Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: A few months ago, I asked my executive producer to
Speaker 2: download a bunch of online sports betting apps and open
Speaker 2: up accounts with them, partly because I live in California,
Speaker 2: where sports betting isn't yet legal, and Lydia Jane Kott,
Speaker 2: my producer, lives in New York, where it is legal,
Speaker 2: and partly because well, I just thought it would be
Speaker 2: kind of fun to see what would happen when you
Speaker 2: thrust someone like LJ into the sports gambling jungle, someone
Speaker 2: with exactly zero interest in sports and even less interest
Speaker 2: in gambling, someone who just hates the idea of putting
Speaker 2: money at risk. LJ is not a fan, and she's
Speaker 2: really not a gambler.
Speaker 3: So you know, once I log in, I see on
Speaker 3: my screen it's honestly a really overwhelming view of things.
Speaker 3: It's all blue, it says fandual sports book, and there's
Speaker 3: a ton of different options.
Speaker 4: So there's NFL, MLB.
Speaker 2: Let's take an example. Let's click on NC double a football.
Speaker 3: There's banners everywhere that are like, refer a friend, give
Speaker 3: fifty dollars, get fifty dollars, and then if you scroll down,
Speaker 3: it has different bets that you can do so, it says,
Speaker 3: for instance.
Speaker 4: College football odds.
Speaker 3: And then there's a list of NC DOUBLEA football games,
Speaker 3: and then it allows you to bet on different games
Speaker 3: and in different ways.
Speaker 2: Do you find yourself being nudged in any direction by
Speaker 2: the app? Does the way the information is presented to
Speaker 2: you lead you to some action?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So like if I were to just open it and
Speaker 3: have no plan, it says like popular same game parlay
Speaker 3: bets is what I'm being nudged to do.
Speaker 4: Or bet on the Battle of the Birds on Monday
Speaker 4: in a.
Speaker 2: Football It's a kind of mission to enter this new
Speaker 2: world and look around without spooking the natives.
Speaker 1: LJ is perfect for it.
Speaker 2: I've sent her to interview people who should be extremely
Speaker 2: wary of any journalists. They're basically never wary of her.
Speaker 2: They just hander everything she asks for and more. Do
Speaker 2: you know who's playing?
Speaker 3: I guess the atl Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 4: So I'm being nudged to bet on on that.
Speaker 2: Do you know who? Where the atl Falcons are based?
Speaker 4: Atlanta? Okay, you're trying to send me I do know.
Speaker 4: I do know my state abbreviations.
Speaker 2: Atlanta's not a state.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's Okay, that's a low blow.
Speaker 4: My god, that's a bridge too far.
Speaker 5: We can make fun of my lack of sports knowledge,
Speaker 5: we cannot just go into make fun of Liniogude for
Speaker 5: everything on this podcast.
Speaker 2: Before she'd even placed a single bet, FanDuel and DraftKings
Speaker 2: and all the lesser apps were spamming her so incessantly
Speaker 2: that her Gmail account became unusable. All these people she
Speaker 2: didn't know wanted her to begin her new life as
Speaker 2: a sports gambler as soon as possible, and they're so helpful,
Speaker 2: so kind, so relentless with their special offers. But LJ
Speaker 2: has been coy reluctant waiting for her jungle guide. Which
Speaker 2: books do you have set up? LJ?
Speaker 4: I have Fandol, DraftKings and.
Speaker 2: Fliff Rufus Peabody sports Gambler, whom we met last episode
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas.
Speaker 6: Do you have not like Bette Rivers or whatever I mean?
Speaker 4: I think at whatever?
Speaker 1: What are the other.
Speaker 2: Ones in New York?
Speaker 1: Bet MGM, Get bet MGM.
Speaker 6: Okay, they'll limit us very quickly, but they will be
Speaker 6: very easy to win out first.
Speaker 4: Okay, great, Okay, I'll download bet.
Speaker 2: And Jim Rufus has a problem. Both FanDuel and DraftKings
Speaker 2: heavily limit the amount he could bet because Rufus actually
Speaker 2: knows what he's doing, and Rufus's bets tend to win.
Speaker 2: So Rufus will be the brains and most of the money.
Speaker 1: LJ will be well.
Speaker 2: Her role has had many names, runner, mover, betting partner,
Speaker 2: also mule.
Speaker 1: I like mule mule.
Speaker 2: Sort of creates a picture in your head. Rufus loads
Speaker 2: the backs of his mules with cash and wax them
Speaker 2: on their fannies, and they saw her off into the
Speaker 2: marketplace and then returned to him, weighted down with even
Speaker 2: more cash. And how much do you imagine you'd be
Speaker 2: wiring to her?
Speaker 4: So I would say.
Speaker 6: I'd probably be wiring her maybe fifty grand, or send
Speaker 6: me fifty grand her way.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to be greedy, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to be foolish, okay, but I think it is
Speaker 2: a fun idea for me to have a little piece
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 6: So Michael, you want downside, yeah, okay, Cotly So LJ
Speaker 6: is the best deal, but she also well at the
Speaker 6: end of this, probably won't be able to bet her
Speaker 6: in her own name for very much money, more than
Speaker 6: maybe seventeen dollars for.
Speaker 2: The rest of her life. So that's the cost here.
Speaker 4: I'm willing that's it. Yeah, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Ziel, I'll be a simple investor. I'll win or
Speaker 2: lose with Rufus. LJ will have big upside and a
Speaker 2: tiny bit of money at stay. Mostly, she'll be putting
Speaker 2: her reputation as a sports gambler at risk. By the
Speaker 2: time we're done, no sports bookie will ever take any
Speaker 2: real action from her ever again, or so says Rufus.
Speaker 4: How long do you think we're going to last?
Speaker 6: I really don't know. This will be interesting to see.
Speaker 5: But if we last forever and they just make like
Speaker 5: a lot of money, that would be the best case scenario.
Speaker 1: Yes it would.
Speaker 2: But the truth is, we just want to see how
Speaker 2: this market works. I'm Michael Lewis, and this is against
Speaker 2: the rules. We're all about characters and situations here this season.
Speaker 2: The fan is our character and sports gambling is our situation.
Speaker 2: Back when sports gambling was against the law, it was
Speaker 2: fairly easy to play sports bets. I know that sounds odd,
Speaker 2: but if you ask any serious gambler that tell you
Speaker 2: the challenge wasn't getting your bets down.
Speaker 1: It was finding smart bets to make. Now sports gambling
Speaker 1: is legal.
Speaker 2: In thirty eight states, and very weirdly, it's easier to
Speaker 2: find smart bets than to actually place those bets, because
Speaker 2: the new system doesn't want to maximize the number of
Speaker 2: sports bets that Americans make. It wants to maximize their
Speaker 2: stupid bets. The bets, as they say, with negative expected value,
Speaker 2: the bets that if you make enough of them, you're
Speaker 2: certain eventually to lose, and so any smart sports gambler
Speaker 2: obviously needs to adapt. At Pushkin Industries are here to
Speaker 2: help our jungle guide Rufus Peabody smart sports gambler now
Speaker 2: basically can't bet under his own name, or at least
Speaker 2: not very much. The DraftKings and fan duels don't want
Speaker 2: to take the other side of his action, so Rufus
Speaker 2: and other sharps have built these teams of people who
Speaker 2: do nothing but place their bets. The smart gamblers can't
Speaker 2: really afford to be too picky about their new teammates
Speaker 2: because the hours are long and the money's uncertain. In truth,
Speaker 2: it's hard to find people who are both broken enough
Speaker 2: and reliable enough for the job, and once Rufus has
Speaker 2: hired you.
Speaker 1: The relationship can become pretty impersonal. To Rufus. These mules are.
Speaker 2: Just names on a spreadsheet, a PayPal address on his phone.
Speaker 2: Some he's never met. Most of the bet sports on
Speaker 2: their own, usually badly. A few even think they know
Speaker 2: almost as much as Rufus, which is never a good sign.
Speaker 2: So LJ will be a different kind of mule for
Speaker 2: a start. She'll need a lot more breaking in than most.
Speaker 6: Okay, let's open the FanDuel app and kind of look
Speaker 6: at the navigation there.
Speaker 1: Their first sit down is just a dry run.
Speaker 6: The FanDuel app can be harder to navigate. It's considered
Speaker 6: the best app. There's like live scoring on it. I mean,
Speaker 6: I guess there is a fan tool as well.
Speaker 4: And then I have ten dollars.
Speaker 2: You have ten dollars. Amazing. LJ has ten dollars in
Speaker 2: her account. Rufus fixes that issue with a few clicks.
Speaker 2: He moves a few thousand more dollars into Lj's bank account.
Speaker 5: It's crazy how quickly you can like disassociate from like
Speaker 5: what these numbers, Oh yeah, their.
Speaker 2: Numbers in a spreadsheet.
Speaker 6: That's basically all it is.
Speaker 2: Rufus wants to start by checking out the lines on
Speaker 2: Adam Scott. LJ has never heard of Adam Scott.
Speaker 1: He's a golfer.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Adam Scott will win the tournament.
Speaker 5: Adam Scott tournament winner plus one seventy five.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So I say we bet that. But let's
Speaker 2: see we know how much we can bet it for.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I'm in the right place, right.
Speaker 6: I'm going to click on this, click on the plus
Speaker 6: one seventy five worst case scenario where we're priming the account.
Speaker 2: Here, priming the account. It's what Rufus calls it when
Speaker 2: he intentionally places dumb bets. He usually does this with
Speaker 2: his new mules. It makes the gambling companies even more
Speaker 2: eager to take his future bets. Lose a bit upfront
Speaker 2: to win much more later.
Speaker 6: And let's see it, says ad stakes. So what if
Speaker 6: we tried it, we put it? How much did we deposit?
Speaker 2: Five thousand?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: What if we tried to put it for three thousand dollars?
Speaker 6: We'll see if they take it? Can we do that?
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 6: Okay with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean it's not I don't know, I.
Speaker 7: It's not my truck.
Speaker 2: What did they say?
Speaker 6: They said, oh, well, they'll give you two thousand, two
Speaker 6: hundred and twenty five dollars and fifty eight cents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it. Processing.
Speaker 4: But okay, my bet has been sected.
Speaker 2: Good luck done. That's how we do it.
Speaker 6: And then when do we know, Well, well, no, on Sunday,
Speaker 6: I thought bet one. We'll have many more bets before then.
Speaker 1: All of this is currently legal.
Speaker 2: By the way, Rufus can still partner up with other gamblers,
Speaker 2: but it's massively irritating to the gambling companies who treat
Speaker 2: Rufus as a kind of cheater, a card counter at
Speaker 2: the blackjack table.
Speaker 1: But I don't think of him that way.
Speaker 2: He's actually figured out stuff about sports, about why things
Speaker 2: happen in sports that other people don't know. He's more
Speaker 2: like a smart stock market investor. He knows better than
Speaker 2: the market knows the right price for some bet. What
Speaker 2: kind of market refuses to let the smartest people in
Speaker 2: this market?
Speaker 1: As it turns out, and so here we are. LJ
Speaker 1: is actually useful to Rufus.
Speaker 8: It's mostly trust is kind of one of the biggest things.
Speaker 2: That's Tom Peabody, Rufus's younger brother, who runs the mule
Speaker 2: team and so spends lots of time looking for new
Speaker 2: mules to replace the ones who've been worn out.
Speaker 8: It's like wife, girlfriend, mother, like we've gone through my
Speaker 8: mom and dad's accounts, but generally friends and family, and
Speaker 8: then when you get past that, it's kind of other
Speaker 8: people that you.
Speaker 2: Trust, people like LJ, who, as I say, is a
Speaker 2: bit different as mules go. Because we asked Rufus and
Speaker 2: Town to supply her with nothing but smart bets, and
Speaker 2: that's not what they would normally do.
Speaker 8: If LJ were starting for us and we wanted to
Speaker 8: keep that account, we would probably bet ten to twenty
Speaker 8: bets right at post on NFL, college football, tennis, anything.
Speaker 8: We're happy to lose money in the short term to
Speaker 8: have some more account longevity.
Speaker 2: That's actually not how LJ plans to roll. She's going
Speaker 2: to just place these smart bets and see how the
Speaker 2: bookies respond. Her first was that two grand or so
Speaker 2: on Adam Scott. Adam Scott for Bertie at eighteen flew
Speaker 2: out of the flag. Adam Scott loses, and we're a
Speaker 2: couple of thousand dollars poorer. But our experiment is on, Hey,
Speaker 2: so tell me what's happened what's going on?
Speaker 5: Okay, So when I was in Rufus's apartment, I'll find
Speaker 5: great time. What I found difficult is then I left
Speaker 5: Rufus's apartment. I came back to the office and I
Speaker 5: was by myself, and it's like.
Speaker 4: Literally gibberish. He just texted me gibberish.
Speaker 2: Read it to me.
Speaker 3: Sung JM Top ten plus one ninety. This is in
Speaker 3: the top finished heading. Also Sung JM ties pay in
Speaker 3: full plus one sixty.
Speaker 5: Those are DraftKings. Also same bet SUNGJYM top ten plus
Speaker 5: one ninety at FanDuel, sorry about to take off.
Speaker 2: Turns out Rufus is doing all this from a plane.
Speaker 2: He just wired her these tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: to use to bet. Now he's up in the sky
Speaker 2: somewhere completely out of touch.
Speaker 5: Sungday, I am top five ties pay in full plus
Speaker 5: five fifty DraftKings. Sunday I am top five under top
Speaker 5: finished heading plus seven hundred DraftKings. Sunday I'm top five
Speaker 5: plus seven hundred FanDuel.
Speaker 2: So I don't even know what sport this is. Is
Speaker 2: this golf?
Speaker 4: I think it's golf.
Speaker 5: Yeah, before I believe it's golf.
Speaker 2: Do you have any interesting golf.
Speaker 4: No, I've never watched golf.
Speaker 2: Do you know how many holes there are?
Speaker 5: Nine?
Speaker 2: Okay? Uh, actually eighteen, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: I thought I got that right.
Speaker 2: You can kind of see why I thought she'd be perfect, right.
Speaker 2: She's impossible to suspect of anything, a kind of baby
Speaker 2: faced assassin, the Steph Curry of podcasting, the bullet you
Speaker 2: never see coming until it's too late. But she does
Speaker 2: need to learn how to press the right buttons on
Speaker 2: her gambling app.
Speaker 3: Like after we get off the phone, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be placing one, two, three, four, five, six seven bets.
Speaker 3: And the fun thing about it also is that I
Speaker 3: don't understand at all what they are as of now.
Speaker 3: I'll probably be placing like ten another ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: after we get off the phone, and I'll be sweating.
Speaker 5: One bet takes me about half an hour. It's genuinely
Speaker 5: really scary, Like I feel like I hYP prevent, like
Speaker 5: I get my I get really scared. I hypreventally. I
Speaker 5: peace around for a little bit and pretend I haven't
Speaker 5: seen it, don't.
Speaker 2: You aren't you kind of in a hurry to get
Speaker 2: the best down in case the line.
Speaker 3: Moves So I talked about this with Rufus like a lot,
Speaker 3: and he said that I'll always have at least a
Speaker 3: few hours.
Speaker 2: Actually, Rufus has told her she had a few minutes
Speaker 2: to get the bets down, but never mind.
Speaker 5: I always cried this morning because I was like, did
Speaker 5: I just lose five thousand dollars?
Speaker 4: And I realized I had just done the accounting one.
Speaker 2: I could not be worse for the stob. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: perfect Ye're the perfect mule. They're gonna They're gonna call
Speaker 2: you up to see if you were actually a sharp
Speaker 2: and they're gonna talk to you for like six seconds ago.
Speaker 2: There's no way she knows anything. I'm about to realize
Speaker 2: my first mistake. I sort of imagine that if the
Speaker 2: gambling companies got suspicious about Lj's bets, some human from
Speaker 2: DraftKings or fan Duel would call her up. Then LJ
Speaker 2: would do what LJ does and lull them to sleep.
Speaker 2: But it turns out the first she has to get
Speaker 2: past the algorithms, the programs that the sports gambling companies
Speaker 2: use to detect smart betters, and one of the things
Speaker 2: they scan for are people with a talent for placing
Speaker 2: bets where the odds that then move in their favor
Speaker 2: people who seem to be ahead of the market. Another
Speaker 2: thing they'd do is check to make sure you're a guy.
Speaker 2: At least that's what Rufus says. They are not a
Speaker 2: lot of female sports gamblers, and basically none who are
Speaker 2: laying obscure five thousand dollars bets on golf. I had
Speaker 2: imagined LJ as an ideal mule, in part because she
Speaker 2: so obviously didn't know what she was doing, and second
Speaker 2: because even when she knows exactly what she's doing, she's
Speaker 2: really good at allowing you to think that she doesn't.
Speaker 2: But this isn't how you fool the gambling companies. You
Speaker 2: fool them by finding mules who can play a role,
Speaker 2: people like Beckett.
Speaker 7: You basically want to find a way to portray yourself
Speaker 7: as close to being a problem gambler as possible. You know,
Speaker 7: I've been everything from an incredibly rich, entitled trust fund
Speaker 7: guy to a sort of a maniac commenting on every
Speaker 7: point scored in every basketball came, bemoaning his losses in
Speaker 7: the morning and begging for a redeposit as well.
Speaker 1: That's Beckett. It's not his real name.
Speaker 2: He uses his real name to make his bets, and
Speaker 2: so he doesn't want anyone to know it. We're also
Speaker 2: disguising his voice, and we promise to say nothing about
Speaker 2: him except that he's been a highly successful sports gambler
Speaker 2: almost as long as Rufe's Peabody. But Beckett's got a
Speaker 2: slightly different angle than Rufus. Rufus has been limited on
Speaker 2: the apps, so he gets other people to place his bets.
Speaker 2: Beckett becomes other people in order to place his own
Speaker 2: bets on the apps.
Speaker 7: You know, they're classified as recreational butt makers. They're not
Speaker 7: sitting there trying to figure out what the optimal line
Speaker 7: should be for each game. They're basically marketing and technology
Speaker 7: companies which happen to be in the business of gambling,
Speaker 7: and their strategy is to find players who they believe
Speaker 7: will not beat the house edge and then just get
Speaker 7: them to play as much as possible. So what they
Speaker 7: end up doing is something called steak factoring.
Speaker 2: Steak factoring is the apps figuring out just how smart
Speaker 2: you are and assigning limits. These limits change is the
Speaker 2: algoes watch.
Speaker 1: What you do.
Speaker 7: Once they realize that you are competent, they might give
Speaker 7: you a steak factor of ten percent, and they might say, okay,
Speaker 7: you are only allowed to bet five hundred dollars. Once
Speaker 7: they realize or believe you are incompetent, they might give
Speaker 7: you a steak factor of up to ten times the amount,
Speaker 7: so you might be able to bet fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 7: on something, but a new customer might only be able
Speaker 7: to bet five thousand on, and that a professional might
Speaker 7: only be able to bet five hundred dollars on. They
Speaker 7: sort of, you know, open the floor set once they
Speaker 7: realize that you're not good.
Speaker 2: And apart from raising limits on the incompetent, what else
Speaker 2: might they do to encourage the incompetent to practice their incompetency.
Speaker 7: I would perhaps a sign of the IP host to
Speaker 7: that person, and that host would offer them as soon
Speaker 7: as of inducements to continue betting, to continue depositing, to
Speaker 7: continue playing.
Speaker 2: Beckett's goal is to get those inducements and to get
Speaker 2: those really high limits, to get past the velvet ropes,
Speaker 2: to get himself into the same rooms with the dumb betters. Well,
Speaker 2: give me examples of how a professional gambler or an
Speaker 2: edge player would induce one of these companies to invite
Speaker 2: you into the vipre room and up your limits.
Speaker 7: Essentially, you would be creating bets that you know the
Speaker 7: sportsbook wants to see, and he would do them a
Speaker 7: volume that is high enough that you grab their attention
Speaker 7: and you get contacted and then bunce you're in the inside,
Speaker 7: you know good things happen.
Speaker 2: But once you're on the inside, wouldn't they spot that
Speaker 2: your behavior changed? You don't want to continue to play
Speaker 2: stupid bets, So how long or do they do? They
Speaker 2: tag you as dumb and then don't pay attention for
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 7: You know, it's a fine line. Some people are not
Speaker 7: very nuanced at it, and we'll expose themselves very quickly.
Speaker 7: But in general, you have quite a lot of leeway
Speaker 7: once you're in those programs, and you know there are
Speaker 7: things that you can do to not make your behavior
Speaker 7: as an advantage plan as obvious.
Speaker 2: Once you're in the VIP programs, you get to meet
Speaker 2: actual human beings. At the gambling companies, they invite you
Speaker 2: to the next game, They tempt you with special offers
Speaker 2: to bet. Sometimes they even give you money to bet,
Speaker 2: like actually let you make bets for free. In theory,
Speaker 2: these new companies are required to flag people with gambling
Speaker 2: problems and limit them, guide them to shrinks who can
Speaker 2: help them, and end the cycle of misery caused by
Speaker 2: gambling addiction. In practice, it seems not so much.
Speaker 7: I was developing my character as a very frustrated, losing
Speaker 7: gambler who keep throwing money in. One day, I sent
Speaker 7: this host a flurry of messages after some really heavy losses,
Speaker 7: you know, over the previous few days. I sent message
Speaker 7: off the message and the host called me absolutely exasperated
Speaker 7: and said, hey, man, look, look, I know you're really frustrated.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry you lost. Don't worry. I'm going to take
Speaker 7: care of you. But please please do not put messages
Speaker 7: like that in writing. Compliance might see it, they might
Speaker 7: get worried, they might have to close your account, and
Speaker 7: you know we don't want that to happen. So just
Speaker 7: call me next time. Don't put it in don't put
Speaker 7: it in writing, and hey, I'll give you forty percent
Speaker 7: on your next deposit.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable, it's disgusting.
Speaker 7: It's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 1: How important to those companies?
Speaker 2: Do you think the ATTIC is incredibly important? I should
Speaker 2: say that we've reached out to the mad Sports betting
Speaker 2: companies Fan Duel and DraftKings for comment on this alleged practice,
Speaker 2: and they've declined our requests or just haven't responded. But
Speaker 2: it seems clear from talking with betters themselves that in
Speaker 2: this world, the problem gambler isn't the guy using his
Speaker 2: life savings to chase his losses. The problem gambler is
Speaker 2: a person like Beckett and Rufus and maybe even LJ.
Speaker 5: I believe I'm down.
Speaker 2: LJ was maybe not the perfect mule. I was learning that,
Speaker 2: but I thought that at least she might be a
Speaker 2: happy mule. She's not a happy mule. She's a mule
Speaker 2: that every time Rufus tries to spur to action, keeps
Speaker 2: circling back towards the barn.
Speaker 5: At one point, Rufus said, we were up, and I
Speaker 5: believe we're down.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 3: But I got sent in an Excel spreadsheet that I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to start filling out, which I think will help
Speaker 3: because I think my accounting system that I made up
Speaker 3: seems to be flawed.
Speaker 2: Do you have any sense of how much more he's
Speaker 2: betting on these same golfers elsewhere at the same time.
Speaker 4: No idea.
Speaker 3: I mean, he did show me like a huge spreadsheet
Speaker 3: of like he has.
Speaker 4: I think he has.
Speaker 3: Currently thirty mules, and it kind of seems like he
Speaker 3: has like a dashboard of how up everyone is overall,
Speaker 3: and I think it's like five million, but I don't
Speaker 3: know what other people are doing.
Speaker 2: Do you have a sense that he's pleased with you
Speaker 2: as a mule.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think he could possibly be released with
Speaker 3: me as a mule, which is partly why this feel
Speaker 3: so bad.
Speaker 7: A wondreless customer you are.
Speaker 2: And then she went dark on a perfectly beautiful weekend,
Speaker 2: a day when she could have been laying tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars on professional golf. She just up and
Speaker 2: went to the beach, spent hours without so much as
Speaker 2: glancing at her phone. And I think, Lja, the rule
Speaker 2: is that mules really don't go to the beach. You've
Speaker 2: got to be available when they are ready to bed,
Speaker 2: poor LJ. It's just if you want to be an eagle,
Speaker 2: if you want to fly, you don't go to the beach.
Speaker 1: You got to be there. We tend to make a bed.
Speaker 8: We can be we can be better about uh about
Speaker 8: some advanced notice too. We can give LJ a couple
Speaker 8: of beach hours here and there.
Speaker 1: Turm Peabody again Rufus's brother Mule Runner.
Speaker 2: Yet I don't know how smart it is for Rufus
Speaker 2: to send her essentially a page full of Greek instructions
Speaker 2: and then get on a plane and say I'm not
Speaker 2: available for the next four hours, just to just do it.
Speaker 4: I felt like like that was like a test.
Speaker 8: It's like learning a different language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I'm going to stop the recording.
Speaker 2: She had a lot of things working against her, obviously,
Speaker 2: including her day job producing this podcast, But in spite
Speaker 2: of that, in just the first two days, she'd managed
Speaker 2: to get some bets down twenty thousand at least maybe
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars chicken feed to Rufe's Peabody, but kind
Speaker 2: of a shocking sum to a podcaster these days. Are
Speaker 2: you surprised he's been able to get the bets down
Speaker 2: that she's gotten down.
Speaker 8: No, because in the beginning, they don't limit you super
Speaker 8: super quickly. They need to see enough where they're pretty
Speaker 8: confident that you're not going to lose that money back.
Speaker 8: Bigger events, they're more likely to think, okay, you're just
Speaker 8: sort of you're watching the big golf events.
Speaker 2: Just four days after becoming a mule, LJ saw the
Speaker 2: first sign of trouble. She's placed the bets Rufus wanted
Speaker 2: to make with four different sports bookies, Fan Duel, DraftKings,
Speaker 2: bet Rivers, and bet MGM. Most of the bets have
Speaker 2: law lost, but she placed two bets of four thousand
Speaker 2: dollars each on golf at DraftKings and both of these
Speaker 2: bets won. Inside of her DraftKings account, eight thousand dollars
Speaker 2: has grown to more than sixteen thousand dollars. But then
Speaker 2: inside that same account, she tried to make another bet
Speaker 2: and Draft Kings wouldn't let her.
Speaker 5: Okay, it is Tuesday, August twenty seventh, so I emailed
Speaker 5: DraftKings to get back in because there's no number that
Speaker 5: I can call. And I got a response this morning
Speaker 5: and it says there appears to have been a pattern
Speaker 5: of unusual activity on your account and as a result,
Speaker 5: we have placed temporary restrictions on your account as a
Speaker 5: precautionary safety measure. You will notice that although you can
Speaker 5: still log in, you may not be able to deposit
Speaker 5: or withdraw. We will be more than happy to reinstate
Speaker 5: your account pending verification.
Speaker 1: You heard that right.
Speaker 2: Not only can she not bet, they're saying she might
Speaker 2: not be able to get the money out.
Speaker 5: Please upload an image of you holding your current driver's
Speaker 5: license next to your face by clicking the upload now
Speaker 5: button below. We appreciate you helping us keep your account secure.
Speaker 2: Roughly a nanosecond later, she got another email from some
Speaker 2: other part of DraftKings.
Speaker 5: In order to remove the current restrictions on my account,
Speaker 5: I have to upload a self certified ID and also
Speaker 5: uploading my pay paul confirming ownership and showing transactions to DraftKings.
Speaker 5: That's from someone who is called a Draft King player advocate,
Speaker 5: which is cool.
Speaker 4: I didn't know I had an advocate.
Speaker 2: As it turns out, this is all just a day
Speaker 2: in the life of a mule. A few days later,
Speaker 2: fandueill follow DraftKings and cut lj's limits by eighty percent.
Speaker 2: They never say anything, They just stop taking all but
Speaker 2: the smallest bets, which sounds sad. But then LJ calls
Speaker 2: me and she sounds different. She sounds happy.
Speaker 4: Okay, So here's what I am dying to tell you.
Speaker 2: Okay, tell me.
Speaker 3: This morning I woke up to a text message that
Speaker 3: says the following from a number that's not in my contacts.
Speaker 4: Hi, Lydia, this is Courtney from BETMGM.
Speaker 3: I wanted to reach out and introduce myself as your
Speaker 3: VIP account representative slash host.
Speaker 4: I saw you had some great play.
Speaker 2: Yes, great play at BETMGM. LJ had lost eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That was the great play.
Speaker 4: Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Please let me know if you have any questions or
Speaker 3: if there's anything I can do to help out. So
Speaker 3: I didn't answer because I wasn't sure what to do,
Speaker 3: and then she texted, would love to get you out
Speaker 3: to one of our events as my guest if you
Speaker 3: are interested. We have Charlie XCX coming to MSG on
Speaker 3: the twenty third, and Megan Trainer at MSG as well.
Speaker 3: That's Madison Square Garden on the twenty fifth, which is
Speaker 3: like the concert of the Summer, Charlie at XCX. Would
Speaker 3: either of those be something you'd be interested in?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: So yeah, are you?
Speaker 2: Are you interesting?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: I'm interested?
Speaker 3: So I said, you know, great, like, how's this work?
Speaker 3: Is it discounted? And she said the tickets are on me.
Speaker 3: They're my personal tickets and are bet MGM Suite at
Speaker 3: MSG both food and beverages are included for the.
Speaker 4: Night as well.
Speaker 3: And then Michael, I asked for a plus one.
Speaker 4: And she said absolutely. Which concert do you want to
Speaker 4: go do?
Speaker 3: And I asked for Charlie XCX and she said, she
Speaker 3: got me two tickets and she's she said, I'll actually
Speaker 3: be hosting that event as well, So I'm very excited
Speaker 3: to meet and be able to see you in person.
Speaker 3: The tickets will be sent to your email forty eight
Speaker 3: hours prior to the concert.
Speaker 1: The Life of a Mule clearly it has its ups
Speaker 1: and downs.
Speaker 2: LJ is now basically unwelcomed about large sums of money
Speaker 2: for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: The two sports books that.
Speaker 2: Now control the new market DraftKings froze her account after
Speaker 2: she won eight thousand dollars. FanDuel saw something they didn't
Speaker 2: like and stopped taking her big bets, even though she
Speaker 2: was actually down five thousand bucks. But this market, this jungle,
Speaker 2: is obviously complicated, and this mule is not like other mules.
Speaker 1: This mule is special. This mule is now a VIP.
Speaker 2: Against the Rules is written and hosted by me Michael
Speaker 2: Lewis and produced by Lydia, Gene Coott, Catherine Gerdeau and
Speaker 2: Ariela Markowitz. Our editor is Julia Barton. Our engineer is
Speaker 2: Jake Korski. Our music was composed by Matthias Bossi and
Speaker 2: John Evans of stell Wagon Cinfinett. Our fact checker is
Speaker 2: Lauren Vespoli. Against the Rules is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2: To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and if
Speaker 2: you'd like to listen to ad free and learn about
Speaker 2: other exclusive offerings, don't forget to sign up for a
Speaker 2: Pushkin Plus subscription at pushkin dot fm, Slash Plus, or
Speaker 2: on our Apple show page.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna text my boyfriend that I can't come
Speaker 5: with him to take the dog out because I'm sports betting.
Speaker 5: I'm going to draft Kings. I'm choosing Davis Thompson two
Speaker 5: way minus one forty five, and I'm entering my wager
Speaker 5: amount for four thousand dollars and I'm gonna say place bet.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be honest. I kind of find this to
Speaker 5: be a little scary. I'm gonna share that with reefus.
Speaker 5: Oh it got placed, I'll tell them it got placed.
Speaker 4: Way did the race