WEBVTT - Episode 9: Framing the Gambler 0:00:15.316 --> 0:00:21.716 Push Kim. I hate to do this, but I just 0:00:21.796 --> 0:00:24.076 have to pick up right where we left off. In 0:00:24.116 --> 0:00:29.396 our last episode, we were talking about insider trading, how 0:00:29.396 --> 0:00:32.436 it's become the one crime the sports gambling industry really 0:00:32.476 --> 0:00:35.556 wants to police. But it's also the one thing that 0:00:35.636 --> 0:00:38.356 every other guy on an American college campus wants to do. 0:00:39.076 --> 0:00:41.516 As my producer LJ found out after just a few 0:00:41.556 --> 0:00:43.636 hours at the University of Kansas. 0:00:44.796 --> 0:00:47.116 I ask you for aniela intel on the player pot. 0:00:47.196 --> 0:00:51.356 Oh yeah, well he's driving there right now. He's on 0:00:51.396 --> 0:00:53.276 the bus, so I'm gonna text him Layer and I'd 0:00:53.276 --> 0:00:54.316 be like, what'sh I put money on. 0:00:56.116 --> 0:00:59.796 Wandering around the integrity landscape these last six months, we 0:00:59.916 --> 0:01:02.476 found that some huge number of Americans who are too 0:01:02.556 --> 0:01:05.716 young to drink now gamble on sports. Yet no one 0:01:05.716 --> 0:01:08.636 ever gets in trouble for taking their bets. What people 0:01:08.676 --> 0:01:11.596 do get trouble for is trading on inside sports information. 0:01:12.516 --> 0:01:15.276 The analogy, which seems obvious to some people is the 0:01:15.356 --> 0:01:18.316 SEC ban on trading stocks when you have inside information. 0:01:19.356 --> 0:01:21.596 But even that is not an obvious type of crime. 0:01:22.876 --> 0:01:25.396 You know, some kind of frauds clearly fall under thou 0:01:25.436 --> 0:01:29.156 shalt not steal some kinds of frauds clearly fall under 0:01:29.156 --> 0:01:31.796 thou shalt not bear false witness. But there really is 0:01:31.876 --> 0:01:36.796 no commandment that says thou shalt not trade securities while 0:01:36.836 --> 0:01:39.156 in possession of material non public information. 0:01:39.876 --> 0:01:42.916 That's Dan Davies, once an economist at the Bank of England, 0:01:43.116 --> 0:01:46.396 an analyst for a bunch of investment banks. He now 0:01:46.396 --> 0:01:49.996 writes about financial fraud lying for money. His first book 0:01:50.036 --> 0:01:50.716 was called. 0:01:51.036 --> 0:01:54.796 Most people would consider that's like just the epitome of 0:01:54.836 --> 0:01:57.556 doing good business. If you don't have more information, why 0:01:57.596 --> 0:02:01.636 are you making this transaction? And it wasn't a crime 0:02:01.796 --> 0:02:03.956 in most of the world for most of the history 0:02:03.956 --> 0:02:07.476 of stock markets. It became a crime in the USA 0:02:07.876 --> 0:02:11.396 in the nineteen thirty after the Wall Street crash. 0:02:11.996 --> 0:02:14.596 It's kind of odd, right that the financial markets are 0:02:14.636 --> 0:02:16.916 the only place where you're vilified if you trade on 0:02:16.956 --> 0:02:19.636 some piece of information not available to the general public. 0:02:20.396 --> 0:02:23.116 Amazon can buy your property without telling you that they've 0:02:23.156 --> 0:02:26.036 already acquired the rest of your city. But if Jeff 0:02:26.076 --> 0:02:29.356 Bezos buys Amazon's stock because he knows Amazon has just 0:02:29.396 --> 0:02:32.636 secretly bought an entire city really cheaply, he might go 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:33.116 to jail. 0:02:33.796 --> 0:02:37.716 It's a decision that society has made to create this 0:02:37.876 --> 0:02:41.516 crime on the basis of a tradeoff, and that tradeoff 0:02:41.636 --> 0:02:45.716 is obviously that if you have inside to dealing rules 0:02:46.076 --> 0:02:48.676 you make it look like a fair game, You're going 0:02:48.716 --> 0:02:52.396 to attract more people into that game, and that in 0:02:52.436 --> 0:02:54.996 turn is going to attract more of the savings of 0:02:55.036 --> 0:02:58.756 the middle class in to finance the industrial developments of 0:02:58.796 --> 0:03:00.316 the capitalist will. 0:03:00.436 --> 0:03:03.476 So maybe insider trading laws make sense in the stock market, 0:03:03.876 --> 0:03:05.556 though I got to say that their main effect is 0:03:05.596 --> 0:03:07.276 to trick a lot of people into thinking that the 0:03:07.276 --> 0:03:10.276 financial markets are more fairly police than they actually are. 0:03:10.996 --> 0:03:14.396 But that's my point, not Dan's. Here's why I called 0:03:14.476 --> 0:03:17.396 Dan up because his country is now trying to turn 0:03:17.436 --> 0:03:21.116 the informal rules against insider trading in sports gambling into 0:03:21.316 --> 0:03:24.556 actual laws, just like in the stock market. 0:03:25.236 --> 0:03:28.876 It is being done, in my view, on the basis 0:03:28.916 --> 0:03:35.196 of a very very shaky legal footing. The Gambling Commission 0:03:36.116 --> 0:03:40.756 have taken it upon themselves to say that placing a 0:03:40.836 --> 0:03:45.916 bet with material non public information is in principle cheating, 0:03:46.516 --> 0:03:50.236 and that they will investigate it with their own criminal powers. 0:03:50.676 --> 0:03:54.876 You're basically policing the market for who's benefit, Like who 0:03:54.956 --> 0:03:58.316 benefits from raising it to the level of a crime. 0:03:58.876 --> 0:04:01.476 I think that is completely the right question to ask, 0:04:01.916 --> 0:04:04.276 because we know the trade off that we made with 0:04:04.356 --> 0:04:07.516 securities markets, which is that we decided that we would 0:04:07.796 --> 0:04:11.436 police their internal rules for them using the criminal law 0:04:11.796 --> 0:04:15.356 because we want to attract everyone into the capital markets. 0:04:15.876 --> 0:04:17.996 And I think it's a very good question to ask, 0:04:18.276 --> 0:04:21.916 what is this great benefit that the gambling industry provides 0:04:21.956 --> 0:04:25.036 to society that we should do it, this huge favor 0:04:25.516 --> 0:04:29.396 of letting it put people in actual grown up prison 0:04:29.716 --> 0:04:33.676 in the worst cases, for the crime of knowing more 0:04:33.676 --> 0:04:35.476 about a horse race than the book maker does. 0:04:36.276 --> 0:04:38.316 And the answer to the question who benefits, it's the 0:04:38.356 --> 0:04:41.276 book maker. I assume the book. 0:04:40.996 --> 0:04:45.636 Makers are the concentrated interest. They're the people who pay 0:04:45.956 --> 0:04:49.956 quite a lot of the bills, and so a lot 0:04:49.996 --> 0:04:53.956 of these sports seem to be quite happy to bend 0:04:53.996 --> 0:04:59.156 over backwards to keep things nice and safe for the bookmakers, 0:04:59.676 --> 0:05:03.996 to allow them effectively the kind of privileged position that 0:05:04.116 --> 0:05:07.396 stock market specialists used to have in the nineteen sixties 0:05:07.396 --> 0:05:08.236 and nineteen seventies. 0:05:09.196 --> 0:05:12.076 Sports bookies hate insider trading for the same reason they 0:05:12.076 --> 0:05:15.836 hate smart sports gamblers. They're in the business of maximizing 0:05:15.876 --> 0:05:20.276 stupid sports bets and minimizing smart ones. They don't want 0:05:20.316 --> 0:05:22.196 to take bets from people who know more than they do. 0:05:23.276 --> 0:05:26.676 One way to avoid those bets is to criminalize the information. 0:05:34.756 --> 0:05:39.276 I'm Michael Lewis and this is against the rulers. It's 0:05:39.276 --> 0:05:42.276 still hard to tell how exactly sports gambling will play 0:05:42.276 --> 0:05:44.916 out in the United States. It's still so new here. 0:05:45.636 --> 0:05:48.516 But outside the United States there are places that are 0:05:48.636 --> 0:05:51.436 way ahead of us. They give us a glimpse of 0:05:51.476 --> 0:06:03.236 our future, and it's not a pretty sight. The British 0:06:03.236 --> 0:06:05.996 have allowed online sports gambling since two thousand and five. 0:06:06.756 --> 0:06:08.916 Within a couple of years, sports betting in Britain had 0:06:08.916 --> 0:06:10.516 gone from a thing you had to work to do 0:06:10.876 --> 0:06:13.476 to a thing you had to work to avoid. As 0:06:13.596 --> 0:06:17.156 like this are everywhere football. 0:06:16.876 --> 0:06:21.196 Black cop competitions, the relegation bottles, the dykes under the lights. 0:06:21.316 --> 0:06:22.716 I absolutely love it. 0:06:25.956 --> 0:06:28.556 You can see the effects of this gambling culture everywhere. 0:06:29.236 --> 0:06:33.756 Just google gambler's anonymous meetings in London. The gambling industry 0:06:33.796 --> 0:06:36.596 in Britain has acquired so much political clout that the 0:06:36.596 --> 0:06:39.516 British government still thinks mostly in terms of policing the 0:06:39.556 --> 0:06:44.636 gambler rather than policing the industry. But it's the Australians 0:06:44.676 --> 0:06:48.876 who are way ahead of everyone, even the British. Australia 0:06:48.956 --> 0:06:52.196 legalized sports gambling with few restrictions back in two thousand 0:06:52.236 --> 0:06:53.396 and one. 0:06:54.036 --> 0:06:56.636 Australians lose more per capita than any other country in 0:06:56.676 --> 0:06:57.796 the world on gambling. 0:06:58.436 --> 0:07:01.876 That's Charlie Lewis, journalists for the Australian news site Krichie. 0:07:02.596 --> 0:07:05.676 Charlie was amazed to learn that twenty seven million Australians 0:07:05.996 --> 0:07:10.796 were losing twenty four billion dollars a year gambling per capita. 0:07:10.996 --> 0:07:12.956 That would be the equivalent of Americans blowing more than 0:07:12.996 --> 0:07:17.116 two hundred billion dollars a year. In Australia. Problem gambling 0:07:17.156 --> 0:07:18.916 has become such a big issue that it was front 0:07:18.916 --> 0:07:21.796 and center in the last election, which the Labor Party 0:07:21.836 --> 0:07:24.716 won by promising to enact lots of restrictions on the 0:07:24.756 --> 0:07:25.916 sports gambling industry. 0:07:26.716 --> 0:07:30.316 There was a bipartisan process that unanimously concluded that there 0:07:30.316 --> 0:07:33.876 ought to be a blanket ban on online gambling advertising 0:07:33.876 --> 0:07:36.956 in Australia. The government had kind of sat on those 0:07:37.036 --> 0:07:41.036 recommendations for over a year until recently announcing that they 0:07:41.076 --> 0:07:43.356 were going to do a much more water down version 0:07:43.436 --> 0:07:45.916 of what that report was recommending. 0:07:46.076 --> 0:07:49.716 Pole still showed that seventy percent of Australians won a 0:07:49.756 --> 0:07:53.996 total ban on sports gambling ads. The major political parties 0:07:54.036 --> 0:07:57.836 say they agree, but there's been no ban. The sports 0:07:57.836 --> 0:07:59.836 gambling ads are still everywhere. 0:08:00.356 --> 0:08:03.236 Good I just chap fifty bucks on rice for don't 0:08:03.236 --> 0:08:03.916 give me lucky. 0:08:03.756 --> 0:08:06.596 Ni puller out one thing I love about you alses 0:08:06.676 --> 0:08:07.476 you're all different. 0:08:07.596 --> 0:08:17.116 And on the punt as mad as cuts. 0:08:14.076 --> 0:08:17.836 Mad Is cutsnakes. You gotta love it. Anyway, Charlie set 0:08:17.876 --> 0:08:20.236 out to understand why the ad ban was going nowhere. 0:08:21.036 --> 0:08:23.916 What he found was a situation even worse than in 0:08:23.956 --> 0:08:27.716 Great Britain. The sports gambling companies hadn't simply bought the 0:08:27.756 --> 0:08:31.996 political process that bought the bulk of the Australian media 0:08:32.036 --> 0:08:34.036 too with ad money. 0:08:34.836 --> 0:08:39.316 The real unity is from the Australian mainstream media because 0:08:39.316 --> 0:08:40.956 they rely on that money much more than they ever 0:08:41.036 --> 0:08:44.236 used to. So they are of one voice opposing reform, 0:08:44.436 --> 0:08:46.716 which is kind of interesting because that's also who pays 0:08:46.716 --> 0:08:48.116 for journalism in this country. 0:08:49.156 --> 0:08:52.556 It wasn't that the Australian media completely ignored the problems 0:08:52.556 --> 0:08:56.116 that sports gambling caused, but Charlie found that a lot 0:08:56.156 --> 0:08:58.876 of the Australian media had settled on a narrative that 0:08:59.036 --> 0:09:03.236 was extremely convenient for the gambling industry. Yes, they report 0:09:03.276 --> 0:09:07.436 on the bankruptcies, the ruined lives, the suicides, but their 0:09:07.476 --> 0:09:10.796 reporting also implied that the industry bore is zero blame 0:09:10.876 --> 0:09:13.996 for any of it because some people simply didn't know 0:09:14.036 --> 0:09:18.716 how to gamble responsibly. Now we know that young males 0:09:18.796 --> 0:09:21.676 like to gamble, and we know that they're vulnerable to 0:09:21.716 --> 0:09:26.516 gambling problems. A society allows gambling companies to bombard young 0:09:26.556 --> 0:09:30.956 males with ads and free offers to gamble and VIP status, 0:09:31.436 --> 0:09:34.156 and then when vast numbers of young males get themselves 0:09:34.196 --> 0:09:38.236 in trouble, we all say, well, those young people really 0:09:38.276 --> 0:09:42.956 shouldn't have done that. To Charlie, Lewis, down under this 0:09:43.076 --> 0:09:46.876 frame felt off, so he dug deeper and found that 0:09:46.956 --> 0:09:51.076 this whole blamed The gambler. Frame indeed had an origin story, 0:09:51.996 --> 0:09:57.396 an American one, created by an American lawyer named Frank Farnkoff. 0:10:00.396 --> 0:10:03.076 Frank Farnkoff grew up in Reno, but made his career 0:10:03.116 --> 0:10:06.236 as a Washington lawyer and later became chairman of the RNC. 0:10:07.996 --> 0:10:11.556 Back in the early nineties, Charlie Wrights, the Las Vegas casinos, 0:10:11.596 --> 0:10:14.556 and the companies that made slot machines wanted to expand 0:10:14.596 --> 0:10:18.556 their operations. But at the very same time they were 0:10:18.556 --> 0:10:21.196 a US congressmen who were upset about the effects of 0:10:21.236 --> 0:10:25.276 gambling and who were writing legislation to ban all forms 0:10:25.276 --> 0:10:28.796 of gambling, which would not only have stopped the spread, 0:10:29.116 --> 0:10:33.356 but would have shut down Las Vegas too. It was 0:10:33.396 --> 0:10:35.836 Frank who convinced the casino operators to get ahead of 0:10:35.836 --> 0:10:39.116 the conversation. He told them they needed to come together 0:10:39.276 --> 0:10:42.716 around a strategy and the first step would be to 0:10:42.796 --> 0:10:45.516 admit that gambling addiction is real. 0:10:47.636 --> 0:10:49.436 And now that was not an easy sell. 0:10:50.116 --> 0:10:53.636 That's Frank himself now the co chair of the Commission 0:10:53.676 --> 0:10:57.876 on Presidential Debates. But back in the nineteen nineties, the 0:10:57.956 --> 0:11:01.196 Vegas casino owners hired him to be president and CEO 0:11:01.876 --> 0:11:04.276 of the New American Gaming Association. 0:11:05.076 --> 0:11:07.756 The guys who were running the gaming industry of the 0:11:07.836 --> 0:11:11.916 various companies didn't believe there was any problems with you know, 0:11:12.036 --> 0:11:16.356 we responsible gaming. And when the first meetings, when I went, 0:11:16.596 --> 0:11:19.516 I brought with me the picture of all the leaders 0:11:19.556 --> 0:11:23.236 of the tobacco industry standing before Congress, raising their right hand, 0:11:23.276 --> 0:11:25.156 saying that tobacco wasn't addictive. 0:11:25.796 --> 0:11:27.996 Yes or no? Do you believe nicotine is not addictive? 0:11:28.836 --> 0:11:30.476 I believe nicotine is not addictive. 0:11:30.516 --> 0:11:35.876 Yet I believe that nicotine is not predictive. I believe 0:11:35.916 --> 0:11:37.636 that nicotine is not addicted. 0:11:39.116 --> 0:11:41.836 And I said to them, you know, I want you 0:11:41.916 --> 0:11:43.876 to picture this in your mind. If we don't do 0:11:43.956 --> 0:11:47.436 something affirmatively which is in the public interest, the dealing 0:11:47.516 --> 0:11:50.396 with we we know is a problem. No one had 0:11:50.436 --> 0:11:52.356 any idea how deep the problem was. 0:11:53.876 --> 0:11:56.996 The gambling industry wouldn't do what the tobacco industry did 0:11:57.316 --> 0:12:02.516 and lie and tell people that its products never caused harm. Instead, 0:12:02.636 --> 0:12:05.036 it would shift the focus away from the industry and 0:12:05.116 --> 0:12:08.476 on to its customers. It would fund lots of research 0:12:08.516 --> 0:12:12.596 about gambling addiction without ever having to do anything that 0:12:12.636 --> 0:12:14.876 reduced the money they made from the attics. 0:12:15.596 --> 0:12:18.116 The gambling industry is only really doing what every big 0:12:18.156 --> 0:12:21.196 harmful industry does, which is fund research to try and 0:12:21.236 --> 0:12:22.596 get their message out there. 0:12:23.516 --> 0:12:25.956 That's the Australian journalist Charlie lewis again. 0:12:26.556 --> 0:12:28.276 Certainly not to back of companies. And I don't think 0:12:28.276 --> 0:12:31.756 even fossil fuel companies were ever as successful as the 0:12:31.796 --> 0:12:35.436 gambling industry has been in making that process kind of invisible, 0:12:35.636 --> 0:12:37.916 making it something that people don't really know is happening. 0:12:38.996 --> 0:12:41.876 We are all now just living in frank feign costs frame, 0:12:43.236 --> 0:12:46.236 a frame that keeps people's attention on the person and 0:12:46.356 --> 0:12:51.196 off the situation, on individual weakness, and off an environment 0:12:51.276 --> 0:12:55.756 designed a profit from that weakness. In Australia, the regulatory 0:12:55.836 --> 0:12:59.516 environment has fallen entirely under the control of the gambling industry. 0:13:00.756 --> 0:13:02.636 But this is in a show about Australia. It's a 0:13:02.676 --> 0:13:06.636 show about America and how this latest predatory industry is 0:13:06.796 --> 0:13:11.636 likely to affect us. Happening in Australia seems bad, but 0:13:11.716 --> 0:13:15.236 if the pattern holds, what will happen in America will 0:13:15.236 --> 0:13:31.676 one day seem even worse. They are now a long 0:13:31.756 --> 0:13:35.156 list of products and substances either banned, they're strictly controlled 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:38.076 in other countries that were allowed to wreak havoc in 0:13:38.076 --> 0:13:41.596 the United States, whereupon lawyers have rushed in and made 0:13:41.596 --> 0:13:44.756 a fortune by suing the relevant industry. And then everyone 0:13:44.836 --> 0:13:48.396 looks back and says, how did that happen? How did 0:13:48.436 --> 0:13:51.476 those tobacco companies get away with doing that, or how 0:13:51.516 --> 0:13:53.996 did opioids run wild for so long? 0:13:55.076 --> 0:13:58.836 The drug is released in nineteen ninety six, and initially 0:13:58.876 --> 0:14:01.316 there's this incredible reinforcement for them where they're getting these 0:14:01.396 --> 0:14:04.316 letters from people, these amazing letters who say, you know, 0:14:04.356 --> 0:14:06.436 I can pick up my grandkid for the first time 0:14:07.196 --> 0:14:08.876 in years, I can go back to work. You've given 0:14:08.916 --> 0:14:09.796 me my life back. 0:14:10.916 --> 0:14:14.836 That's Patrick raden Keief, author of Empire of Pain, the 0:14:14.876 --> 0:14:18.396 story of the Sackler family in Purdue Pharma, which back 0:14:18.436 --> 0:14:20.716 in nineteen ninety six came to market with a new 0:14:20.756 --> 0:14:22.796 painkiller called oxy contin. 0:14:23.436 --> 0:14:27.556 And the drug becomes a huge blockbuster. There's a big 0:14:27.596 --> 0:14:30.316 moment where it edges out Viagra as the number one 0:14:30.356 --> 0:14:31.036 drug of the day. 0:14:31.316 --> 0:14:34.116 So it's released in ninety six, when it is the 0:14:34.116 --> 0:14:36.876 first signs like if you were sitting there and you 0:14:36.916 --> 0:14:40.116 were concerned, when would you have first noted this some 0:14:40.156 --> 0:14:40.916 problems here? 0:14:41.836 --> 0:14:45.956 Really early, it's like almost within a year, really really early. 0:14:46.756 --> 0:14:51.956 When they released oxy conton they sent out into the 0:14:51.996 --> 0:14:55.636 field all across the country the biggest sales force that 0:14:55.676 --> 0:14:58.916 had ever been put to work marketing. 0:14:58.636 --> 0:14:59.516 A single drug. 0:14:59.996 --> 0:15:02.196 The interesting thing about doing that is those are your 0:15:02.236 --> 0:15:05.036 canaries in the coal mine. You have this early warning system, 0:15:05.076 --> 0:15:06.756 which is these people who are actually out there in 0:15:06.796 --> 0:15:11.956 the communities. And so when you start getting doctors who say, well, 0:15:11.996 --> 0:15:13.916 Jesus is interesting, I had a patient come back and 0:15:13.956 --> 0:15:17.396 say the pain is coming back within eight hours. They've 0:15:17.396 --> 0:15:20.156 started taking three pills every twenty four hours, not two pills. 0:15:20.636 --> 0:15:23.156 You know, you get pharmacists saying people are starting to 0:15:23.156 --> 0:15:26.916 break into my pharmacy and steal the OxyContin. The people 0:15:26.956 --> 0:15:29.636 who are hearing about that are produced sales reps. 0:15:30.396 --> 0:15:33.836 Now, obviously opioids aren't the same as sports gambling companies. 0:15:34.556 --> 0:15:37.516 Sports gambling companies make you poor instead of making you dead. 0:15:37.956 --> 0:15:40.436 Then again, if you're poor, you're more likely to die. 0:15:41.476 --> 0:15:43.476 What opio It's taught us, or should have taught us, 0:15:43.676 --> 0:15:46.156 was that when lots of money is being made, massive 0:15:46.236 --> 0:15:49.116 public health problems confesster out in the open for years. 0:15:49.996 --> 0:15:52.236 So it's not that people didn't notice in a public 0:15:52.316 --> 0:15:54.676 way that there were problems with OxyContin, that it was 0:15:54.756 --> 0:15:58.636 killing people, that people were addicted to it, and indeed 0:15:58.636 --> 0:16:01.556 that the company had done a lot of bad things. 0:16:02.116 --> 0:16:05.276 And there's this fascinating moment where there's a congressional hearing, 0:16:05.356 --> 0:16:10.356 and Arlen Specter, the late Republican senator from Sylvania in 0:16:10.396 --> 0:16:12.956 this hearing, has this moment in two thousand and seven. 0:16:13.996 --> 0:16:17.316 I say fines with some frequency and think that they 0:16:17.316 --> 0:16:24.116 are expensive licenses for criminal misconduct. I don't know whether 0:16:24.156 --> 0:16:27.556 that applies in this case, but a jail sentence is 0:16:27.596 --> 0:16:30.556 a deterred and a fine is not not a corporate 0:16:30.596 --> 0:16:33.676 fine in the context of the kind of profits which 0:16:33.676 --> 0:16:34.516 you're involved here. 0:16:35.476 --> 0:16:37.396 And he says, are we not, on some level just 0:16:37.476 --> 0:16:41.196 issuing them an expensive license to keep doing business? And 0:16:41.236 --> 0:16:43.676 it's this kind of incredibly poignant moment to look back. 0:16:43.516 --> 0:16:48.076 At the evil now seems so obvious. The Sackler family 0:16:48.076 --> 0:16:51.476 made billions peddling a drug they knew was addictive, But 0:16:51.556 --> 0:16:54.156 the fact that it now seems so obvious should make 0:16:54.236 --> 0:16:58.236 everyone a little uneasy, Like what is going on right 0:16:58.316 --> 0:17:01.996 now that one day in the distant future will seem 0:17:02.076 --> 0:17:03.356 so obviously evil. 0:17:04.436 --> 0:17:08.796 You're actually working in a very familiar kind of a 0:17:08.796 --> 0:17:13.476 Marria moral vernacular, right, which is guns don't kill people. 0:17:13.636 --> 0:17:17.276 People kill people, right, Like we have a deeply ingrained 0:17:17.716 --> 0:17:21.276 libertarian sense that you can create something that will wreak 0:17:21.356 --> 0:17:23.276 havoc and put it out in the world and get 0:17:23.316 --> 0:17:25.036 very rich doing it. And as long as there's some 0:17:25.236 --> 0:17:29.516 person downstream of you making some bad decision, you're kind 0:17:29.516 --> 0:17:30.156 of off the hook. 0:17:30.356 --> 0:17:34.316 Morally and legally. We lead the world in many things, 0:17:35.036 --> 0:17:37.596 and one of those things is in our tendency to 0:17:37.596 --> 0:17:41.436 see the person, rather than his situation, as the ultimate 0:17:41.516 --> 0:17:44.796 cause of some problem, even when the situation has been 0:17:44.836 --> 0:17:48.996 designed to lead the person to his ruin, maybe especially 0:17:49.036 --> 0:17:52.396 when an industry has designed the situation. So long as 0:17:52.396 --> 0:17:54.916 that industry remains faceless. 0:17:55.756 --> 0:18:00.036 Telling the story of how the wrong happened and how 0:18:00.076 --> 0:18:02.396 it should be righted is a lot harder if there's 0:18:02.396 --> 0:18:03.636 no characters in the story. 0:18:03.916 --> 0:18:08.476 Yeah, no, it's an accident with driverless cars, exactly, exactly, 0:18:10.796 --> 0:18:17.996 stay faceless, Blame the customer, buy media, and politicians. All 0:18:18.036 --> 0:18:20.236 of that needs to be part of the sports gambling 0:18:20.276 --> 0:18:23.036 industry's strategy if they want to stay out of trouble. 0:18:24.276 --> 0:18:26.756 After that, there's only one more thing they need to do, 0:18:28.156 --> 0:18:39.396 create doubt. Lots of smart people recently have been noticing 0:18:39.436 --> 0:18:42.916 the same addictive forces at work in American life. We've 0:18:42.956 --> 0:18:46.116 interviewed some of them. For example, the anthropologist Natasha Shall, 0:18:46.556 --> 0:18:50.276 who wrote a book called Addiction by Design, and whose 0:18:50.316 --> 0:18:53.956 interview can be heard later this season. Another great writer 0:18:54.036 --> 0:18:57.436 on this topic is the historian David Courtwright, author of 0:18:57.476 --> 0:19:01.516 the Age of Addiction, How Bad Habits Became Big Business. 0:19:02.076 --> 0:19:04.956 There are now shelves of books on how strong market 0:19:04.996 --> 0:19:10.396 forces and weak regulations leave Americans wildly exposed to predatory industries. 0:19:11.196 --> 0:19:14.476 But the grandmama of all these studies is Merchants of 0:19:14.556 --> 0:19:19.236 Doubt by Eric Conway and Naomia Rescues. It's about the 0:19:19.276 --> 0:19:22.716 way that predatory industries use bad science to obscure the 0:19:22.756 --> 0:19:26.316 good science. It's trying to reveal harms to the wider society. 0:19:27.996 --> 0:19:32.196 So I started just pulling on that thread and discovered 0:19:32.196 --> 0:19:34.636 this whole universe of scientific work that nobody had really 0:19:34.636 --> 0:19:35.236 written about. 0:19:35.956 --> 0:19:39.636 That's Naomia Reski's Harvard professor in the history of science. 0:19:40.876 --> 0:19:43.076 Way back in two thousand and one, she was looking 0:19:43.156 --> 0:19:45.956 into the question of how much difference it made who 0:19:45.996 --> 0:19:50.476 paid for science, and she was looking specifically at oceanography, 0:19:51.076 --> 0:19:53.036 a field that launched in a big way after World 0:19:53.076 --> 0:19:56.556 War Two with money from the US Navy. These early 0:19:56.596 --> 0:20:01.196 oceanographers discovered, among other things, that oceans were warming, that 0:20:01.276 --> 0:20:02.436 the climate was changing. 0:20:03.316 --> 0:20:06.756 So I wrote what became my most famous paper, the 0:20:06.756 --> 0:20:10.076 Paper on the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, saying, hey, guys, 0:20:10.196 --> 0:20:12.476 there really is a consensus on this issue, and there 0:20:12.516 --> 0:20:15.436 has been for a while now. And I started getting 0:20:15.476 --> 0:20:17.396 hate mail and threatening phone calls. 0:20:18.676 --> 0:20:22.436 Naomi soon found herself under systematic attack from a machine 0:20:22.556 --> 0:20:26.636 she didn't know existed, a machine built to deny climate 0:20:26.716 --> 0:20:30.836 change and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, a 0:20:30.996 --> 0:20:35.476 very American machine that happens to employ scientists. She decided 0:20:35.516 --> 0:20:38.796 to study the machine and others like it. I want 0:20:38.796 --> 0:20:41.356 to know the playbook, so I'm asking her to play 0:20:41.396 --> 0:20:45.436 a game with me. It's called Devil's Advocate. Naomi hasn't 0:20:45.436 --> 0:20:48.156 paid much attention to sports gambling, but it doesn't matter 0:20:48.716 --> 0:20:52.196 because she understands the big picture, sort of like a 0:20:52.236 --> 0:20:57.156 talented consultant to Hell Incorporated. I would turn you into 0:20:57.196 --> 0:21:00.636 an advisor to the forces of darkness. How do you 0:21:00.796 --> 0:21:04.076 tell them what they do to combat what's coming? 0:21:05.356 --> 0:21:05.716 Great? 0:21:06.036 --> 0:21:08.396 Well, first of all, I charge a lot of money 0:21:08.436 --> 0:21:09.796 for this. I just want to be clear up, friends, 0:21:10.596 --> 0:21:14.076 this is not a pro bono operation. But what we 0:21:14.116 --> 0:21:16.356 need to do is situate you as an honest business 0:21:16.596 --> 0:21:19.276 you're good guys. Just giving people an opportunity to do 0:21:19.316 --> 0:21:21.596 something that they enjoy. This is a form of entertainment. 0:21:21.996 --> 0:21:25.836 It's fun, it's enjoyable. People love professional sports, and people 0:21:26.036 --> 0:21:30.236 enjoy gambling on professional sports. Now, we recognize that for 0:21:30.356 --> 0:21:33.356 some people it can be a problem, but that's relatively minor. 0:21:33.796 --> 0:21:36.676 What you will do is promote the notion of responsible gambling, 0:21:37.116 --> 0:21:41.316 that this is an adult activity, adults can decide for themselves, 0:21:41.316 --> 0:21:43.556 and for the vast majority of people it's perfectly safe. 0:21:44.796 --> 0:21:47.636 Now vast majority might be too strong. I mean, the 0:21:47.676 --> 0:21:50.916 respected medical journal The Lancet just published a bunch of 0:21:50.956 --> 0:21:55.476 scary scientific findings. For example, one in six adolescents who 0:21:55.476 --> 0:21:59.516 gamble on sports develop a problem. That sort of science 0:21:59.636 --> 0:22:01.716 could screw up your business if you're running a sports 0:22:01.756 --> 0:22:04.316 gambling app. That's why you need Naomi. 0:22:05.356 --> 0:22:07.876 You're going to cast doubt on that science. You're going 0:22:07.916 --> 0:22:11.516 to say it's unsettled, we don't know, the methodology is suspect. 0:22:11.596 --> 0:22:12.916 You're going to come up with a whole set of 0:22:12.956 --> 0:22:14.956 strategies and I'm going to help you with that. You 0:22:14.996 --> 0:22:19.596 will find credible researchers at credible universities, including my own Harvard, 0:22:19.956 --> 0:22:23.276 places like Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, and you will 0:22:23.316 --> 0:22:26.836 find scientists who are willing to do research that cast 0:22:26.916 --> 0:22:29.956 out on the mainstream view that this is harmful. Once 0:22:30.036 --> 0:22:32.076 you have that research in place, then you will be 0:22:32.116 --> 0:22:35.556 able to say in public that there's no scientific consensus 0:22:35.596 --> 0:22:38.916 on the harms of this activity, and therefore that there's 0:22:38.956 --> 0:22:41.516 no reason for the government to regulate it or control 0:22:41.596 --> 0:22:42.356 it in any way. 0:22:43.316 --> 0:22:46.836 And you think this will be effective, not think. 0:22:46.916 --> 0:22:49.116 I know it will be effective because we've done it before. 0:22:49.796 --> 0:22:53.236 I can show you many books, many articles, many examples. 0:22:53.236 --> 0:22:55.156 I can show you examples of court cases that we 0:22:55.276 --> 0:22:58.196 have won because we cast out on the science. 0:22:58.596 --> 0:23:01.676 And what other industries should I look to as models 0:23:01.676 --> 0:23:04.556 from my own, Like if I want to see who's 0:23:04.556 --> 0:23:06.876 done this, well, who's like state of the art? 0:23:07.276 --> 0:23:11.716 Well, the textbook case is tobacco. We've known that tobacco 0:23:11.796 --> 0:23:14.356 was harmful since the nineteen thirties. We've known since the 0:23:14.436 --> 0:23:19.116 nineteen fifties the tobacco caused cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, heart disease. 0:23:19.516 --> 0:23:22.676 But tobacco is still legal everywhere in the world. Millions 0:23:22.716 --> 0:23:26.556 of people still smoke, and even in the United States, 0:23:26.556 --> 0:23:30.356 where significant controls were placed on tobacco. From the nineteen 0:23:30.436 --> 0:23:35.676