do in Britain. Bet365, Paddy Power and several other major operators paid to be on the soccer jerseys of 10 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs in the recently concluded season.

Others have their names on stadiums. And the whole of the second division, illogically known as the “Championship”, is sponsored by a gambling house. The “official” (as in, bought and paid for) name of the division is the Sky Bet Championship.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is in favor of betting on pro sports and sees it as an untapped “revenue” stream. Thing is, the stream can be tapped only once, in terms of new money. Thereafter, all the obscene decals on your uniforms are just paying for the usual budget.

Ludicrous.

But back to Jersey and the Supreme Court.

Government-run lotteries are bad enough because they are, in effect, a sort of tax known as “regressive” — in that those with less money tend to pay (lose) more than those with higher incomes. But at least that lottery paid for something or other in the government budget.

For-profit gambling houses are all about themselves. No roads will be built. No children will be educated. It is for the companies. Period.

The gambling industry in Britain, whenever threatened, starts talking about 100,000 jobs lost and the loss of billions in tax revenue. Which is all a bunch of bull, because you could hire 100,000 people to work at government jobs (babysitting, building bridges, planting trees) and taxes from their income could go back to the government — instead of in the pockets of gambling houses.

And don’t think you are going to win. Every gambler brave enough to be honest with himself knows he has lost money gambling. They will not concede it. They will deny, aloud. But they know.

The house never loses. Individual gamblers do.

Oh, and here is another rich one. Gambling houses have the temerity to say they act as a sort of canary in the coal mine that is gambling by spotting “unusual trends” in betting lines. Then they call authorities and games being thrown are noticed and caught beforehand. As if it is some sort of public service when, really, the firms want to protect themselves from some scam set up by someone else.

So, I laud the majority of U.S. states who have opposed sports gambling, so far. And I hope to goodness the Supreme Court comes up with good legal reasons why a state can be barred from operating sports betting, leeches on the body politic.

No good can come from it, but a lot of bad can.