Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Manny here with a quick shameless plug before
Speaker 1: we start today's episode. If you're in or around New
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Speaker 1: and enjoy today's episode. I'm Manny and this is no
Speaker 1: such thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments
Speaker 1: and yours by actually doing the research. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to be taking a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: world of sports gambling.
Speaker 2: Antiop what people say, There's.
Speaker 3: No no such thing, no touch thing, touch, thank.
Speaker 1: Touch, thank touch thang.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: By now, we've all heard about sports betting. Yes, not
Speaker 1: only have you heard about it, you've seen it everywhere.
Speaker 1: You've seen Kevin Hart promoting DraftKings with Lebron James.
Speaker 3: Are you a little too old to be playing football?
Speaker 4: Wait? What they want?
Speaker 1: Somebody that can run it?
Speaker 4: Forty?
Speaker 2: Now, somebody that is forty.
Speaker 1: You've seen fucking John Hamm promoting bet MGM. So they
Speaker 1: pulled out the BETMGM app and put together a live parlay.
Speaker 4: But what would the fourth leg be?
Speaker 1: The big you are and those are just during commercials.
Speaker 1: You've also seen this stuff, like literally during the games.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm watching sports most days, probably more
Speaker 1: than the average person. But I'm curious how often have
Speaker 1: you two seen sports gambling promotional material in your lives?
Speaker 4: I don't really watch sports besides baseball, but it's become
Speaker 4: really annoying the amount of just sort of sports gambling,
Speaker 4: odd stuff that like Apple has now started broadcasting baseball
Speaker 4: games and they all have like the likelihood that this
Speaker 4: next ball is going to be a strike. Just stuff
Speaker 4: that's just like so inconsequential. Yeah, like graphics on screen
Speaker 4: the entire game.
Speaker 5: And like I feel like on baseball they have it
Speaker 5: on the actual like not on the bottom.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen it.
Speaker 4: Like it's Apple doesn't like Apple does it on screen. Yeah, like,
Speaker 4: which is really crazy. Yeah, it's ins insane. The local stuff,
Speaker 4: the local like my local s and ys, the Mets
Speaker 4: local they don't do. It's not as in your face,
Speaker 4: but it's like you're saying, it's every single commercial they
Speaker 4: come back from break, they're talking about the odds. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's it just feels like in the beginning it
Speaker 4: was really like, oh my god, it's just crazy. Now
Speaker 4: it's just like so normalized. I don't even think about
Speaker 4: it anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and during basketball games you'll get like the live
Speaker 1: odds thing, which just feels wrong, like they're literally trying
Speaker 1: to win the game and it's like all these stats
Speaker 1: and graphs and shit for me anyway ruins the like
Speaker 1: experience of watching the Ax game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agreed.
Speaker 1: In case people don't know, sports betting is a type
Speaker 1: of gambling, except instead of risking your money on poker
Speaker 1: or roulette, you're risking your money on, for example, whether
Speaker 1: the Lakers are going to win a game against the Celtics. Now,
Speaker 1: it used to be the case that if you wanted
Speaker 1: to bet on sports, you'd get your ass in the
Speaker 1: car and drive all the way to like Atlantic City
Speaker 1: or some casino in your area, and you'd place a
Speaker 1: bet there. But in twenty eighteen, the Supreme Court struck
Speaker 1: down a law that banned sports betting in most states.
Speaker 1: So because of that, you're now seeing this proliferation of
Speaker 1: sports betting all over the place, and you can now
Speaker 1: legally place a sports bet on your phone, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, not the case before. I you know, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, I've I've dabbled. I've probably probably more than dabbled.
Speaker 4: On the record. Yeah, you're very much on the record
Speaker 4: talking about it's got.
Speaker 1: To be transparent about this, and I think like, if
Speaker 1: you're responsible, obviously it can be like a fun way
Speaker 1: to kind of heighten the urgency of the watching experience.
Speaker 1: Have you guys ever placed a bed or I've dabbled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm clean now, but yeah, I mean there have
Speaker 5: been times when, you know, I used to go to
Speaker 5: a lot of NETS games and it would add a
Speaker 5: layer of excitement to what would otherwise be a pretty boring, yeah,
Speaker 5: unclimbactic game regular season when you you know, maybe you
Speaker 5: want the Nets to win, but you need Julius Randall
Speaker 5: from the Knicks at the time to score over a
Speaker 5: certain amount and it's down to the last minute.
Speaker 2: It's exciting stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now, I never bet anything, you know, more than I
Speaker 5: think fifty dollars in yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, making
Speaker 5: some crazy parlay, which is, you know, laying a bunch
Speaker 5: of random things to happen essentially and hopefully they all
Speaker 5: happen to make you know, say one thousand dollars on
Speaker 5: that fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was an exciting high, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I remember we went to a
Speaker 1: Nets game together once and we would both have kind
Speaker 1: of a bet riding, and I remember you won a
Speaker 1: decent amount once.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how to quit? Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1: Devin have you partaken at all?
Speaker 4: No, nothing in my body wants to bet on sports,
Speaker 4: especially because you know, I'm a fan of the Mets
Speaker 4: and there's just so such an unpredictable team that I'm like,
Speaker 4: I have I watched them every single day and I
Speaker 4: have absolutely no idea what is going to happen day
Speaker 4: to day. Yeah, so I am not putting money on
Speaker 4: the line for this. Although you guys have You haven't
Speaker 4: convinced me yet, but I guess my initial thought with
Speaker 4: sports betting was like, you just got to pick who
Speaker 4: wins and who loses, And I was like, I would
Speaker 4: never do that because I don't know day to day
Speaker 4: whether or not I'm actually gonna win. Yeah, But then
Speaker 4: y'all talked about, oh, you can bet on smaller things, right,
Speaker 4: you can bet on whether or not somebody gets a
Speaker 4: certain amount of hits her. So that's a little bit
Speaker 4: more fun because it's less you know, you're kind of
Speaker 4: leaning into the uncertainty. Yeah, yeah, versus like trying to
Speaker 4: make calculated decisions. It's a little bit more like feels
Speaker 4: a little bit more like the lottery to some degree
Speaker 4: of like, oh, right, you know I'm gonna put some
Speaker 4: amount of money down and like if I lose it, whatever,
Speaker 4: but you're not like thinking so much about it. You
Speaker 4: have you know, obviously you have a little bit of insight,
Speaker 4: but it's a lot of it is up to chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's this kind of idea. I think
Speaker 1: that it's different than regular gambling because you know, people
Speaker 1: feel like they know sports, they know a team in
Speaker 1: and out, and they feel like they can affect some
Speaker 1: money coming their way because you know, they know that
Speaker 1: show hao Tony's gonna get one hit per game. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a real stat. I don't watch baseball,
Speaker 1: but if you bet on that every game and he
Speaker 1: does it most games, you know you're not gonna win
Speaker 1: that much money.
Speaker 4: If it's an easy bet, then you're not gonna win them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Just really quickly, I'll just go through like
Speaker 1: the popular kinds of vets. One of them is called
Speaker 1: the money line, which is literally just choosing which team
Speaker 1: is gonna win. One of them is called the over under.
Speaker 1: You're just choosing whether the amount of points in a
Speaker 1: game will be over x amount or under that amount,
Speaker 1: and then the other one is the spread. So like
Speaker 1: if the Vegas will determine that the Lakers are gonna
Speaker 1: win by seven points, and then you can bet on
Speaker 1: the Lakers covering that spread if you think they're gonna
Speaker 1: win by more than seven points. Now, sports betting has
Speaker 1: gotten a lot more complicated. There's like a million more
Speaker 1: things you can do now, one of those things being
Speaker 1: in recent history, the parlay, which is, for example, saying
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are gonna win, they're gonna win by
Speaker 1: over seven points and Lebron James is gonna score twenty points.
Speaker 1: And the more things you add to the parlay, you know,
Speaker 1: your bet becomes lottery esque. It just multiplies the amount
Speaker 1: of the payout that you're gonna get, but also makes
Speaker 1: it that much more unlikely. And I think it's that
Speaker 1: kind of bet that I feel like, as you know,
Speaker 1: the all these sports betting apps are promoting the most
Speaker 1: because they know it's they're so unlikely, and that feels
Speaker 1: kind of like dark and insidious to me. They're like
Speaker 1: giving you free money to do these things so that
Speaker 1: you can get hooked on it. And I have seen
Speaker 1: people get hooked on it, like I know people.
Speaker 4: Who are parlay specific parlays.
Speaker 1: But also like once you're in the app. I think
Speaker 1: the app is like designed in a way almost like
Speaker 1: social media, where like you're there's these like little dopamine.
Speaker 5: And there's promos and stuff like that too, so it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: you'll get an extra point, like you'll get some credit
Speaker 5: if you do a five leg parlay instead of a
Speaker 5: three leg one.
Speaker 1: The worst kind of promotion I've seen is like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna give you free money to work with if
Speaker 1: you make a parlay bet that's plus five hundred or longer,
Speaker 1: which means like you're only you're only gonna get free
Speaker 1: money if you make a bet. That's impossible. So it's
Speaker 1: just like this kind of loop the cycle that keeps
Speaker 1: you in there.
Speaker 4: My introduction to the parlay was uncut Gems.
Speaker 2: That's right, se Yeah, famous example.
Speaker 4: This is me, all right, I'm not a fucking think.
Speaker 4: This is my fucking way. This is how I went.
Speaker 2: Look how that turned out did not did not work
Speaker 2: out so good for Sandler.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I think maybe Uncut Gems was that was
Speaker 1: a little bit before uh it was not like betting
Speaker 1: popped off online. Yeah, and I think it kind of
Speaker 1: popularized it too.
Speaker 4: I think they did a great job explaining what it
Speaker 4: was too. Yeah in the movie, because I had no idea.
Speaker 4: By the end, I understood.
Speaker 5: Everyone pause this and come back in two hours. Yeah,
Speaker 5: pull up you know, HBO Max. Yeah, if our explanation
Speaker 5: didn't make sense, Yeah, So we'll talk to our guests
Speaker 5: Danny in a little bit about kind of the detrimental
Speaker 5: aspects of sports betting, what it's done to us as
Speaker 5: a society.
Speaker 1: But briefly, there's also been controversy with sports betting fiascos
Speaker 1: in the NBA, particularly where players are getting caught up
Speaker 1: in allegedly rigging games. And so we know this has
Speaker 1: happened with Johntay Porter. Michael Porter Junior's brother.
Speaker 6: Toronto Raptors forward Johntay Porter has been banned from the
Speaker 6: NBA for life, the league announced. The NBA said that
Speaker 6: Porter provided confidential information to betters, limited his own participation
Speaker 6: in games for gambling purposes and bet on.
Speaker 1: NBA games, and he's alleged to have like basically played
Speaker 1: worse because someone else that he knew bet on the game,
Speaker 1: bet on his unders. So maybe instead of jumping up
Speaker 1: to get that rebound, he would let someone else do
Speaker 1: it so that his friend's bet could hit. And then
Speaker 1: more recently we've seen Terry Rozier.
Speaker 4: All right, tim breaking news.
Speaker 7: Is catching everybody by surprise, the FBI arresting NBA.
Speaker 4: Player Terry Rozier early this morning.
Speaker 7: In connection with a widespread sports betting investigation.
Speaker 4: And he's not the only.
Speaker 1: One we know that that's bad, right, So, like sports
Speaker 1: gambling is starting to permeate in actual sports. It's like
Speaker 1: jeopardizing the kind of purity of the game when the
Speaker 1: sports is supposed to be very merit based. Now you've
Speaker 1: got the case where like this new phenomenon is causing
Speaker 1: these players to play differently.
Speaker 4: It's come up of baseball too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just walk us through some of the baby
Speaker 1: to Cleveland Guardians.
Speaker 7: I heard really, yeah, Guardians pitchers Emmanuel class and Luis
Speaker 7: Ortiz had been charged with fraud, conspiracy, and rigging pitches.
Speaker 7: Prosecutors said in the indictment that class A and Ortiz
Speaker 7: through specific pitches for balls so betters could place prop
Speaker 7: bets in profit.
Speaker 4: So this is like you're like, you're talking about like
Speaker 4: sick people like to be voting on a specifically pitch type.
Speaker 4: It's crazy. But these two pitchers have been indicted for
Speaker 4: throwing specific pitches, and one of these was in the playoffs,
Speaker 4: like purposely throwing a type of pitch you know, not
Speaker 4: for a ball, they purposely like out of the strike
Speaker 4: zone and having someone you know in connection to them
Speaker 4: betting on that specific pitch type a lot of money
Speaker 4: down and you know, getting a lot of money he
Speaker 4: paid out for being correct on those pitches. And you
Speaker 4: can say, oh, this is like, you know, what's the
Speaker 4: big deal? You know, like these pitches didn't change the
Speaker 4: outcome of a game. Sure, maybe not, but it is
Speaker 4: like the sort of thing that like, Okay, this is
Speaker 4: how you start right like you do to really Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna throw this one pitch out of the
Speaker 4: strike zone and then start out this batter not the
Speaker 4: way I naturally would. But then you start to wonder, Okay,
Speaker 4: if this is the only thing we caught, what else
Speaker 4: are you actually doing behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really disturbing because there's clips now circulating of
Speaker 1: like Terry Rozier like, yeah, putting up some horrific shots
Speaker 1: or like losing the ball all the time, and in
Speaker 1: ways that just look a little bit weird.
Speaker 4: And look he made that. May it may be legitimate, right,
Speaker 4: maybe like you were just trash today, Yeah, Like these
Speaker 4: pictures may be like, hey, you just didn't have your
Speaker 4: stuff today. But now when you find out that, like, oh,
Speaker 4: there may be something happening here, you start to question
Speaker 4: on this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what makes it so dangerous because I
Speaker 1: know people are getting caught now, but I think it
Speaker 1: is relatively easy to hide your assistance on someone else's bet.
Speaker 1: There was a clip of Lebron last year where he
Speaker 1: was like in a postgame interview and he said that
Speaker 1: some fan was screaming at him that he just needed
Speaker 1: one more rebound from Lebron, yeah, so his bet could hit.
Speaker 1: And then Lebron was like, so I just helped him out,
Speaker 1: jumped up to get a rebound.
Speaker 4: He definitely yo at me, got my intentions rebound. I'm
Speaker 4: like what he was like, more so I got one
Speaker 4: more and I pointed at him to acknowledge that I
Speaker 4: was listening.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of like a funny moment, I guess,
Speaker 1: but like underneath the surface, it's like, oh, that's kind
Speaker 1: of dark. Yeah, all right, So we know that sports
Speaker 1: betting has invaded the sports infrastructure in such a way
Speaker 1: that is detrimental to the purity of the game. But
Speaker 1: I am curious. It made me think about, like, what
Speaker 1: if a player is betting on him or herself to
Speaker 1: do well? M what if Lebron can bet on himself
Speaker 1: to score, you know, thirty points? Should should that be allowed?
Speaker 1: Because it it incentivizes him.
Speaker 4: Exactly to do well.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious, like what the pros and cons I'm.
Speaker 5: Trying to think of, you know, I'm trying to make
Speaker 5: the argument. Of course, that sounds great. Maroone says, Hey,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna try to score at least twenty points today
Speaker 5: and if I get.
Speaker 2: That, I win whatever, two thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Like he needs it, whatever, whatever he wants to twenty
Speaker 5: thousand dollars in the wine cellar.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But the issue, though, I think it's like, if you
Speaker 5: can do that openly, then it's like, who's to say
Speaker 5: he's not making a little carve out for his friends
Speaker 5: on the Celtics who he's playing against.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to make sure, you know, to make sure he
Speaker 1: does now points.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm not gonna block him so hard so I
Speaker 5: can get a piece of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 5: It's it seems simple, But then it's like so easily
Speaker 5: opens it up to anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so unless you you all.
Speaker 5: Have secret bets and some it's some system that then
Speaker 5: like why are we making it?
Speaker 4: Like why no, can't be secret, gotta be all out
Speaker 4: and open. Yeah. So you know, like you want to
Speaker 4: put all these other odds and stuff on the screen.
Speaker 4: I want to see what Lebron is betting on himself. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it's like, you know, there's no more underground. There's
Speaker 4: no no more underground, you know, get rid of the
Speaker 4: on it. We're legalizing, you know, like you say legalized drugs,
Speaker 4: We're gonna legalize sports betting.
Speaker 2: So like it's just gonna.
Speaker 4: Just all out in the open. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: I think about it.
Speaker 1: Or what if it was as simple as you know,
Speaker 1: he's only allowed to bet on the Lakers to win,
Speaker 1: not like necessary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you could pick out what like you know, I
Speaker 4: think there's ways you could work it out. So you're
Speaker 4: not getting so specific that like it's altering, like you're
Speaker 4: saying whether or not somebody's gonna put up a shot
Speaker 4: or something. But I think about this, like I don't
Speaker 4: know how it works with contracts and you know, the
Speaker 4: sports that y'all watch all the other sports besides baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds a degree, watch sports if you call those sports.
Speaker 4: But like in baseball, right, especially with say someone has
Speaker 4: kind of like an off year, or they're injured to what,
Speaker 4: or there'll be incentives that like, hey, in this contract,
Speaker 4: if you start a certain amount of games, if you
Speaker 4: win whatever award, if you you know, get a certain
Speaker 4: amount of strikeouts or home runs, whatever, you'll get a
Speaker 4: bonus added to your contract. Exactly. How is that so
Speaker 4: different than betting? Right, Like, if someone because this has
Speaker 4: come up where it's like someone may have let's say,
Speaker 4: you know, a pitcher needs you know, one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty innings to get that contract clause, and they have
Speaker 4: one hundred and forty nine and it's the last game
Speaker 4: of the season, and the manager is like, do I
Speaker 4: got Do I take this guy out or give him?
Speaker 4: Do I give him another pitch?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: And people start the second guess like, oh, they took
Speaker 4: himut because they didn't want to pay that out. You know.
Speaker 4: So like that sort of stuff does happen.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. I mean that happens in football
Speaker 1: all the time, where let's say there's a wide receiver
Speaker 1: who needs one more touchdown to like trigger some clause
Speaker 1: in his contract.
Speaker 4: Do you drop up a play knowing that and then you.
Speaker 1: Know, if it's a substantial amount of money, could you
Speaker 1: then talk to the guy on the other team, like
Speaker 1: who's covering you? Be like, hey, I thirty some of this.
Speaker 1: If you let me get you, let me get this touch.
Speaker 4: Games out of hand, let me catch Yeah, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about performance bonuses, that them being similar
Speaker 1: to you know, betting on yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess those are long term goals.
Speaker 1: Though, Yeah, like you can't do it every game.
Speaker 5: I think the per game ones is I think scary
Speaker 5: or like, I think that's a bad, bad hole to
Speaker 5: go down.
Speaker 1: Because then even if we decide it's ethically okay, it's
Speaker 1: still I think affects the like sanctity of the game.
Speaker 1: Where like, let's say Lebron James is allowed to bet
Speaker 1: on the Lakers to win, he might be making different
Speaker 1: decisions at the end of that game than he would have.
Speaker 1: He might feel like, oh my god, the only way
Speaker 1: we're gonna win is if I take this last shot instead.
Speaker 3: Who cares?
Speaker 4: Who cares that the team?
Speaker 1: I guess Yeah, I just mean it's it changes the
Speaker 1: dynamic a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess I think I think it should be
Speaker 5: more for either full games or more team based than
Speaker 5: individual based.
Speaker 4: I think once we're.
Speaker 5: Doing this individual stuff, that's when you're gonna get kind
Speaker 5: of the more selfish play from maybe players who aren't
Speaker 5: Lebron who can Maybe.
Speaker 1: People are egos that are bigger than so.
Speaker 5: I think it's like, yeah, if the Detroit Pistons say, hey,
Speaker 5: we're gonna try to win sixty games this year and
Speaker 5: Kate Cunningham wants to bet on that, that seems fine
Speaker 5: to me because he wants to win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I can see your concern that you were
Speaker 1: saying earlier with essentially it opens the door to maybe
Speaker 1: working with some other team to let there's just too
Speaker 1: many to let them perform a certain.
Speaker 2: Unknown unknowns, as Donald Rumsild would say.
Speaker 1: Too many unknown unknowns. This is just like the war
Speaker 1: in Iraq. Well, the good news for us is going
Speaker 1: to learn a lot more about this with our guest today,
Speaker 1: Danny Funt. Danny is the author of Everybody Loses The
Speaker 1: Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to him right after this break. All right, we
Speaker 1: are back, and we're joined by Danny Funt, the author
Speaker 1: of Everybody Loses, The tumultuous Rise of American sports gambling,
Speaker 1: which happens to be exactly what we were just talking about. Wow, Danny,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: What's up man? Thanks for having me on first.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask if you could briefly walk
Speaker 1: us through just the history of sports betting in the
Speaker 1: US in general. I know there were some kind of
Speaker 1: big sports betting controversies I think in the twenties, thirties, forties,
Speaker 1: and fifties. If you could just walk us through that,
Speaker 1: how did we get here today?
Speaker 3: There's been betting on sports since there have been organized
Speaker 3: sports in America, even going back to like the very
Speaker 3: first baseball games in New York City eighteen fifties. It
Speaker 3: was such a big part of why people cared about
Speaker 3: baseball in the first place that the New York Times
Speaker 3: wrote an editorial that said, we can't even think of
Speaker 3: this as a national pastime because, as they put it,
Speaker 3: it's a contrivance for gambling. And then the National League
Speaker 3: was created in large part to rid the game of
Speaker 3: gambling because it felt like it was corrupting the sport
Speaker 3: and putting off a lot of prospective fans. And then
Speaker 3: that leads us to the Black Sox scandal in nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 3: You probably know about that, eight players on the Chicago
Speaker 3: White Sox colluding with gamblers to fix the World Series,
Speaker 3: and the Commissioner of Baseball was established after that specifically
Speaker 3: to get gambling out of baseball. There were scandals basically
Speaker 3: every decade, most notoriously in college men's basketball in like
Speaker 3: the fifties and sixties, getting caught up with mob people
Speaker 3: who wanted them to fix games. And all of that
Speaker 3: brings us to two when the leagues lobbied Congress to
Speaker 3: officially ban sports betting outside Nevada, where it had been
Speaker 3: legal since about the fifties, and then that law was
Speaker 3: struck down in twenty eighteen, and things were often running
Speaker 3: from there as far as states legalizing sports betting.
Speaker 1: And what was kind of the sports betting environment so
Speaker 1: to speak in the fifties and sixties. I know there
Speaker 1: were some of those, like specific scandals, but how did
Speaker 1: like your average American get involved with that?
Speaker 3: So in Nevada, as I said, they had a legal
Speaker 3: book making infrastructure, but it was really an afterthought and
Speaker 3: it was mainly just to draw to get people into casinos,
Speaker 3: and it remained that way honestly to today. Like in
Speaker 3: the casino business, sports betting is almost a rounding error,
Speaker 3: like it's really just yet another thing, you know, along
Speaker 3: with restaurants and other gimmicks to get people to come
Speaker 3: in and then go to the blackjack tables and the
Speaker 3: slot machines. Were they really make money. In the rest
Speaker 3: of the country, it was largely mob run, which is
Speaker 3: why you might have heard of the Kofaver Commission, which
Speaker 3: was this massive congressional inquiry in the fifties that looked
Speaker 3: into how gambling was funding the mob. And this senator
Speaker 3: from I think Tennessee made it a huge TV attraction,
Speaker 3: these congressional hearings where they would bring in gang leaders
Speaker 3: to testify about how much they were taking in bets.
Speaker 3: And that was the first time a lot of Americans
Speaker 3: even heard the word mafia, and it led It led
Speaker 3: the Kennedy administration to push for a number of laws
Speaker 3: that made it officially illegal, and.
Speaker 1: Then, of course, the mafia responded by killing John F.
Speaker 3: Kennedy right right. A fun historical fact, the guy who
Speaker 3: invented the point spread was I think JFK's elementary school teacher.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, go to the top.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But after nineteen ninety two, you basically could not bet
Speaker 1: on sports unless you travel to Nevada? Is that true?
Speaker 3: Or you had a bookie?
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, And just for the audience, like, describe what
Speaker 1: a bookie is? How like how was that allowed or
Speaker 1: is it it wasn't It was like under the table.
Speaker 3: Totally under the table everywhere but Nevada. And basically that's
Speaker 3: someone who you know will take your bet on a game,
Speaker 3: is probably only against the point spread. Maybe they took
Speaker 3: over unders on the point total, and they're kind of
Speaker 3: writing numbers down in a book, hence the name bookmaker,
Speaker 3: and you know, hopefully paying you if you win. Most
Speaker 3: of that's done on credit. You're not like handing the
Speaker 3: money and saying, you know, pay me back if I win.
Speaker 3: It's it's the honor system, which is why knees get
Speaker 3: busted and thumbs get you know, chopped off if you're
Speaker 3: not paying. But yeah, that was a pretty big business.
Speaker 3: I remember there was a book maker in Nevada who
Speaker 3: was I think it was a Sports Illustrated article where
Speaker 3: they were talking about, you know, trying to figure out
Speaker 3: the size of the illegal sports betting industry in like
Speaker 3: the middle twentieth century. And this guy was like, I
Speaker 3: know of a town in Wisconsin that has thirteen thousand
Speaker 3: people and two book makers. So just think about you know,
Speaker 3: if like a middle of nowhere town in Wisconsin has
Speaker 3: two bookies, it probably suggested there were a ton of
Speaker 3: them across the country.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. That kind of leads me to my next question.
Speaker 1: Like when I bet on a game today, I'll open
Speaker 1: the app and it'll and I'll bet on whatever the
Speaker 1: Lakers to win, and it'll say plus two hundred. And
Speaker 1: I understand that that means if I bet one hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: I'll win two hundred. But where the hell do they
Speaker 1: get that number from? Who actually is responsible for providing
Speaker 1: the odds on a given sports match.
Speaker 3: That's an important point because we still say colloquially like
Speaker 3: Vegas thinks, you know, Vegas thinks the Seahawks are a
Speaker 3: three point favorite. It really almost has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with what anyone in Vegas thinks. It's an aggregation of
Speaker 3: worldwide betting trends. And usually when they'll open with numbers.
Speaker 3: They're basing it on betting markets in like Asia and
Speaker 3: other parts of the world that might be ahead of us,
Speaker 3: just on the time difference, and then going from there,
Speaker 3: and then the numbers get sharpened, mainly by the bets
Speaker 3: that you see coming in from professional gamblers. A lot
Speaker 3: of bookmaking is just responding to what these sharp betters
Speaker 3: are doing and then massaging the numbers accordingly. It's not
Speaker 3: like a genius odds maker who posts a number and
Speaker 3: then takes on all these different people and you know
Speaker 3: it's trying to outsmart them. It's it's the wisdom of crowds,
Speaker 3: as it's sometimes said.
Speaker 1: And people would say colloquially Vegas because those bookies were
Speaker 1: normally in Vegas before the Supreme Court action.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of these companies, you know, based
Speaker 3: in Vegas, whether it's Caesars or MGM or what have you.
Speaker 1: So then what is the format of that business? How
Speaker 1: exactly do they make money? Like I know how I
Speaker 1: lose money to them, but like what is what's the
Speaker 1: structure exactly?
Speaker 3: So the simple answer is they bake an edge into
Speaker 3: the odds so that they win no matter what. And
Speaker 3: there's complexity to that. But basically it's the reason why
Speaker 3: if you bet twenty bucks on both sides of a bet,
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a wash, right, You're going
Speaker 3: to lose a certain amount, and that certain amount is
Speaker 3: roughly what the sports book is making. It's complicated because
Speaker 3: there's a common misconception that the art of bookmaking is
Speaker 3: posting odds or spread or whatever that's going to attract
Speaker 3: fifty percent money on both sides, and then you get
Speaker 3: the vig that house edge that I just mentioned, and
Speaker 3: that's how they make money. They're really not going for
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty. They're going for on the side of
Speaker 3: the professional gamblers, but posting a number that's gonna get
Speaker 3: a lot of money on both sides. But the sportsbook
Speaker 3: wants to basically bet on the side of the sharps
Speaker 3: because they're right more often than not. And if that happens,
Speaker 3: then they're gonna the house is gonna win even more
Speaker 3: than that edge that they bake into the odds. So
Speaker 3: gets a little complicated, but that's the business. It's not like,
Speaker 3: let's figure out what's gonna get half and half on
Speaker 3: both sides.
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna ask if you could clarify a
Speaker 1: little bit about the vig. Okay, the Lakers and Celtics
Speaker 1: are playing, and I bet twenty dollars on each of
Speaker 1: them to win, I'm gonna win twenty dollars, right.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna see minus one ten typically on both sides.
Speaker 3: So if you bet one hundred and ten dollars and
Speaker 3: you win, you make a hundred. If you bet one
Speaker 3: hundred and ten and lose, obviously you get nothing, So
Speaker 3: that ten bucks the difference there is the thig, right.
Speaker 3: So typically it's why in order to beat those sorts
Speaker 3: of bets and make money, you have to win about
Speaker 3: fifty two and a half percent of the time because
Speaker 3: if you just won fifty to fifty, the house has
Speaker 3: that edge and they're going to beat you, and it's
Speaker 3: really really hard. It's really hard to win more than
Speaker 3: half your bets. Conversely, if you think about it, it's
Speaker 3: really hard to lose more than half your bets if
Speaker 3: you're betting those types of straight bets.
Speaker 1: That's what I tell my wife. In your book, you
Speaker 1: interviewed and talked to a lot of people who have influence.
Speaker 1: I think at some of these companies like FanDuel and DraftKings,
Speaker 1: like what did you learn from talking to them about
Speaker 1: how about like the average Americans relationship to sports betting
Speaker 1: and how they try to recruit more people into it.
Speaker 3: There was a bunch because some of it I think
Speaker 3: is pretty sinister, and I definitely wanted to get into
Speaker 3: that of some of the predatory tactics they're doing. But
Speaker 3: some of it also was just interesting to me of
Speaker 3: how this business actually works. There was someone who was
Speaker 3: in like marketing insights at FanDuel, and she told me
Speaker 3: a bunch of things that I found really interesting. One
Speaker 3: was that people are always thinking like there's so many
Speaker 3: ads that must turn off a lot of people because
Speaker 3: they're like, I just can't stand seeing all these fandel ads.
Speaker 3: I'm never gonna give them my business. And she said,
Speaker 3: from their research, that's not true at all. No matter
Speaker 3: how much you hate a company's advertising, it doesn't stop
Speaker 3: you from patronizing them. So that's instructive. But another thing
Speaker 3: she said that was interesting was although these companies like
Speaker 3: to brand sports betting as this social activity and you
Speaker 3: know this idea of like you know, all me, me
Speaker 3: and my buddies like gather and replace our bets, and
Speaker 3: that's like a way that we socialize around sports. Based
Speaker 3: on her research, a lot of people are doing it
Speaker 3: when they're alone and they don't like to talk about
Speaker 3: they don't like to talk about their betting because they're
Speaker 3: kind of embarrassed about it, that it's this thing they
Speaker 3: do to like liven up a boring night alone. And
Speaker 3: I mean I do that, you know sometimes, So I'm
Speaker 3: not here to judge, but I think that's maybe maybe
Speaker 3: a huge percentage of this business is people like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's an interesting dynamic. When sports betting
Speaker 1: it was legalized in New York, like me and some buddies,
Speaker 1: I think I noticed that we were socializing more often
Speaker 1: than we were before, and part of me was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is kind of nice that, like, you know, in
Speaker 1: what so many people are calling a male loneliness epidemic,
Speaker 1: we're kind of like we've got this like discord channel
Speaker 1: now and we're hanging out. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's very easy to see how that turns sour because
Speaker 1: sometimes I see people who are just really deep in it,
Speaker 1: like really addicted to trying to make their money back
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 3: And also think about a lot of states legalized, including
Speaker 3: New York during COVID so people were extra isolated and
Speaker 3: bored and like doing anything, you know, baking, sour now
Speaker 3: and sports.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, what are some of the more predatory behaviors
Speaker 1: that these companies are engaging in to keep me on
Speaker 1: the app?
Speaker 3: I'll get into some of the messed up ones, but
Speaker 3: one that I I find interesting that I think you
Speaker 3: and your listeners might too, is maybe not as predatory,
Speaker 3: but it's just a it's a counter argument to this
Speaker 3: idea that sports betting just enhances fandom, which is an
Speaker 3: argument you hear the leagues make. It's like this just
Speaker 3: makes you extra locked in as a fan. It's just
Speaker 3: taking an interest you already have and like putting it
Speaker 3: on steroids. And I remember talking to this guy at
Speaker 3: a company called simple Bet, which creates these so called
Speaker 3: micro bets, which are like bets on a shrunken down
Speaker 3: time frame, like will the next pitch in a baseball
Speaker 3: game be a ball or a strike? In a football game,
Speaker 3: you know, will they score a touchdown, pund get a
Speaker 3: field goal, whatever. And he was telling me that when
Speaker 3: they're setting the odds on those bets, they do what's
Speaker 3: called shading, which is they recognize that fans have a
Speaker 3: bias to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes, Like if
Speaker 3: you're watching a football game, you're you're gonna overestimate the
Speaker 3: odds that a team scores in a given possession, right,
Speaker 3: either just because you're rooting for them, or it's nice
Speaker 3: to think that the good thing is going to happen,
Speaker 3: And so the payouts on those bets are less than
Speaker 3: if you're betting for the negative thing to happen. So
Speaker 3: basically they're taking the inherent optimism that comes with being
Speaker 3: a fan and using that against you so that you
Speaker 3: make less money if you bet on optimistic things. And
Speaker 3: I just I heard that and I was like that
Speaker 3: that's really shrewd from a business standpoint, But it totally
Speaker 3: goes against this idea that betting is just like, you know,
Speaker 3: encouraging people to be fans, because they're basically using your
Speaker 3: fandom as a vulnerability to make more money off of.
Speaker 3: But as far as as far as the predatory stuff goes,
Speaker 3: I think one is these enticements that dangle what sounds
Speaker 3: like free money, and then you read the fine print
Speaker 3: you're like, this is not free money at all. Furthest
Speaker 3: thing from it. Whether it was no sweat bets, but
Speaker 3: sometimes advertised really enormous dollar figures like you know, three
Speaker 3: thousand dollars risk free bet or no sweat bet. Risk
Speaker 3: free was like the term of art for a while,
Speaker 3: and then they realized that was just even two outrageous
Speaker 3: for betting companies, so they dialed it back to no sweat,
Speaker 3: which really conveys the same thing, which is, you don't
Speaker 3: have any reason to worry that you're going to lose
Speaker 3: this money, and that couldn't be further from the truth,
Speaker 3: and that's a gigantic bummer to people when they figure
Speaker 3: that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's like no sweat. If you bet twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars on this and you lose, we'll give you
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars in the app that you can you
Speaker 1: can't withdraw. You can only use it on another bet
Speaker 1: which you are likely to lose.
Speaker 3: And you know, if you bet twenty five bucks, let's
Speaker 3: say you bet twenty five bucks on an overwhelming favorite,
Speaker 3: you might win twenty five plus two dollars, Like you
Speaker 3: get your twenty five back and then the two. In
Speaker 3: the case of those free bets, you don't get the
Speaker 3: steak of the bet bet. You would only get the
Speaker 3: two bucks, you're really down twenty three bucks. And I've
Speaker 3: I made this mistake when I was in New York
Speaker 3: and like an idiot about these promotions, and a lot
Speaker 3: of people did as well, where they're like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: I lose my no sweat or risk free bet, I'm
Speaker 3: just going to bet it on favorites and have a
Speaker 3: really high chance of you know, coming back. Even does
Speaker 3: not work that way.
Speaker 5: When sports betting became legalized, I remember states were talking
Speaker 5: about this, will you know, be an influx of you know,
Speaker 5: money for the state. Has Now that it's been a
Speaker 5: few years, has that kind of come to fruition, Like
Speaker 5: are states actually making money off this too, or is
Speaker 5: it kind of marginal or do you have any insight
Speaker 5: on that it's.
Speaker 3: Mostly a drop in the bucket, Like it does not
Speaker 3: solve their budget problems at all. New York is a
Speaker 3: slight exception just because they get away with taxing online
Speaker 3: sports betting at fifty one percent, which is way way
Speaker 3: higher than the rest of the country. And these companies
Speaker 3: feel like, how could they not operate in New York?
Speaker 3: You know, it's what the bulls is and where they're
Speaker 3: baded to just be insane not to, but they're being
Speaker 3: taxed through the roof. So New York has generated almost
Speaker 3: half of all the tax revenue on sports betting in
Speaker 3: the country.
Speaker 4: We should.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like a third event.
Speaker 3: And for a lot of the country it's it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a trivial amount of money. And then
Speaker 3: the other side of that is like they make it
Speaker 3: sound like it's just found money, like they you know,
Speaker 3: struck oil or something, but people aren't spending that money
Speaker 3: on other things, you know, or they don't or they're
Speaker 3: not investing it, or they have health problems now, or
Speaker 3: like you know, debt that people need to deal with,
Speaker 3: and that's a that's a cost on the other end.
Speaker 3: So I think people when people start studying that holistic
Speaker 3: picture of this, it's going to be pretty bleak for
Speaker 3: that argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are some of the other social costs we've
Speaker 1: seen from this proliferation of sports because I saw I
Speaker 1: read in an article I think that domestic violence, for example,
Speaker 1: has increased since twenty eighteen when this was all allowed
Speaker 1: to happen. Curious about that and like any other negative
Speaker 1: effects that we've seen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's study. I wish I remember the College to
Speaker 3: shout them up, but it was so dark it was
Speaker 3: I think they looked at with the home football team
Speaker 3: wins or loses in states with or without legal sports betting,
Speaker 3: and in places where it's legal, and then the home
Speaker 3: team loses, domestic violence incidents were demonstrably higher than in
Speaker 3: places where it's illegal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I found that that is University of Oregon.
Speaker 4: They found that when a professional football team has an
Speaker 4: unexpected loss, intimate partner violence and its home market can
Speaker 4: increase by ten percent.
Speaker 3: While one of the things that I find just so
Speaker 3: upsetting and scary is the amount of abuse that athletes
Speaker 3: are getting from enraged gamblers. Now I lead my book
Speaker 3: off of that, just because to me, it's one of
Speaker 3: the strongest examples of how things are totally different now.
Speaker 3: Even if people used to bet, you know, under the table,
Speaker 3: the fact that they're betting so easily and so much
Speaker 3: on so many different things is creating a lot of
Speaker 3: new problems. And the online abuse that they get is
Speaker 3: just grotesque and relentless. I remember Jalen Brunson on the
Speaker 3: Knicks was like, I think this was with the athletic
Speaker 3: He's like, think of the worst stuff you might think
Speaker 3: we're hearing, and it's way worse than that. But then
Speaker 3: it goes way beyond that sort of harassment, where you
Speaker 3: know athletes have been stocked at their team hotel or
Speaker 3: at their home.
Speaker 4: JB.
Speaker 3: Bickerstaff, the Pistons coach, said people were texting his personal
Speaker 3: cell phone that they knew the identities of his kids
Speaker 3: and where he lives. The manager of the Padres just
Speaker 3: resigned last season in part because he was so exhausted
Speaker 3: from all these death threats. And like there's there've also
Speaker 3: been people arrested for like really credible death threats to
Speaker 3: getting athletes when they lost a bet. And I just
Speaker 3: think inevitably someone's going to try to kill someone. And
Speaker 3: I heard that from the former chief security officer of
Speaker 3: the NFL, who, as he put it's only a matter
Speaker 3: of time before there's a gambling related murder. That's just
Speaker 3: super grim to think about. But yeah, when we talk
Speaker 3: about what would actually have to happen for lawmakers to say,
Speaker 3: you know, enough is enough, this is way out of control,
Speaker 3: I think that would be on that list.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about being a fan of sports,
Speaker 1: there's like an emotional stake you have in it. But
Speaker 1: then once that is converted into a financial stake, you
Speaker 1: can easily see people kind of going down the wrong path.
Speaker 1: But okay, so we talked about like how this has
Speaker 1: been affecting athletes and managers. I am curious too about
Speaker 1: the betters themselves, Like are people we of course know
Speaker 1: they answer to this question, but are people being responsible
Speaker 1: or are they spending money they shouldn't be spending? Like,
Speaker 1: is there any data about, you know, how how like
Speaker 1: the better is has been affected?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like the industry always says, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: the majority of people bet and they have no issue
Speaker 3: and it's just something they do now. It's like, no
Speaker 3: different than spending money to go to a movie. I
Speaker 3: think there's studies. Of course that's true and on a
Speaker 3: simplistic level, but there's studies that indicate a lot more
Speaker 3: people are betting more than they wish they were than
Speaker 3: you might think. So there was one study that found
Speaker 3: that a third of people who bet on sports have
Speaker 3: felt ashamed after the fact that how much money they lost.
Speaker 3: Oh god, Half of people who bet concede that they're
Speaker 3: not honest with family and friends about how much they're
Speaker 3: losing and how often they're betting. Even just like the
Speaker 3: amount being lost. I remember DraftKings in one of their
Speaker 3: quarterly earnings reports, the average customer loses more than one
Speaker 3: hundred bucks a month, which you know, on average, that's
Speaker 3: a lot. If you're losing hundred dollars yeah a year,
Speaker 3: and the amount that you have to bet to lose
Speaker 3: that much is a ton. So I think it's designed
Speaker 3: to get you to bet more than you intended. A
Speaker 3: moment ago, I told you about that executive who crafts
Speaker 3: these micro bets and was talking about shading. Let's say
Speaker 3: someone's okay betting fifty dollars pregame, if they're betting constantly
Speaker 3: during the game, they might bet ten dollars ten times
Speaker 3: and then look up and be like, oh, I just
Speaker 3: bet twice as much as I intended. And this guy
Speaker 3: was like, yes, exactly, that's the goal. That's what we're
Speaker 3: going for. And yeah, I mean it's again like, from
Speaker 3: a business standpoint, it makes total sense, but from a
Speaker 3: customer safety standpoint, it's problematic.
Speaker 4: For sure.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like the legalization of sports betting was
Speaker 1: a mistake.
Speaker 3: I think the way they went about it is undoubtedly
Speaker 3: a mistake, and too often this gets boiled down to
Speaker 3: like prohibition or legalization with no guardrails, and there's so
Speaker 3: much in between. It would be pretty hard to defend
Speaker 3: the manner through which so many states decided to do this.
Speaker 3: For one simple reason, among others, is they were often
Speaker 3: completely oblivious to what could have been learned if you
Speaker 3: looked at the UK and elsewhere in Europe and Australia
Speaker 3: and other places that have had sports betting for a
Speaker 3: while and have had arguments and dealt with the fallout
Speaker 3: from all the things we've been talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: misleading ads, excessive ads in general, types of bets that
Speaker 3: encourage compulsive behavior, on and on. Those are all tired
Speaker 3: arguments in a lot of elsewhere in the world, and
Speaker 3: they've had to learn the hard way that you shouldn't
Speaker 3: allow that stuff, and they had to reregulate after a while.
Speaker 3: And from my reporting, it sounds like Americans just paid
Speaker 3: no attention whatsoever to that when they were writing their laws.
Speaker 3: It was like, this is this grand American experiment. We're
Speaker 3: going to figure things out as we go. And I
Speaker 3: guess that's pretty typical this country to just be completely
Speaker 3: arrogant and oblivious that way. But there was so much
Speaker 3: that was ignored that would have informed these laws in
Speaker 3: a pretty profound way.
Speaker 1: So before we let you go, we earlier were having
Speaker 1: a very brief debate about whether it would be okay
Speaker 1: for athletes to bet on themselves to excel, So like,
Speaker 1: would it be okay for Lebron James, for example, to
Speaker 1: bet on the Lakers to win, because technically that would
Speaker 1: only incentivize him to, you know, play better. Just curious
Speaker 1: your own thoughts that you see any kind of pitfalls
Speaker 1: with after one hour of talking about how terrible this is.
Speaker 3: I mean, the risk would be it's hard to stop
Speaker 3: at betting on yourself, and then they just start betting
Speaker 3: on everything, and that's where they get into trouble. But
Speaker 3: if we're just being like purely intellectual about it, I
Speaker 3: don't think there's anything wrong with betting on yourself to
Speaker 3: win if there's no caveats. I'm pretty sure. I hope
Speaker 3: I don't get this wrong. I'm pretty sure fighters are
Speaker 3: allowed to bet on themselves to win outright, but they
Speaker 3: can't bet on like I'm gonna win after the eighth round.
Speaker 3: And I remember for the I think it was the
Speaker 3: Mayweather Jake Paul fight. Mayweather tried to bet On like
Speaker 3: I'm gonna win in the seventh round, and they were like,
Speaker 3: absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Because he could totally effect he could play with him
Speaker 1: for six rounds and then knock him out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I think he did.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you so much for joining us, Danny.
Speaker 1: This was illuminating my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back on Manny Noah, and we just
Speaker 1: had a conversation with Danny Funt about the sports gambling world.
Speaker 1: One takeaway. One thing I found interesting. I would have
Speaker 1: assumed that sports betting what was actually a big chunk
Speaker 1: of the gambling industry, but Danny was saying, it's basically
Speaker 1: a way to get people interested in more classic versions
Speaker 1: of gambling like roulette and blackjack and craps and all that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean those are obviously more time consuming in a
Speaker 5: way mm hm. So I can see once you get
Speaker 5: in there, you're going to be really in there. Versus
Speaker 5: the sports spending. It's it is relatively easy to dip
Speaker 5: your toe in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you.
Speaker 5: Only follow maybe one sport and maybe only one team,
Speaker 5: maybe you're only doing it a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's at first at least, but.
Speaker 4: Should think about. I don't know if y'all have gamblers
Speaker 4: in your life, like family members who like are obsessed
Speaker 4: with the casino. But people lose a lot of money
Speaker 4: when they have a casino in a way that would
Speaker 4: be very hard gambling on your phone to lose, Like
Speaker 4: people will go and lose thousands of dollars, you know,
Speaker 4: like spending a day or two in a casino.
Speaker 5: You're not going from there and spending ten dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's what I did when I went to Atlantic City.
Speaker 5: But that's me, Yeah, most ready to spend spending country money.
Speaker 5: So there's probably maybe there's a scale.
Speaker 4: It's not as easy you know, to get as many
Speaker 4: people in the door as a casino, you know, as
Speaker 4: opposed to your phone, But you're going to people who
Speaker 4: get in the door big spenders.
Speaker 1: They're spending like as if they're ten sports gamblers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: At the right the thing of like solutions if like, okay,
Speaker 5: we're too far gone on this, how do we pull
Speaker 5: back or put in guardrails?
Speaker 2: It's like one thing.
Speaker 5: It's like, yeah, well, like having to go somewhere in
Speaker 5: person to bet on sports or anything is a big difference.
Speaker 5: Then I'm in my basement. You know, my family's upstairs
Speaker 5: and I'm just watching.
Speaker 1: I would literally never be It's like it would change
Speaker 1: it so much trying to go somewhere to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would immediately curb the activity. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: just in terms of like guardrails, you know, ask someone
Speaker 1: who does enjoy like here and there throwing like the
Speaker 1: cost of a couple of you know, lattes on a sports.
Speaker 4: A vague alcoholic drink day.
Speaker 1: That's more accurate in instead of buying like a cocktail,
Speaker 1: I might throw that on a on the game. I
Speaker 1: think one way to kind of reel this back a
Speaker 1: little bit would be to only allow people to bet
Speaker 1: on the outcome of a game, like.
Speaker 2: Who is always simplifying stuff.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna win the game? That's the only thing you're
Speaker 1: allowed to bet on. You can bet as much as
Speaker 1: you want on that. But this whole thing with like
Speaker 1: the really intricate, nuanceding, Yeah, that that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: is what I think get trapped.
Speaker 4: So there is a story recently about Russell Westbrook's wife
Speaker 4: got a email threat saying like I hope you die
Speaker 4: or something over over someone who's betting on her husband.
Speaker 1: That is so terrible. I mean, yeah, you see every
Speaker 1: day Kevin Durantz on Twitter fighting some guy who needed
Speaker 1: him to get an extra rebound. The idea that this
Speaker 1: is so such a big part of your life that
Speaker 1: you need to go confront the person who has inadvertently
Speaker 1: lost you money is really bleak.
Speaker 2: Damn someone betting on him is respectfully.
Speaker 1: He's He's no such thing. As a production of Kaleidoscope Content.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hatzekador. The
Speaker 1: show was created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph.
Speaker 1: The theme and credit songs are by me Manny, and
Speaker 1: the mixing was done by Steve Bone. Thank you to
Speaker 1: our guest Danny Funch, the author of Everybody Loses The
Speaker 1: Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. You can find that
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Speaker 6: He's He's no such thing.