According to Christian tradition, the seven deadly sins — also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins — are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. Of course, not everyone is Christian, and the idea of “sin” is pretty subjective. So you could say that in the 21st century, the seven deadly sins could now include anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, greed, lust, vanity and laziness.
For its 2025 ranking, WalletHub used data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI, IRS, CDC, FTC, TransUnion, Yelp, Google Ads, Tinder and several other organizations. YOWSA, that’s a helluva grouping. They compared and ranked 182 U.S. cities using seven categories based on modern versions of the deadly sins. To determine each city’s overall “Vice Index,” WalletHub weighted 38 different metrics, including teen birth rate, share of obese adults, bullying rate, excessive drinking, debt-to-income ratio, adult entertainment establishments per capita, volunteer rate, average daily time spent watching TV, and Google search interest for “Top 5 Plastic Surgeries.”
These are their main findings:
If you can’t tell from their photo, the most sinful city is, not surprisingly, “Sin City” itself, Las Vegas, NV. It got a Vice Index of 61.94.
Second place went to Houston, TX, with a score of 58.30.
Third place went to Los Angeles, CA, with a score of 54.93.
Here are the top 10:
- Las Vegas, NV
- Houston, TX
- Los Angeles, CA
- Philadelphia, PA
- Atlanta, GA
- Denver, CO
- Miami, FL
- Dallas, TX
- Phoenix, AZ
- New Orleans, LA
And here were the 10 least sinful cities, starting with the least sinful overall:
- Columbia, MD
- Madison, WI
- Pearl City, HI
- West Valley City, UT
- Fremont, CA
- Portland, ME
- Port St. Lucie, FL
- Bridgeport, CT
- Laredo, TX
- Boise, ID
Wallet Hub also included the cities where you would find the most and fewest:
- Violent Crimes per capita
- Thefts per capita
- Excessive drinking
- Charitable donations (as % of income)
- Adult entertainment establishments per capita
- Tanning salons per capita
- Percent of adults who don’t exercise
Check out this page of WalletHub’s website to see the full results of their study.
Of course, rankings like these are always meant to be taken with a grain of salt.
After all, “sin” is a pretty subjective concept, and it’s hard to imagine many people choosing where to live based on the number of tanning salons, gambling establishments, or Google searches for plastic surgery in the area.
That said, some of the results feel pretty predictable. Las Vegas topping the list probably surprised absolutely nobody. In fact, if “Sin City” hadn’t finished #1, the internet might have demanded a recount. 😉
The more interesting part of the study is seeing which cities showed up near the top—and which ones landed near the bottom. Some places earned their rankings because of crime, others because of debt, drinking, gambling, or a combination of factors.
And while WalletHub may call them the “most sinful” cities in America, chances are many travelers would simply call several of them fun places to visit.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary, or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
