Renowned research institution WalletHub has awarded Las Vegas the title of “Most Sinful City in America 2022.”

There are lots of good reasons Las Vegas deserves this prestigious honor, but WalletHub doesn’t really care about those, it mainly used wacky, random criteria to calculate its results.

It’s almost as if WalletHub was just slapping together whimsical data points to generate site traffic. Almost. If you click on this link, you are that! Really, don’t. It will just encourage them.

Anyway, the results of the “study” are the least interesting parts of it.

Las Vegas sits in first place on the list of “Most Sinful Cities,” then St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston and Atlanta round out the top five.

Here are the slogans for each of the cities in the top five. We did mention it’s a slow news day, right?

Las Vegas: “What happens here, only happens here.” (The slogan was tweaked a couple of years ago as a cure for insomnia.)

St. Louis: “Can’t find us on a map, but we’ve got an arch!”

Philadelphia: “Forefathers wore old-timey clothing here!”

Houston: “Trust us, bulls love those straps that make them buck!”

Atlanta: “Second worst drivers, ever!” (Las Vegas drivers are worse, if you can believe that.)

Anyway, let’s dive into how the sinful rankings work.

To provide cover, WalletHub consulted with five experts about sin. While the experts, all Ph.D.s, provided top-notch insights, it’s unclear how their opinions are related to the “study.” There are some fun facts in the mix, though.

The “Methodology,” a term WalletHub uses very loosely, is where the gold lies.

Cities were rated in “seven key dimensions”: 1) Anger & Hatred, 2) Jealousy, 3) Excesses & Vices, 4) Greed, 5) Lust, 6) Vanity and 7) Laziness.

These “dimensions” were measured using “38 relevant metrics.”

Here’s a sampling of the alleged metrics used to determine the most sinful city in America.

1. Anger & Hatred: Sex offenders per capita; bullying rate; presence of terrorist attacks.

First, are “anger and hatred” even sins? Second, we really need some actual news to write about. This is painful.

2. Jealousy: Thefts per 1,000 residents; identity theft complaints per capita.

Now, we’re not only skeptical about the validity of this study, we’re unsure WalletHub has access to a dictionary. Identity theft is jealousy? We’re just getting started and already need more palms and faces.

3. Excesses & Vices: Share of obese adults; fast food establishments per capita; excessive drinking; share of adult smokers; share of adult coffee drinkers; share of population using marijuana; debt to income ratio.

Here’s a typical day at WalletHub. “Hey, we need more traffic.” “Let’s do a study about sin!” “What criteria should we use for our super scientific study?” “Break out the dart board!”

4. Greed: Casinos per capita; charitable donations as share of income; share of adults with gambling disorders.

Where do we begin on that one? Casinos are an indicator of greed? Has anyone at WalletHub actually visited a casino? Are movie theaters an indicator of greed? Rodeos? Circuses? Broadway shows? Gambling is entertainment. Can we invalidate an entire study based on one metric? Why, yes, yes we can. But we’re not done!

5. Lust: Adult entertainment establishments per capita; erotic/burlesque events per capita; Google search interest index for “XXX entertainment”; Google search traffic for Tinder; teen birth rate.

We may have just hemorrhaged ourself, seriously. Is there any human being (not in prison) who searches Google for “XXX entertainment”? And it there anyone capable of holding back a full-body cringe that WalletHub included “teen birth rate” under the category of “Lust”?

6. Vanity: Tanning salons per capita; Google search interest index for “Top 5 Plastic Surgeries.”

That’s it. Those are all the criteria for “Vanity.” We are amazed they didn’t include “Custom plates per capita” or “Gardeners employed per capita” or “Google search interest index for teeth whitening.”

7. Laziness: Average weekly hours worked; volunteer rate; average daily time spent watching TV; high school dropout rate; disconnected youth.

In the time it’s taken you to read this blog post, we have perfected our exasperated sigh, so WalletHub’s study isn’t completely worthless.

Look, our brains already have too much useless information in them without filling them with arbitrary gibberish disguised as “methodology.”

Las Vegas is America’s most sinful city (oh, we’re pretty sure WalletHub wasn’t talking about the City of Las Vegas, which is different that The Strip, don’t get us started) because gambling and sex are considered sins and we have the world’s highest concentration of those things.

Our strip clubs are world class, and we’ve got legal brothels an hour away.

We’ve got gluttony, too. Although, less of that recently since half the town’s buffets closed.

If liquor’s a sin, we’re all doomed, because Las Vegas does more and better of that than anywhere else in the world, thankfully.

It doesn’t take a panel of experts to determine Las Vegas is the most sinful city in America: It’s right in our nickname.

Sin City.

Please keep up.