The Most Sinful States Might Surprise You

Mardi Gras 2019 is set to kick off in New Orleans March 5, and the annual festival is known for its debauchery. But even with all the drinking, drug use and exposed flesh occurring on Bourbon Street this time of year, it’s not enough to make Louisiana one of the top five most sinful states in the U.S., according to WalletHub’s annual ranking. 

Each year, WalletHub ranks U.S. states according to “sinful” behavior based on Christianity’s seven deadly sins: anger and hatred, jealousy, excess and vice, greed, lust, vanity and laziness. WalletHub measures these vices based on 43 different metrics, including violent crimes per capita, thefts per capita, obesity rates, casinos per capita, the teen birth rate, beauty salons per capita and average weekly hours worked.

Most Sinful States

After compiling the numbers, WalletHub assigns a “Vice Index” score for each state. Thanks to Mardi Gras, Louisiana came in sixth on this year’s list of most sinful states. The following are the top five:

Nevada

In addition to legalized prostitution and recreational marijuana, Nevada is known for Las Vegas, which is the gambling capital of the U.S. It’s no surprise that Nevada scored the highest ranking in the “greed” category.

2. Florida

The Sunshine State came in second on this year’s list after topping the ranking last year. Among the most prevalent vices in Florida: vanity, given that the state has the second-most beauty salons per capita in the nation.

3. California

Another state known for its vanity and jealousy is California, home of Los Angeles and Hollywood. Of course, California is also the epicenter of the adult entertainment business.

4. Texas

Texas ranked highest in the nation in the “lust” category, given its high scores in categories such as teen pregnancy rates, internet pornography searches per capita, arrests for sex crimes per capita and average time spent on adult websites per person. Houston also ranked as the fourth most sinful city in the country behind only Vegas, LA and New York.

5. Tennessee

Tennessee scored highest in the “hatred” category, including being tied for the most violent crimes per capita. It also ranked third in the “lust” category behind only Texas and California.

For Americans who want to avoid sin at all costs, the least sinful state on WalletHub’s 2019 list is Vermont, followed by Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho.

Religion And Sin

Interestingly enough, the most sinful states rankings seem to have little obvious correlation with the states that are most religious. Eight of the 10 most religious states in the nation (Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina and Oklahoma) have above-average sinful scores, according to a recent Pew Research study. North Carolina and West Virgina were the two exceptions.

At the same time, eight of the least-religious states in the Pew study (Hawaii, Alaska, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire) scored below-average sinful rankings. In fact, seven of the 10 least religious states (Hawaii, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont) ranked among the 15 least sinful states in the country.

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