Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow. What's up, Yes Edition listeners,
Speaker 1: Ryan Chan corresponding for The Daily Show. You're about to
Speaker 1: hear an episode of one of our original Daily Show podcasts,
Speaker 1: Beyond the Scenes, hosted by Roy Wood Jr. It's the
Speaker 1: podcast where we dive deep into the segments and topics
Speaker 1: from the Daily Show with the show's writers, producers and experts.
Speaker 1: We're in the midst of NCAA's match Madness and this
Speaker 1: episode features Michael Costa and ESPN's David Purdham talking about
Speaker 1: the explosion of legal life sports gambling, the risk of
Speaker 1: gambling addiction, and how to enforce responsible gambling. If you
Speaker 1: like the show, check out the Beyond the Scenes podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes
Speaker 1: the podcast. It goes a little deeper into segments and
Speaker 1: topics that originally aired on The Daily Show. This is
Speaker 1: what you gotta think of this podcast, Like, this podcast
Speaker 1: is like when you go to a Super Bowl party
Speaker 1: and you're there to root for your team, but you're
Speaker 1: also there for the commercials, to have time show the
Speaker 1: chicken wings and endless pitchers of beer, and to bet
Speaker 1: how soon your friend Garrite's going to pass out from
Speaker 1: autumn tequila shots. Wake up, Gary stopped being a bitch.
Speaker 1: It was just fourteen shots. That's what this podcast is.
Speaker 1: I'm Roy Wood Jr. And today we're talking about this
Speaker 1: weekend Super Bowl and the legalization of sports betting Roll mcclip.
Speaker 1: Since the Supreme Court cleared the way for sports betting
Speaker 1: in the States, other than in Nevada, a growing number
Speaker 1: of states have legalized sports gambling. Sports betting revenue expected
Speaker 1: to go from two point five billion dollars this year
Speaker 1: to nearly nineteen billion in twenty twenty three. The NCAA
Speaker 1: and professional sports leads had long opposed sports betting, saying
Speaker 1: it could hurt the integrity of the game, but as
Speaker 1: soon as the Supreme Court freed states to legalize sports
Speaker 1: betting last May, the pro leagues immediately reversed course. Within
Speaker 1: months of the ruling, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and
Speaker 1: the National Hockey League all made deals with MGM in
Speaker 1: the NFL partnered up with Caesar's Palace. Today, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Daily Show correspondent Michael Costa. Costa is always good
Speaker 1: to have you on. How you doing brother, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me appreciate it. Good to see you, and we
Speaker 1: are also joined by gambling industry reporter for ESPN, David Purdam. David,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. I'm great man, Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me on. Now, David, let's talk about the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: You know, super Bowl vv X, l XIED whatever. The
Speaker 1: held Roman numerals are so stupid that Romans don't even
Speaker 1: use them anymore anyway, the Super Bowl remains one of
Speaker 1: the biggest sports betting days of the year, and sports
Speaker 1: betting is now legal and over thirty states. How did
Speaker 1: this evolve from an underground world of giving numbers to
Speaker 1: your bookie and then your bookie line and seeing your
Speaker 1: team didn't cover, to the mainstream industry at field world
Speaker 1: that we know today. It was a slow process us
Speaker 1: for sure, especially compared to other jurisdictions around the world.
Speaker 1: You know, sports betting was legal in the UK for
Speaker 1: a long time. Bookmakers are respected profession over there, while
Speaker 1: over here, as you said, you know, most of sports
Speaker 1: betting for the longest of times was done in your
Speaker 1: bar rooms, your bowling alleys or with your country club bookmaker.
Speaker 1: Now we got over thirty states that have legalized it,
Speaker 1: and we're catching up quickly. In the next day decade,
Speaker 1: we're going to get big states like California, Texas, Florida.
Speaker 1: They're going to get in a game, and once they do,
Speaker 1: this is going to be home to one of the
Speaker 1: largest betting look markets in the world. Hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars are going to be bet annually. What was
Speaker 1: the biggest catalysts that god? Ess there it kind of
Speaker 1: drove the acceptance. I believe it was fantasy sports and
Speaker 1: the sports league's embrace of people wagering on statistical performances.
Speaker 1: I think that kind of normalized things and brought sports
Speaker 1: betting to where we are today into the mainstream. Is
Speaker 1: there a sense of the convenience of it as well?
Speaker 1: Costa do you remember when you have you ever placed
Speaker 1: a bet on a sport an event. I've definitely placed
Speaker 1: a bet, but you know, we would my brothers. We
Speaker 1: would go to Las Vegas four March madness, right. We
Speaker 1: would then sit in the sports book and my brother
Speaker 1: would lose five hundred betting first half UNC on the under,
Speaker 1: and then he would bet a thousand unc second. You know,
Speaker 1: but that was like, I guess that's old school betting, right,
Speaker 1: David to actually go to the casino and sit in
Speaker 1: the sports book. I mean, now, it's just right here.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't do this. I'm afraid I think
Speaker 1: I'm a little weary of how convenient they're making it
Speaker 1: and how hard they're pushing it. Yeah, it's definitely changed
Speaker 1: from going up to the counter and handing overcast. Over
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the bets, ninety percent of the money
Speaker 1: is wagered on your phone these days, in the states
Speaker 1: that have legalized it, and of course even in the
Speaker 1: states that aren't legal. Let's not pretend that the year
Speaker 1: is not an underground bookmaking industry that's still thriving. You
Speaker 1: can go down to Coach Rika and they're all kinds
Speaker 1: of sports books operating down there. And it's not hard
Speaker 1: to find a bookmaker at any kind of country club
Speaker 1: or bowling alley as we mentioned. Okay, now, when you
Speaker 1: say growing, David's, let's put some numbers to this. How
Speaker 1: many people are we expecting to bet on the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl this year? And I know the Super Bowl already
Speaker 1: has all of these weird side bets like who will
Speaker 1: be the first how will the first point to be scored?
Speaker 1: But how many people are we talking and how much
Speaker 1: money is changing hands on average for a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: gambling as a gambling day. So last year they estimated
Speaker 1: at about thirty one million American adults bet on the
Speaker 1: super Bowl that combined to bet about seven point six
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Some of those estimates they came from the
Speaker 1: American Gaming Association, and they include some informal polls like
Speaker 1: your Super Bowl Squares and things like that. But you
Speaker 1: know those numbers are going to go up this year
Speaker 1: because we got new, heavilated, populated, heavily populated states like Ohio, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: They launched betting markets in recent months. So you know,
Speaker 1: ten percent of the adult population will almost certainly have
Speaker 1: a bet on the Super Bowl. But do you think, David,
Speaker 1: it's the same people that we're betting illegally are now
Speaker 1: just doing it legally on their phone or and I
Speaker 1: know what they want is that new people betting for
Speaker 1: the first time. I love that question and something that
Speaker 1: we have not been able to define yet. Certainly the
Speaker 1: pool of betters is growing, but the majority of them
Speaker 1: were probably betting, you know, offshore. The estimates of how
Speaker 1: much was wagered on the Super Bowl before legalization, we're
Speaker 1: almost in the billions of dollars as well. So while
Speaker 1: we do think we have a new pool of betters
Speaker 1: coming up, there still is the majority of them. I
Speaker 1: would believe this is not their first bet that they've
Speaker 1: ever placed. They were betting long before. Yeah. Now this
Speaker 1: is a complicated topic in a sense because you know
Speaker 1: the Daily show we have, we have this burden to
Speaker 1: a degree, David. At least I think we can discuss
Speaker 1: problems that you already knew about, or we can try
Speaker 1: to inform you about stuff that you didn't even know
Speaker 1: might eventually be a problem, Like here's the storm versus, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's what's happening just off the horizon. I feel like
Speaker 1: this is one of those stories that was a horizon story.
Speaker 1: So we have to figure out ways to make it
Speaker 1: make sense for the viewers. And like spoofing, there is
Speaker 1: always a simple way to do it. And so I know,
Speaker 1: cost you all spoofed the movie Uncut Gems, which, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, it was Adam Sandler with a very
Speaker 1: weird accent. How did that segment come together? Well, if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen Uncut Gems, it's wonderful, it's terrifying, it's anxiety,
Speaker 1: it's a man constantly chasing his losses through gambling, and
Speaker 1: it's funny and it's there's some great lines. So we
Speaker 1: of course made the leap, as you do in comedy,
Speaker 1: elevated it to what's next if we're legalizing so much
Speaker 1: gambling or you get so deep in that now you're
Speaker 1: betting on kids hopscotch games, you're betting on the person
Speaker 1: at the playground shooting free throws. I made a crazy
Speaker 1: risk a game, but it's about to pay off. I
Speaker 1: want to put forty gs on a six way parlay
Speaker 1: on today's game where mister, how would you bet on that?
Speaker 1: This is me? This is how I went. Of course
Speaker 1: it's a joke, but it's funny. As time has gone on,
Speaker 1: that was all done before COVID, it is becoming more normalized.
Speaker 1: Where does this end? You know? In England, David, can't
Speaker 1: you bet when your son is born that he can
Speaker 1: he'll score a goal in the World Cup. It sounds ridiculous,
Speaker 1: but they take these bets they do. You can bet
Speaker 1: on the weather over there, you can bet on whatever
Speaker 1: you want, and that's you know costume. You know, there's
Speaker 1: like there's there's some bets on who the next host
Speaker 1: of the daily shows. Oh snap, I would would there's
Speaker 1: like it's it's unnecessary the type of stuff. Where does
Speaker 1: it stop? David? What else can you bet on? Well,
Speaker 1: you name it. For the super Bowl, You're going to
Speaker 1: be able to bet from the pregame to the post game.
Speaker 1: You know, from everything from how long the national anthem
Speaker 1: will go to who the super Bowl MVP will will
Speaker 1: think first in his postgame speech? So you know what
Speaker 1: the biggest one, though, is, out of all the thousands
Speaker 1: of prop bets that they have on the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: annually every year, the one that attracts the most money
Speaker 1: simply heads or tails on the cointails. You're right, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess my big question is, so what Like it's
Speaker 1: only a problem if you lose your house and family
Speaker 1: and loved ones because of it. So maybe if we Americans,
Speaker 1: the humans like a little wagers, is it problem? Is
Speaker 1: it problematic? I guess for me, the concern of it.
Speaker 1: And this is coming from a man who gambled I
Speaker 1: remember one time. Because I can say the name, the
Speaker 1: casino's gone now, so the lawyers don't have to get
Speaker 1: all scared. Casino magic and Biloxi r ip Katrina swallowed
Speaker 1: her until the Gulf as it deserved to be right.
Speaker 1: But when I did com there at those casinos, they
Speaker 1: would pay the comedians in a check so that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't gamble your cash at the table. And I wonder
Speaker 1: how much as we try to tell people gambling is fun,
Speaker 1: we're not simultaneously talking to them about impulse control and
Speaker 1: how this is a slippery slope. I think it the
Speaker 1: best in those gambling commercials, correct me from wrong, David.
Speaker 1: But there's like really fine print at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the screen, like, hey, have you got a problem? Sure
Speaker 1: you call it. Frank had run a hundred gamble up,
Speaker 1: but anyway than duel. It's like, uh, yeah, you're you're right.
Speaker 1: And you know, the National Council on Problem gamb will
Speaker 1: put some numbers on this. They estimate that around three
Speaker 1: to five percent of people who gamble will develop some
Speaker 1: sort of gambling disorder. Case studies and other Jersey sictions
Speaker 1: of the expanded legal gambling, they do receive a spike,
Speaker 1: and just like we have just expanded legal sports betting,
Speaker 1: we're almost destined to see a spike and increase problem
Speaker 1: gambling again. We're increasing the pool right of the number
Speaker 1: of betters, so that percentage, while it may stays the same,
Speaker 1: we're going to have more problem gamble. So we're probably
Speaker 1: in that initial stage right now where we're probably going
Speaker 1: to start hearing about more cases of a gambling addiction,
Speaker 1: and some of them are really bad, can spiral out
Speaker 1: of control, people can lose their life savings. There's a
Speaker 1: high rate of suicide related to gambling addiction too. So
Speaker 1: the good thing is the same studies have shown that
Speaker 1: society usually adapts. We enter these new vices into the society,
Speaker 1: they adjust to them. They're impact at time, They put
Speaker 1: the proper protections in and provide help for those who
Speaker 1: struggle to gamble responsibility. So things kind of level off.
Speaker 1: That's the hope at least, but it's going to be
Speaker 1: a battle if we're talking about impost control and making
Speaker 1: sure that things don't spiral out of control. Why did
Speaker 1: professional sports leagues flip on their opinion of sports, of
Speaker 1: legalized sports to betting, Because you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at Pete Rose who was a manager but never bet
Speaker 1: on games that he was managing, and then you look
Speaker 1: at I think the NBA ref what was his name,
Speaker 1: Costa was a Donaghee, Tim Donny Yeah, okay, so he's
Speaker 1: throwing games and blowing calls on purpose because he's got
Speaker 1: money on the game. So, you know, professional sports leagues
Speaker 1: long opposed sports betting for that, and they didn't want
Speaker 1: to corrupt the players. We don't need a franchise in
Speaker 1: Vegas because it's gonna make our players crazy and they're
Speaker 1: gonna gamble all the money. But then the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: reversed course, and then all of the sports league was
Speaker 1: on board. Come on down to the fan duel dot
Speaker 1: com backslash fantasy football arena. Why did these leagues flip
Speaker 1: and how do you think the league's embracing sports betting
Speaker 1: changes the landscape of the game and the fan experience. Well,
Speaker 1: the pivot. These are billion dollar businesses, MFL, NBA. They
Speaker 1: like money, right, And when the Supreme Court opened a
Speaker 1: path for all these states to kind of let launch
Speaker 1: fighting markets that was twenty eighteen, the leagues really they
Speaker 1: knew they didn't have much option other than to embrace
Speaker 1: it and get on board to this money train. They
Speaker 1: had to get on board. Make sure, they had to say,
Speaker 1: make sure they had a seat at the table. Now,
Speaker 1: it was definitely quite the whiplash pivot moment. I mean back, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's about ten years ago, fifteen years ago. Bud Sea League,
Speaker 1: the former MA commissioner, he was quoted as saying sports
Speaker 1: betting was evil, It's going to destroy a sport. Well,
Speaker 1: you talked about the landscape. You flash forward today, you
Speaker 1: got retail sports books at multi professional league stadiums, including
Speaker 1: at State Farmer Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, which is the
Speaker 1: site of this year's Super Bowl. Is there any positive
Speaker 1: coming or destined for some of the revenue, you know, like,
Speaker 1: do they have to put some of the revenue into
Speaker 1: youth sports programs? Do they have to put it into
Speaker 1: gambling education? Please? Please tell me yes, yes, absolutely, They
Speaker 1: are trying to dedicate you mentioned youth sports programs are
Speaker 1: getting that a lot of it is going to gambling addiction.
Speaker 1: I say a lot some of it is going to
Speaker 1: gambling addition services. Certainly not enough, but they are trying
Speaker 1: to dedicate this tax revenue, and lets it is significant
Speaker 1: tax revenue, so they are trying to put it towards
Speaker 1: worthy causes. Will it be enough to kind of balance
Speaker 1: out the negatives that come from it? That's still you know,
Speaker 1: kind of left the break determent. I was doing some
Speaker 1: googling because I know I'm from the state of Michigan
Speaker 1: and a lot of the lottery proceeds go to education,
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, do all the others? How many
Speaker 1: other states do that? First of all, like forty states
Speaker 1: do that. Of course, that's how you get funding for
Speaker 1: education in the United States. You have to buy a
Speaker 1: lottery ticket. But I was hoping with the gambling revenue
Speaker 1: that's going to be new that we would at least
Speaker 1: at least have some positive impact and not just more
Speaker 1: money for the NFL. David, I'm sorry that my league
Speaker 1: has hope and optimism about people doing the right thing
Speaker 1: with money. That's that's cute. That's not the general way
Speaker 1: of the world. But after the break cost, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you a little bit about being a
Speaker 1: college athlete, and I want to talk about the implications
Speaker 1: David of sports betting. Zibet lates to the college game
Speaker 1: and the name and likeness stuff that's going on as well,
Speaker 1: Like you have to Chicago Black Sox scandal in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: where the White Sox through an entire World series. Could
Speaker 1: you do that with a college football playoff? How corruptible
Speaker 1: are the kids. Let's talk about this after the break.
Speaker 1: This is beyond the scenes. Let me check my Super
Speaker 1: Bowl Fandel real quick. I'll be right back beyond the scenes.
Speaker 1: We are back. We are talking about professional leagues and
Speaker 1: sports gambling. But what about college athletics? And you know
Speaker 1: people bet on college game? Coster, you just said a
Speaker 1: second ago you and your brother went to Vegas to
Speaker 1: bet on the college game? Does sports betting? How does
Speaker 1: this affect student athletes in their mental health? And how
Speaker 1: potentially corruptible is the college game based on all of
Speaker 1: the money that's moving around like college. Like, like Coster,
Speaker 1: you played tennis in college? Anybody how somebody just coming
Speaker 1: to you, Hey, make sure in this NIXT set you
Speaker 1: go thirty right and then come back double duce. I
Speaker 1: got money on this set to go duce I get
Speaker 1: job using tennis terms thanks thanks to thanks, thanks to
Speaker 1: college tennis being a non revenue producing sport. I was,
Speaker 1: I was. I was shielded from a lot of that.
Speaker 1: But this is always and David can definitely speak to this,
Speaker 1: but this has always been a very corruptible group. Millions
Speaker 1: are being made off of them. I don't know the
Speaker 1: numbers for what CBS paid for the TV broadcast rights
Speaker 1: for March Madness. But it's a b it's a billions,
Speaker 1: it's billions. So you're making millions and billions off of
Speaker 1: these athletes who are not getting paid. So this is
Speaker 1: this is an enormous opportunity for corruption. David, what do
Speaker 1: you think? Is am? I right? It is? You nailed
Speaker 1: it all, and these guys are vulnerable. Even though the
Speaker 1: athletes are getting name, image and likeness deals now, it's
Speaker 1: not for a lot of them. And some of them
Speaker 1: are not making a lot of money. And if a
Speaker 1: kid can't scrounge up a hundred bucks to take someone
Speaker 1: out on a date, and they may think that missing
Speaker 1: a couple of free throws or turning the ball over
Speaker 1: isn't that big a deal if somebody's going to give
Speaker 1: them five hundred dollars or whatever. But I guess the
Speaker 1: key thing that I would want to make that these
Speaker 1: issues existed before legalization. Right, We had points paving scandals
Speaker 1: almost one every five years starting in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and since we started expanding legal betting, we haven't had
Speaker 1: one in college sports, at least that not one that's
Speaker 1: been exposed. Yet it does kind of feel inevitable that
Speaker 1: we will have another. But I don't think we should
Speaker 1: necessarily blame that on legalization. In fact, I think with
Speaker 1: the many more eyes that are watching it, and people
Speaker 1: are really kind of looking for anything that's nefarious going on,
Speaker 1: watching the pointbreads as or money coming on a weird
Speaker 1: game that we didn't think should be there, You're more
Speaker 1: likely to get caught if you were trying to pull
Speaker 1: something of big scale now that everybody has more visibility
Speaker 1: into the betting market. I can also say, as a
Speaker 1: former collegiate athlete that you spent fifteen years now sixteen
Speaker 1: years for this moment. Your parents refinance their house to
Speaker 1: send you to basketball tennis camp, whatever, your coach rides
Speaker 1: you all day about your jump shot. You're naturally already
Speaker 1: have a lot of pressure on you. If your anonymous
Speaker 1: Twitter handle is lost four hundred bucks because of you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of don't give a shit. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: there's enough pressure already on the shoulders that come from
Speaker 1: within and come from family and others. So I would
Speaker 1: think they would be you know, and I'm just talking this,
Speaker 1: I would think they maybe wouldn't be as influenced as
Speaker 1: much as we believe by a stranger's bet. I think
Speaker 1: what I think, also, Kosta, is that we also have
Speaker 1: to account for it to some degree. Is how social
Speaker 1: media and how like if you've been to a sports book,
Speaker 1: you know the range of emotions that happen on that
Speaker 1: last play and the highs and the lows, and the
Speaker 1: screens and the cheering, and people take that straight to
Speaker 1: social media. And if it Super Bowl is a perfect
Speaker 1: example the Bengals. Some would argue the Bengals are not
Speaker 1: in the Super Bowl because Joseph Aside I think it's
Speaker 1: the brother's name, made a dumb play at the end
Speaker 1: of the game against Patrick Mahomes and then Chiefs got
Speaker 1: it's a shorter field goal to go to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: He sat on the bench the entirety of the confetti
Speaker 1: celebration with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Speaker 1: And that's a grown man. So imagine being an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old that fumbles at the goal line and the
Speaker 1: Big Trophy game, and now you open up your social
Speaker 1: media two thousands of rabbit gamblers who were blaming you
Speaker 1: specifically for that loss on some mental health shit. David, Like,
Speaker 1: where does this. How does the school then work to
Speaker 1: try to protect the players from that type of verbal
Speaker 1: abuse and attacks. It's bad enough when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: a rabbit fan base, but a rabbit fan base who
Speaker 1: also lost money. I don't know if that should be
Speaker 1: part of the regular weight that a college athlete should
Speaker 1: have to carry. Took cost this point of all the
Speaker 1: other weight that you're carrying now you're carrying verbal abuse
Speaker 1: from strangers. It's disgusting, it really is. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things that really drives me crazy. We're actually doing
Speaker 1: some reporting on that right now. And there is a
Speaker 1: company called sport Radar. It's a big tech company that
Speaker 1: analyzes a lot of data and they have actually dedicated
Speaker 1: a whole department to identifying abusive behavior on social media
Speaker 1: toward athletes. So that's one way they are trying to
Speaker 1: combat it. But it's very, very difficult. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a quick little story. There was a kid that
Speaker 1: they called parlay Pats, and he was known for making
Speaker 1: these big parlay bats, right, and he was winning every
Speaker 1: once in a while, and he was really kind of
Speaker 1: getting some media publicity. Never well, sooner or later FBI
Speaker 1: got ahold of them. And it turns out he was
Speaker 1: sending just awful, the worst, profane direct messages to athletes.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about like we're gonna slit your
Speaker 1: wife's throat with a dull blade and your children and
Speaker 1: all these terrible things. And his idea was, I'm going
Speaker 1: to send these to these athletes and get them worried
Speaker 1: about me, and then I'm gonna bet against them, and
Speaker 1: so it can get really really ugly. He was eventually
Speaker 1: convicted and put on probation for a long time. But
Speaker 1: there are some really really dangerous to these and it
Speaker 1: does scare me. And yet it's fun to bet on
Speaker 1: two teams that I don't know care on a Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: I'm on the road, Roy, I just bombed at a
Speaker 1: casino and Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Let me go bet a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks on the double A baseball team, and now
Speaker 1: I have something to do tonight. It does give everything steaks.
Speaker 1: It gives everything steaks. Yeah. Yeah. There's just there's something
Speaker 1: with regards to the dopamine of it as well that
Speaker 1: I think where it becomes kind of an addiction thing.
Speaker 1: Like I used to play online poker back when that
Speaker 1: before the Feds shut that down. I was up like
Speaker 1: four hundred bucks, when to this day I haven't got
Speaker 1: my four hundred dollars back from poker stars. But like,
Speaker 1: that was fun and exciting to do. But on the
Speaker 1: money side of it, day that if it's so lucrative
Speaker 1: and you know, the lotteries already getting education, coffers, stuff,
Speaker 1: pretty good for a lot of states, why isn't every
Speaker 1: state on board with legalized sports betting? Like, like you
Speaker 1: look at California, right, California had a measure on the
Speaker 1: ballot and they were like, nah, we're fine, we don't
Speaker 1: need to legalize that. Even Florida said no, which I
Speaker 1: was very you know, I was very intrigued by that,
Speaker 1: Like what do states have to gain or lose from
Speaker 1: legalizing sports betting? The fact that Florida said no to
Speaker 1: anything on a ballot, it's just shocking. Yeah, politics are
Speaker 1: in play in all these big states, but it does
Speaker 1: feel almost inevitable. Eventually those free states, those big states, Texas, Florida, California,
Speaker 1: they're gonna get it done. Texas remains one of the
Speaker 1: few states without casino gambling. So there's some resistance to
Speaker 1: all gambling from the conservative nature of that state, that
Speaker 1: resistance is slowly eroding, and the sports leagues and their
Speaker 1: sports owners over there, Mark Cuban, Jerry Jones are kind
Speaker 1: of pushed in that envelope. Florida and California each have
Speaker 1: these complex compacts with Native American tribes. They control the
Speaker 1: gambling in those states, so it gets a little real
Speaker 1: tricky to get it done. Florida is closer to getting
Speaker 1: it done than California at this point, but my belief
Speaker 1: eventually probably were next five to seven years, all those
Speaker 1: will get done, if not sumer And what they gain
Speaker 1: is that revenue. What they lose is any of the
Speaker 1: backlash and any of the issues that we've covered. So
Speaker 1: we got to make sure that revenue is worth taking
Speaker 1: on the backlash and the issues that come about with it. Roy,
Speaker 1: do you ever bet on high lie in Miami? No,
Speaker 1: but I've gone to it. I don't bet on shit.
Speaker 1: I don't understand. I mean, shit is rigged for sure.
Speaker 1: But my dad used to take us and we would
Speaker 1: throw down two bucks on some guy and watch him
Speaker 1: play catch with a basket tied to his hand, and
Speaker 1: we go, what the ship is going on? But it
Speaker 1: was far no clue what it is and if I
Speaker 1: don't understand the mechanics of it, you know, but the
Speaker 1: stuff I do understand, I get way too granular on,
Speaker 1: which is just That's part of why I just like,
Speaker 1: I'll buy when the powerball gets up to a billion,
Speaker 1: then I'll do that. And if I'm out with buddies
Speaker 1: in Vegas, I'll do a little bit of black jack.
Speaker 1: But you know, outside of that, most of the gambling
Speaker 1: that I've done on a regular basis is long term stuff.
Speaker 1: I got one hundred buck buying fantasy football pot that
Speaker 1: I buy into every year with some buddies from college,
Speaker 1: and then I might do like the I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's called, David, but at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: baseball season, I will bet on which team will lose
Speaker 1: one hundred games, and I'll put fifty bucks. Yeah, futures,
Speaker 1: I'll put a hundred bucks on the Cincinnati Reds to suck,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden go on a surge
Speaker 1: in June and you just know they're not going to
Speaker 1: lose one hundred, They're gonna lose ninety three. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm done watching baseball all yet. How partisan is this issue, David?
Speaker 1: You know, in the sense of from the lobbying standpoint,
Speaker 1: from the casinos, from the sports books angle. You know,
Speaker 1: is this an issue that is dividing Democrats and Republicans
Speaker 1: or are they just both in the same place of going, Hey,
Speaker 1: the money's got to be right. Yeah, the money's got
Speaker 1: to be right money. It is not really ever partisan,
Speaker 1: and everybody knows they can get it. They just got
Speaker 1: to figure out the best ways they can. And you
Speaker 1: get the conservative pushback every once in a while. There
Speaker 1: are against the moralists that think gambling is against their
Speaker 1: morals and it shouldn't be brought upon in an illegal setting.
Speaker 1: The argument against that, of course, is if we bring
Speaker 1: it into a legal setting, we're allowed to put in
Speaker 1: these protections and hopefully kind of try to identify any
Speaker 1: of the issues that we may have, whether that be
Speaker 1: an addiction or a game fixing scandal. Whereas your local
Speaker 1: bookie down at the barroom, he's certainly not going to say, hey,
Speaker 1: I think you may be betting too much, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna say, hey, you want to bet on this next game.
Speaker 1: So there are positive pros and cons for both. For
Speaker 1: his partisan of it, it's not much people they see
Speaker 1: the money, they want to get in their part. For
Speaker 1: someone dealing with gambling addiction, it's it's hard to escape
Speaker 1: because there are constant commercials and ads and promos, and
Speaker 1: it's ricks free. The first bet is free. We'll match
Speaker 1: your first two hundred dollars when you put your money
Speaker 1: in the account. Is enough being done to regulate and
Speaker 1: enforce responsible gaming? And you know, David, how do we
Speaker 1: compare to other countries, Like what are some of the
Speaker 1: changes that they've made in Europe with regards to gambling
Speaker 1: to try to tail addiction. Yeah, it's gonna be tough
Speaker 1: for anybody to avoid seeing these commercials. The advertisements ever,
Speaker 1: they used to be up on the man buses they
Speaker 1: were traveling through the Northeast. You would see big ads
Speaker 1: for fans and so forth. So it's going to be
Speaker 1: very difficult until we do get some sort of pullback
Speaker 1: on the advertising, and I do believe that is coming.
Speaker 1: In the UK, they've already started that kind of read
Speaker 1: looking at how should we keep advertising away from sports?
Speaker 1: And they are going to do what they call a
Speaker 1: whistle to whistle band where you will not allow it
Speaker 1: to be allowed to air sports betting commercials throughout a match.
Speaker 1: Soon as the match starts through the end of it,
Speaker 1: you will not be able to air any kind of
Speaker 1: sports betting commercials. Now, some of the soccer players still
Speaker 1: have ads for sports books on their jerseys and you
Speaker 1: see them around the runners board. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that are going to have to change. Is
Speaker 1: going to make it very difficult for anybody that is
Speaker 1: struggling with sports betting or with gambling addiction overall to
Speaker 1: avoid them. Wait till linel MESSI gets like a FanDuel
Speaker 1: dot Com tattoo on it's coming the way they putting
Speaker 1: ads on all the jerseys. But then you have companies
Speaker 1: like DraftKings though, where like they'll advise you on how
Speaker 1: much money, like you can set how much you're gonna
Speaker 1: put into your account every week, or how much you
Speaker 1: can wage. And you know they've also donated to the
Speaker 1: International Center for Responsible Gaming, Like they collaborate with all
Speaker 1: of these different associations and groups and things like that.
Speaker 1: But is that placation Like if you look at the NFL, right,
Speaker 1: the NFL through six million at the National Council on
Speaker 1: Problem Gambling, that's like one I don't want to call
Speaker 1: it alcoholics anonymous, but they're like a group that is
Speaker 1: focused on helping people get past those addictions. Can you,
Speaker 1: in earnest be a part of the problem and the
Speaker 1: solution or is the problem not your fault Because there's
Speaker 1: always going to be people that overindulge. I think that
Speaker 1: the ladder there, there's always going to be again that
Speaker 1: three to five percent of people that gamble will develop
Speaker 1: some sort of gambling disorder or gamble type problems. We
Speaker 1: could only try to help them as much as we can.
Speaker 1: M and I, you know, I applied the NFL for
Speaker 1: giving the National Council on Problem coming all that money
Speaker 1: that that that doubled their national budget. You know that
Speaker 1: that this is these are not well funded companies, these
Speaker 1: ones that try to help with gambling addictions. So any
Speaker 1: kind of money we can get them. And again I
Speaker 1: think that's Michael mentioned that, you know, I think that's
Speaker 1: a good thing from legalization comes out because we are
Speaker 1: trying to help them. We are trying to throw some
Speaker 1: of the money. While as the corner bookmaker who was
Speaker 1: offering credit to the local college kid, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he burns through his five hundred dollars of
Speaker 1: credit and he doesn't have that money well, that local
Speaker 1: bookmaker isn't saying, oh hey, you know, let me help
Speaker 1: you out that they are trying to continue to take
Speaker 1: that money. So I think there are pros and cons
Speaker 1: from it, and I do think that if we look
Speaker 1: at it, look at all over, there's a little bit
Speaker 1: more positivity to legalization of sports betting than it were
Speaker 1: to keep it in an underground. David, you said it's
Speaker 1: three to five, will develop a problem, But I'm willing
Speaker 1: bet two hundred bucks with you that it's more like
Speaker 1: twenty percent. You will take that twenty percent? Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: take I'll take the under on that. That's a deal.
Speaker 1: What country was you talking about in the first break
Speaker 1: when you say you can gamble on middle school, which
Speaker 1: kids left shoe was gonna come untied? Yeah? Yeah in England?
Speaker 1: England and the weather you can bet on the weather
Speaker 1: over there. And I don't think we'll ever reach a
Speaker 1: point where we can say that we've got a problem
Speaker 1: gambling under control. There's always going to be people that
Speaker 1: struggle with it. I think the key is trying to
Speaker 1: identify it quickly, because, like we talked about, things spiral
Speaker 1: out of control quickly. You think you know you're going
Speaker 1: to only be down one thousand bucks. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to pay that off. All of a sudden, you're down
Speaker 1: two thousand and you don't got the money and you
Speaker 1: got to pay, and now you get nervous and then
Speaker 1: you to make bad decisions to try to get that money.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be an internal challenge for all
Speaker 1: the stakeholders. That's why I stopped fooling around with fan
Speaker 1: Duel and like, I took all that shit off my phone,
Speaker 1: bro like all of them betting stuff. Draft Kings, the
Speaker 1: Draft King commercials first off, feel like a red bull ad.
Speaker 1: I feel like an ad, feel like a motorcyclistic Draft
Speaker 1: Kings come on down and got on your favorite football player.
Speaker 1: How much more does that type of stuff make people
Speaker 1: vulnerable to? That's I've thought a lot about this, and
Speaker 1: I believe I'm in the camp of people were doing
Speaker 1: this anyways. I'm happy we're legalizing and maybe getting some revenue.
Speaker 1: But what I hate is when my three year old
Speaker 1: daughter eyes are drawn to Jamie Fox pushing a gambling
Speaker 1: ad like that. It's almost like the cigarette companies with
Speaker 1: the cartoons on the boxes. At this point, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: pushing them too hard. Like we're adults. Adults should be
Speaker 1: able to partake in their vices in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: gambling is one of those vices. But it seems too
Speaker 1: aggressive now and I'm I want them to slow it down, please.
Speaker 1: There's definitely something to that, you know, because like even
Speaker 1: with some of the apps that my son uses, some
Speaker 1: of the incentives and this is this is an educational
Speaker 1: app to teach you learning, but some of the incentives, Oh,
Speaker 1: if you answer this question, you get this many coins
Speaker 1: and then you can double the coins if you answer
Speaker 1: one more question. It's like some prices, right deal or
Speaker 1: no deal? Shit, all in the effort to get a
Speaker 1: better hat for your avatar so he can continue on
Speaker 1: the journey through the learning environment or whatever. But this
Speaker 1: idea that the apps, like, David, how does that affect
Speaker 1: you know, mental health? Like do these apps help to
Speaker 1: introduce more young people into gambling? Because we're talking about
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen year olds where what's the checking balances? Are
Speaker 1: you eighteen? Do you promise you're eighteen? All right? Click
Speaker 1: here right or hand your mom hands with the phone whatever.
Speaker 1: But gamble, you know, the gamblification they call it of
Speaker 1: video games at any time of those things are worrisome.
Speaker 1: It's a big issue overseas right now, those loot boxes
Speaker 1: that they call them, where you're playing a CSGO or
Speaker 1: whatever video game you're playing, and if you get this lootbox,
Speaker 1: it can kind of parlay you your skin of your gun.
Speaker 1: You get a stronger gun, and you know, people start
Speaker 1: selling these things on the black market, and there's been
Speaker 1: lots of discussion on that. So it's something we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to pay attention closely to the number of commercials.
Speaker 1: NFL decide they were only going to do six sports book,
Speaker 1: sportsbook or sports betting commercials per per game. Is even
Speaker 1: seemed like a lot because we went from zero to six.
Speaker 1: So I do eventually think we're goun and get some
Speaker 1: pushback and some regulators are going to say, Okay, we've
Speaker 1: gone a little too far. And to that point, David,
Speaker 1: after the break, I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what the future of sports betting looks like.
Speaker 1: Will they put microchips in our heads? Well, I just
Speaker 1: think to myself, Jalen hurts over three hundred yards less
Speaker 1: than two interceptions, and then bing, it's just automatically taken
Speaker 1: from my checking account of something well, we'll see what
Speaker 1: the if you're just sports betting, looks like this is
Speaker 1: beyond the scenes. We'll be right back beyond the scenes.
Speaker 1: We are round in third and headed for home. Wonderful
Speaker 1: conversation here about sports gambling and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: Real quick, let me check my fan duel real quick.
Speaker 1: See what's going and check that fand okay, it's looking good.
Speaker 1: I think I got my line up set. There we go, David.
Speaker 1: How far away are we from middle school soccer gambling?
Speaker 1: Respect a? Long ways? We're not gonna get there. They
Speaker 1: are betting on high school sports, but most of those
Speaker 1: are done in those illegal sports books in the offshore world.
Speaker 1: But we're not going to get to middle school. And
Speaker 1: you want to see high school betting up in the
Speaker 1: legal market. But but I could see roy every you know,
Speaker 1: everything's going subscription model. I could see where you could
Speaker 1: bet a season's worth of bets, you know, I could
Speaker 1: see where they go. Okay, Costa, you keep betting the Lions.
Speaker 1: Let's just automatically set your bet every Sunday and you
Speaker 1: can go in and log in and remember your password
Speaker 1: and cancel it if you want. But we're just going
Speaker 1: to place that for you automatically, I can see that coming.
Speaker 1: They might already exist. I guess I'm half kidding about
Speaker 1: middle school soccer. I really do think eventually coming at
Speaker 1: But when we talk about the future of sports betting
Speaker 1: and what it looks like in the United States, is
Speaker 1: this something that will eventually extend beyond sports? You know
Speaker 1: we have the This is Awards season for all the shows?
Speaker 1: How much more hardcore are we going to get into that? Like,
Speaker 1: because I know people bet on the winners, but at
Speaker 1: what point do we just start gambling on the nominees. Well,
Speaker 1: you do have betting on the oscars. It's a pretty
Speaker 1: big market. There'll be more over millions of dollars bet
Speaker 1: on the Academy Awards. You're going to eventually probably see
Speaker 1: betting on elections. They do that in the UK, where
Speaker 1: the US presidential election is one of their biggest political
Speaker 1: markets there is. If it was over here, a lot
Speaker 1: of bookmakers think of betting on the presidency would be
Speaker 1: the largest betting market we offer over here. So there
Speaker 1: will be some tion of this and continue to grow.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll be smart about it and not get into
Speaker 1: middle school soccer. What challenges lie here for the sports
Speaker 1: betting providers. Other than getting all of these politicians on
Speaker 1: board by bribing them under the table, I think you're
Speaker 1: eventually going to see some pushback from regulators on advertising.
Speaker 1: What you said, it seems like we'll also be inevitable
Speaker 1: that we're going to have another gambling scandal like you
Speaker 1: know we repeatedly had throughout the history of sports, even
Speaker 1: before legalization. There's a lot of money. Whenever there's something
Speaker 1: with a lot of money involved, nefarious actors come to play.
Speaker 1: And I really do think there's going to be some
Speaker 1: awful stories of people who lose everything to gambling addiction.
Speaker 1: So the future, it's a little sounds a little scary,
Speaker 1: But I think that as a society we are adults
Speaker 1: and we should be allowed to use our vices responsibly.
Speaker 1: We just have to make sure and try to do
Speaker 1: that right. We cannot let things get spiral out of control,
Speaker 1: whether for individuals or as a society a whole, when
Speaker 1: it comes to gambling. This is what I would do
Speaker 1: if I was a college kid and I needed to
Speaker 1: make some money and I was open to being scandalized,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take the bet to lose the game, right,
Speaker 1: that's too big people might notice that, but you you
Speaker 1: take the money to not have as many assists, or
Speaker 1: in the first half you don't play gray and it's
Speaker 1: a first half bet. I feel like the scandal might
Speaker 1: be as not they lost the game or he missed
Speaker 1: the free throw with no time left. It's always these
Speaker 1: little like first quarter bets or like you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's where you could really make some money. I'm not
Speaker 1: not advising them to do that, no, but I am.
Speaker 1: Let's go down this road. I like this cost. How
Speaker 1: would I be corruptible if I was still playing the game,
Speaker 1: Like if you know your quarterback's gonna get sucked twice,
Speaker 1: and I'm an old lineman that I'm gonna bet that
Speaker 1: he's gonna get sacked three times because on one or
Speaker 1: else plays, I'm gonna let the d lineman go pass.
Speaker 1: And now that's three sacks and it's only one play
Speaker 1: out of the greater what seventy or eighty offensive snaps
Speaker 1: you'll gain? So did I throw the game? Or did
Speaker 1: I just pay for a couple of extra textbooks? How
Speaker 1: much money are you trying to make off that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to retire data, You're trying to retire you're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to retire on betting on sacks.
Speaker 1: The way the books combat that is they put limits
Speaker 1: on it, so you may be able to get it,
Speaker 1: you know, a few thousand dollars down at one book,
Speaker 1: maybe five hundred or another book, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to make retiring money on there. The big markets are there,
Speaker 1: the two win the game, oh, I didn't know the game,
Speaker 1: the points bread right, those are the ones that have
Speaker 1: the biggest limits. So if you're going to try to
Speaker 1: retire off some sort of match fixing this scheme, and
Speaker 1: you know it is a federal crime and you would
Speaker 1: serve time if you were caught, you're going to have
Speaker 1: to play to you know, win the game or cover
Speaker 1: the spread, and you're gonna have to be able to
Speaker 1: disguise your money, right, you can't put all this money,
Speaker 1: millions of dollars on some random, low level college basketball game,
Speaker 1: and then where do you deposit that without having to
Speaker 1: report it? Now, you gotta have the money in the
Speaker 1: backyard like Denzel Washington and American gangster, and then the
Speaker 1: rats start eating your money, like the drug dealer and
Speaker 1: bad boys too. Because you got so much cash, you
Speaker 1: can't wash it. I mean, we're back to uncut gems.
Speaker 1: So last question then, for both of you all, what
Speaker 1: are your predictions for the Super Bowl? Who you betting on?
Speaker 1: Do you bet? David? We never even asked you that
Speaker 1: I am the worst? Better there ever is. My Twitter
Speaker 1: profile says I write about gambling, but I am not
Speaker 1: good at gambling, and it's true. So with that said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take heads on the coin toss. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not an enormous football fan, but I'm an America fan
Speaker 1: and I love how we make it a spectacle. I
Speaker 1: love nobody entertains like Americans, so I usually get in
Speaker 1: on those like commercial bets, who's the first beer ad?
Speaker 1: I like the bets about the commercials or how many
Speaker 1: Derito ads are there going to be? And as far
Speaker 1: as the game goes, I'm stand off. I'm standing away
Speaker 1: from that. Well, I'm telling you're right now, friends, I've
Speaker 1: got some hot tips. That's the other thing we didn't
Speaker 1: even get to talk about was this gambling. The experts. Guys,
Speaker 1: just hey, guys, hot tip Eagles over Mahomes. Just found
Speaker 1: out Patti Mahomes didn't have his traditional smoothie that he
Speaker 1: has pregame. You gotta take the over on these guys. Man,
Speaker 1: they're just looking good traditionally in games under fifty degrees
Speaker 1: in a Western time zone. I just think you can't
Speaker 1: stop Jalen Hurts and it way like they get so
Speaker 1: granular on the stats. I'm like you were on cocaine
Speaker 1: and I did not trust you in the least. I
Speaker 1: wish we had more time to talk about this, but
Speaker 1: this is extremely, extremely fascinating. David Michael, thank you for
Speaker 1: going beyond the scenes with me. Much love my fan
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