Daily Archives: May 11, 2024

Taking a Quick Side trip on the Money Angle

In the first detail article we took a trip down memory lane and dug though some major court decisions and fan misperceptions to get a look at the landscape of college athletics as they stand in 2024.

Judging from the reaction, its still not gaining a whole lot of traction from the readership as seen in the Facebook numbers. Hopefully, as this series grows a bit, more of the readers will visit the baseline detail article to better understand the current situation.

As the first article was developing, and the money related section was being researched, items kept popping up in the source search that started to refocus some attention regarding an entirely different, but admittedly very old, source of secondary monetary influence on college sports, namely gaming and/or gambling.

Before we get into this, lets make the parameters of the discussion plain. There is no advocacy intent, one way or the other as to gambling, sports betting, or sports gaming (fantasy football, baseball, etc.). The purpose here is to illuminate an economy that has become a major secondary factor in the monetary posture of collegiate athletics. We are here to observe, not judge, and attempt to digest their potential impact on the audience motivations that drive the media revenues. An additional note must be given in full disclosure, several online gaming and gambling sites advertise on SB Nation sites including Gobbler Country and that includes a live link to DraftKings Sports Book. We arent scolds, here. However, it is undeniable that the sports gaming and gambling industry has made a major change in the interest, appeal, and viewership of college sports events.

The influence of money and audience on college sports is obvious, but how does the gambling theme fit in with the remainder of the more direct influences involved? Gambling or Gaming on sports has been around for as long has humans have engaged in competitive events. Bored soldiers would bet on boxing matches, cockroach races, and the like in the field probably far before the Mycenean Greeks formed the army to visit Troy. There would be no surprise generated to realize that the ancient Greeks probably bet on the original Olympic game contests. Even when life was at stake, there is a better than even chance (wink here) that someone was betting on the outcome of the contest.

In some cultures, the wagering was completely legitimate and open. For much of modern (late 19th and all of the 20th centuries) American history its been limited, heavily regulated, or prohibited altogether. Well, at least legal gaming, anyway. Who hasnt put a few bucks on some squares for the World Series, or March Madness (which is actually an oblique reference to the immense sums gambled on the tournament, under the table so to speak)?

Everyday gambling habits on sporting contests have their darker sides, however, bookies and broken knees, illicit favors for illegal gambling debts riddle the past, and provide rich fodder for many a detective novel, or police procedural. Those stories ring true because they are a functional part of human and more recently American cultural interchange.

Well, sports gambling was pretty much entirely a no-go zone at every level until the advent of three things: the Internet, Fantasy Sports, and the Federal Court System. Remember the dodges and semi-sort-of-denials about the most popular fantasy sports setups? Well, most people really dont because basically they werent completely true, and the Supreme Court of the United States made all of that moot anyway. It all changed in a May 2018 instant.

The court ruled in favor of the state of New Jersey and struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. The move effectively legalized betting on all sporting events both amateur and professional. The Act had been a response to the growing trend of Internet gambling, and in particular the wagering on NCAA contests, in particular the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament. ESPN has a pretty good summary of the event in its archives.

As with many court decisions, and frankly almost all of this massive change in the reality and the perception of collegiate athletics, the end result of the outcome has national impact, and virtually no regulation or legislatively derived law behind it. Suddenly, overnight, what was illicit and under the table became licit, and there was a certain understanding that what was under the table was untaxed as well as unregulated as interstate commerce. Teams are even signing deals with legal sports book entities where it is allowed by state law. Inside the Rise of Sports Betting on College Sports (businessofcollegesports.com)

The brutal truth is, for the government, in this case the state of New Jersey, gambling on sporting events was a black market sort of affair. The entire thing was done behind closed doors, or in shady areas in the backs of bars, or off of foreign web sites on the internet. You are supposed to report winnings as other income, even if there were no Form W-2Gs (see: Taxes on Gambling Winnings & Losses: Gambling Taxes Explained | Kiplinger for a good summary of the rules.) But all of us know that no local bookie is going to take your tax information and file a payout report to the IRS. Of course, legal gambling sites, parlors, and the like actually must and do that for the state as well.

However! The federal government has done little to stabilize and standardize the regulatory environment for gambling and gaming. It has remained in state hands and state control with various rules for various jurisdictions. Washington seems to only care about law enforcement when malfeasance is involved, or the limited rules in place are violated. It also only cares that the line on the 1040 form, and the W-2G is filed along with the 24% federal gambling tax paid. It has little interest in the possible and probable influences on the conduct of the sports being wagered upon.

The advent of legalized sports gambling has pulled the hidden issue out from under the table, the nature of being a fan, and in particular a fan of college sports. The reality of collegiate athletics is that there are only a few sports that garner any real fan and betting attention: football and basketball (mostly still mens). These are considered the revenue generating sports and all other collegiate athletics are subsidized by those revenue generating sports.

If you want to get an idea of the scale of the amount of money in the sports gambling industry, take a look at the numbers from CBS on how much How much money is bet on March Madness? The 2024 NCAA tournament is expected to generate billions. - CBS News Now realize thats combined for both mens and womens basketball, but thats a staggering legally gambled $2.7B (Thats B for billion. Folks).

Those revenues depend upon the nature of collegiate fan participation, whether through direct gate attendance, club contributions, and/or advertising viewership and response. Those revenue flows are largely proportionally tied to the size of the interested alumni base, family, and friends. There is an additional regional appeal. As someone once noted in a discussion, [T]he Cornhuskers ARE Nebraskas professional football team. That is a totally accurate evaluation on many fronts. Though there are quite a few Kansas City Chief or Royals fans in mostly Eastern Nebraska, and maybe a few Denver fans in the west, for the most part the Nebraska Cornhuskers serve as the states favored spectator sport team. The same goes for quite a few states including Oklahoma, West Virginia, (even Virginia to a degree), etc. The list gets long, but the point is that the fan bases are niche affairs with local or regional appeal.

Gambling changes that equation. Suddenly a team that might not have much in the way of potential viewer ratings becomes a huge draw because there is some gaming reason altering the viewership and ratings patterns. What happens if the betting action on a Boise State vs. Air Force football game drives the viewership numbers into the stratosphere because of some betting action?

Do the conferences and participating teams get ratings related benefits from the increased viewership? When does that fluidity get accounted for in the re-negotiation of their media rights contracts?

And finally, are fundamentally disinterested gambling observers really fans? And do they or their betting enablers have any influence over the conditions of betting? Do they end up involved in NIL deals with individual players?

If you look at the sports gaming industry from a more high-altitude angle, you begin to see the holes and pitfalls of the rapidly growing phenomenon. College Sports Gambling Data Market Cools as Negotiations Persist (sportico.com) Its an erratic market, and often pinned to seemingly unrelated events, activities, and personalities. It is still largely the wild west with the NCAA scrambling to keep up, the pressures mounting on NIL contracts and involvement, superstar status for various individual athletes. The Caitlin Clarke/Angel Reese effect on womens college basketball cannot be discounted. Personalities can drive interest, which drives potential betting action.

How does a legal gambling environment affect the way players participate in it? How do the Athletic Departments and NCAA handle the pressures, govern the activity, and discipline players for participating? From where does the authority come? Who writes and maintains the regulations? What sort of due process is provided for accusations? Who investigates charges? There are some newish attempts to begin to answer these things, but the entire phenomenon is court created and not legislated. The regulations that come out of the process might end up erased by further individually based court decisions.

The NCAA is beginning to track the issue and has published NCAA releases sports wagering survey data - NCAA.org for interested parties to peruse. Please read it and follow the study link. The results, and this was from mid-2023, are something that can rock folks back on their heels. The main part of the conclusion of the report summary is eyepopping:

Overall, the present survey found that sports wagering is pervasive among 18- to 22-year-olds, with 58% having engaged in at least one sports betting activity.

Sports wagering activity is widespread on college campuses 67% of students living on campus are bettors and tend to bet at a higher frequency. 41% of college students who bet on sports have placed a bet on their schools teams and 35% have used a student bookmaker.

There just are no answers here. That is the hardest part of writing this particular side piece to the money section of the first article. There are only further questions, and more problematic facts begging even more difficult questions.

Next up we get back to the main series with a look at The End: the Svengali Coach, Transfer Portal, and the Effect of Free Agency. There will be another sidebar article that will dive back into the money element as it affects both the Portal and virtual Free Agency and that will be: The End: The Name, Image, and Likeness Fiasco.

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The End: The Money Picture Changes with Legalized Gambling - Gobbler Country

There is no denying that gambling is a fun and exciting pastime, and with it being easier than ever to download a gambling app or visit a casino, more people than ever are partaking. Whilst this is great news, it does carry risks with it. As the popularity of gambling grows, so does the number of people who want to take advantage of players, either through rigging games or committing fraudulent activity. Luckily, were here to talk you through the ways to ensure that a gambling site (online or physical) is safe.

Safer gambling has been on everyones lips lately, after a scandal at the Legends Poker Room in Houston, Texas, rocked the local betting community. A dealer was accused of rigging a deck during a game, and although no further action has been taken, it was enough for many to question just how fair some games are, and how safe they are whilst gambling. The news came thanks to a video that began circulating not long after the infamous game. In the clips shared, the dealer seemed to be improperly shuffling a deck and then placing some of the cards in a particular order on the table. Despite no confirmation as to whether or not these unusual actions were deliberate, they have added fuel to the rumors that already surround Legends Poker Room.

For those who want to take extra measures to ensure their safety when placing a bet, a new option has opened up in recent years that can guarantee this: Pay N Play licensed online casinos. These sites offer a secure connection between your bank and the casino, allowing for near-instant withdrawals and deposits. Regardless of the payment methods accepted, a surefire way to tell if an online casino can be trusted is to check if it has an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate. This is considered a badge of honor, letting the user know that the website keeps data secure, verifying site ownership, and stopping hackers from replicating the site. If the casino does not have this certification, the odds of fraud occurring are much higher.

In addition to looking for relevant credentials, checking user reviews is another must before playing at an online casino. Not only does this allow potential customers to see if theyll enjoy the games, but it also serves as verification that the casino is legitimate and has happy and regular players. It goes without saying that if any reviews mention rigging or unfair gaming, the risk is not worth taking. It is also worth mentioning that if multiple reviews are complaining about the lack of customer service or the inability to contact the casino provider, these should be taken as warning signs. Its best to choose an online casino that values its users, and where, in the event that any suspicious activity takes place, there will be somebody on hand immediately to help.

This next trick may seem obvious, but is something that many people overlook. After choosing an online casino, but before signing up to the site or app, double-check that the provider has clearly stated and readily available terms and conditions. The T&Cs should have thorough policies on things like bonuses, deposits, and withdrawals, and how to unsubscribe from the site.

These tips are relevant no matter what kind of online gambling is taking place - be it crypto casinos or online sportsbooks. To conclude, protecting personal and financial details online is paramount, and any reputable online casino should have extensive safety measures in place to protect the privacy of its customer base. This allows users to relax and play all of their favorite games without having to worry, knowing that their identity and money are protected.

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Gambling Safely: The Importance of Choosing the Righ... - HighstakesDB

The headlines are heading to the television screens.

Lionsgate Television is developing a scripted series based on the gambling scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtanis former interpreter, the entertainment company announced Thursday.

The show will follow Ohtanis rise, including his record-setting 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers in December and the news months later that Ohtanis then-interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, allegedly stole $17 million from the baseball icon to pay off gambling debts.

Los Angeles fired Mizuhara and he turned himself in to federal authorities in the wake of the allegations. Mizuhara recently agreed to plead guilty to charges of bank fraud related to the scandal, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Mizuharas arraignment is scheduled for May 14.

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Tony Award winner Scott Delman and sports reporter Albert Chen will produce the series.

With a strong track record of creating daring, boundary-pushing series, Lionsgate Television is the perfect partner to bring this unbelievable story to the screen, Delman in a release. In addition, Alberts extensive sports journalism background will enable us to connect the dots to make sense of the startling turn of events weve seen play out on the world stage.

Delman is known for his work on the television series Station 11 and for serving as a producer on Broadway hits The Book of Mormon and Death of a Salesman, among others.

Chen wrote a book on sports gambling, Billion Dollar Fantasy, and served as a senior editor at Sports Illustrated, where he covered baseball.

This is major league baseballs biggest sports gambling scandal since Pete Rose and at its center is its biggest star, one that MLB has hitched its wagon on, Chen said in a release. Well get to the heart of the story a story of trust, betrayal and the trappings of wealth and fame.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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TV series about Ohtani ex-interpreter gambling scandal in works - The Athletic

Ippei Mizuhara agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to a pair of charges in connection with the gambling scandal involving Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.

Mizuhara, who was Ohtanis longtime interpreter, was arrested earlier this spring in a massive and complicated scandal that left him facing up to 30 years in prison. Mizuhara allegedly stole nearly $17 million from Ohtani to cover Mizuhara's illegal gambling losses, which totaled more than $40 million.

Mizuhara agreed to plead guilty to two charges bank fraud and subscribing to a false tax return on Wednesday. The first charge carries a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in federal prison, and the second could add up to three years.

Mizuhara is expected to enter his guilty plea officially next week.

Mizuhara turned himself in to authorities officially last month after he was accused of stealing millions from Ohtani. He allegedly made 19,000 wagers with an alleged illegal bookie between December 2021 and January 2024, which averages out to about 25 bets per day. In total, Mizuhara lost more than $40.5 million.

Mizuhara was Ohtanis financial point person beginning when the star moved to the United States in 2018. Mizuhara reportedly helped Ohtani set up a bank account, and he impersonated Ohtani and later changed information in order to start funneling money from the account. Ohtanis agent reportedly talked to him exclusively through Mizuhara, too.

Mizuhara reportedly transferred weekly $500,000 payments into the account of an associate of Mathew Boyer, who is also under federal investigation. That associate then transferred the money into accounts with Resorts World, a Las Vegas casino, and Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California. The scandal is reportedly part of a much larger operation in which 12 people have already been charged and convicted and multiple casinos have paid fines.

The associate in question, according to ESPN, was Ryan Boyajian, who is a cast member of "The Real Housewives of Orange County." Scott Sibella, the former president of Resorts World and MGM Grand, is set to be sentenced in federal court Wednesday in Los Angeles, too, after he pleaded guilty in connection with another sports gambling charge.

Ohtani has denied knowing anything about the scandal and said he learned about it when everyone else did. Major League Baseball has released a statement recognizing that authorities view Ohtani as a victim in all of this. Ohtani, one of the best hitters in baseball so far this season, is continuing to play with the Dodgers in the wake of the scandal.

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Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, agrees to plead guilty to 2 charges in gambling scandal - Yahoo Sports

Theres no greater testament to the emotional premium of watching live sports as they happen than the fact that ESPN, the biggest sports media enterprise in human history, continues to operate at least somewhat like it did in the past even as the rest of television struggles to find its way forward. As other television networks flail and sweat, ESPN goes on showing games and padding them with advertisements, to highly profitable effect. Its an efficient, diversified business that nets a ton of passive engagement and which can be maintained for comparatively little money; their streaming service, ESPN+, is profitable, for Christ's sake, and those things are never profitable!

This is why it seemed so strange, late last year, when ESPNs corporate parent, Disney, reportedly looked into selling the network. A media conglomerate was once a series of diversified interests, operating on vertically integrated channels that afforded access to the places people consume mediamovie theaters, broadcast networks, cable channels, retail outlets. These concerns made stuff, sold it or put ads in it or both, profited, and then held the money in the air while everyone cheered. Tech has altered this, as both a matter of distribution and one of return on investment.

A profitable company is not necessarily seen as a successful company anymore, because a companys value in the eyes of investors is no longer based on profit. It is based on the perception that the company will be more profitable in the future, which drives speculative valuation, which in turn creates more value for an investor than the piddly five-year projection type value that normal investors have to settle for. The modern media corporation is effectively a hedge funda collection of speculative assets that are expected to grow and grow, year after year. And to feed the dream of fully scalable infinite expansion, in every direction, forever, even a good business like ESPN needs to find new revenue streams.

A popular family streaming service, for example, might not be profitable, but it can sell itself to investors as a future utilitysomething all parents will someday need to have, and so also a money printer that will never run out of ink. The entire sports industry is captive to this pursuit, and to the investor-class fantasy of endless, boundless growth. The model they have landed on is selling you cigarettes through your phone. The ESPN Bet app launched in 17 states in November of 2023.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (DSM-V), represents broad psychiatric consensus on what does and does not constitute a mental disorder in human beings. For the most part, that consensus has pooh-poohed the idea of behavioral addictions. There is no official addictive statute for sex and love, or internet use, or shopping, or compulsive eating. Cultural consensus might see these things as addictive in a portion of the population, but science isnt yet ready to make that call.

The one exception to this is gambling, which the DSM-V does recognize. About 1 percent of Americans have a gambling disorder; the consequences of problem gambling are terrible, doubly so in a country with a dogshit social safety net. Problem gambling devours time and money, alienates people from their family and friends, and creates debts that can take a lifetime to repair, even after seeking treatment. A study from 2019 found that problem gamblers commit suicide at 15 times the rate of the general population.

Addiction by Design, the sociologist Natasha Dow Schlls apocalyptic treatise on machine gambling addicts living in Las Vegas, is among other things a study of how gambling addiction can wreck a persons internal reward systems. As you get further and further down the hole, Schll writes, the rewards from winning become smaller, and are replaced instead by a compulsive pursuit of more risk, followed by a sunken, numbed out state where you abandon personal affect and are absorbed into the machines demands.

What makes someone susceptible? Problem gambling is higher in men and boys and people with other kinds of addiction problems. Much of it appears to stem from neurological quirks; people with Parkinsons, for instance, are notably susceptible. Of course, if even the most susceptible persons lifestyle doesnt facilitate the hobby, this would all be moot. That is why gambling companies have worked so hard and spent so much to make gambling so hard to avoid, because there is a lot of money to be made off people with this itch.

It is both factual and not quite the whole story that the Supreme Courts 2018 ruling in Murphy v. NCAA was the starting pistol for the ubiquity of sports gambling as it exists in this moment. That ruling held that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, a 1992 law that kept states from legalizing sports gambling in their borders, was unconstitutional, and let sports gambling apps get busy in state legislatures and on ballot initiatives; they have since managed to set up shop in 30 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Sports gambling and its various nasty knock-on effects had haunted American sports since the Black Sox scandal of 1919. After Arnold Rothstein and the mob fixed the World Series, sports leagues distanced themselves from gambling in the name of the integrity of the game. For a long time, sports betting was shady, the stuff of Vegas sports books and various friendly neighborhood proprietors.

There was always a lot of money jammed into that little niche. It was leaking out before PASPA was struck down; the internet mainstreamed talkers and writers who spoke openly about lines and wagers. Some of these talkers even ended up at ESPN, even though this talk was once anathema to anyone trying to be a league partner. Illegal offshore books made betting from home easier than ever before, but not as easy as it would soon become. But after Murphy, entities like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and BetESPN were suddenly free to go get it, and to expand the pool of suckers to draw on. The products they sell cross the natural rush of gambling, the social buzz of sports discourse, and the smooth ease of use of app design. Weve basically created a dynamic ever-changing casino in our pockets, said Dr. Tim Fong, the director of the UCLA Gambling Studies program, and an addiction treatment psychiatrist.

Some of the things these apps do are dumb, but easymaking it easier to put money in your account than take it out, for instance. Others are no less shady but are leveraged on other load-bearing human frailties; available bets and lines update constantly, for instance, using algorithms to adjust on the fly, which lets the apps function like an old-school Twitter feed. Its a second screen experience that moves alongside the game, which keeps bettors passive attention on the machine, and all those new opportunities to bet. I now have patients who have never set foot inside a casino in their entire lives, Fong said. The only gambling theyve ever known is on the phone, the only gambling theyve ever known is on the internet.

Standard treatment for addiction involves working with people to avoid triggering environments. A casino on the drive home, for instance, might require a gambling addict to take another route. Most states require casinos to keep a Do Not Play list, banning anyone who comes in and confesses to a problem from the grounds. (Anyone who exhibits problem gambling tendencies but doesnt ask for help will get an occasional wellness check and a steady stream of free drinks. Its a predatory industry.)

The existence of a legal pocket casino that never closes makes this more difficult. If I say to you, Corbin: you gotta get rid of your phone, you gotta get rid of your access to the internet, youre gonna say, thats not treatment, its punishment, Dr. Fong told me. Its the same thing as saying Get rid of running water, get rid of electricity. That would make no sense in the modern day. There are no federal regulations concerning problem gamblers on these apps, and state enforcement varies wildly. The companies, for their part, are feasting on whale meat. Per the Wall Street Journal, 0.5 percent of the customers at PointsBet, an online book owned by Fanatics, generated more than 70 percent of the companys revenue in 2019 and 2020. Those users were treated to free credit, and special privileges up to and including Steelers tickets. The companies are only required to ask if a user is gambling outside their means if the gambler uses certain trigger phrases, such as asking a customer service representative for a line of credit. All of these companies are held accountable by state legislatures, which are, if were being nice, highly vulnerable to regulatory capture by large companies and their little armies of lobbyists.

Online gambling addicts dont have the casino industry helping you with recovery, said Dr. Fong. Things like self-exclusion programs, responsible gambling programs, with humans inside the casino, theyre designed to help people. [Online] you dont have that. Voluntary self-exclusion programs, in which a problem gambler requests a ban, are imperfect tools in the best of circumstances. The internet, where concealing ones identity is a simple matter for anyone with moderate computer literacy, is not that.

Recovery now has to be fought every minute of the day, Fong went on. In the past it was, Only when youre driving past the casino, when youre inside the casino, is when youre super vulnerable. Now, youre vulnerable at all times.

Fong quickly moved to temper that assessment. That also means that theres also an opportunity, every minute of the day, to do something positive. It isnt just Youre living in a world where theres a constant threat. Youre also living in a world where theres an opportunity for something good. Thats what were focusing on, which is very different from years past.

His hope is that these companies and the government might take all this more seriously, and look to head off addictive behavior. One particular fix stood out to him: Id like to see them do better [to keep people] under the age of 21 from accessing their product. Kids, with their shitty undeveloped sense of risk and plastic mental state, are far more vulnerable than adults; gambling addiction in children tends to trail into adulthood. Apps will claim they dont allow kids under 21 on their websites, but youre not stupid and neither are kids, who can easily figure out how to lie on the internet or use a VPN.

I recently spoke to Keith OBrien, the author of Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, for another story I was working on. The book paints Rose as a classic gambling addict, a terrible picker who didnt play for money so much as he played for the rush that accompanies risk. Rose was primed for addiction from a very young age. He was also exposed to the practice at a very young age. Gambling was a part of the culture that Pete Rose grew up in, OBrien said. He lived in a home on the west side of town near the banks of the Ohio River, and just down the hill from his house was a little tavern where men were known to gamble. Kids sometimes gambled, playing games outside that tavern. Roses father, Big Pete, was a devoted presence at his sons baseball games, but also regularly brought his son with him to the horse races in Cincinnati. When you ask Pete about what some of his fondest memories of childhood were, its hanging out at the racetrack with his dad, and cheering on whatever horse his father had bet on in that race, OBrien said. Whatever you could say about Big Petes parenting abilities, he did a really great job flipping the right switches in his young sons brain.

Nowadays, the job of the miserable patriarch exposing you to addictive behavior that can ruin your life is performed by gambling apps and their little army of advertisers; you can find them on TV, podcasts, and billboards in stadiums. The entire sports landscape has been transformed into an advertisement for gambling, and advertisements for gambling inevitably turn a vulnerable portion of the population into problem gamblers.

Theyre supposed to follow laws set by each state, said Fong, but I dont see a lot of enforcement of those laws. When all the advertising is unchecked, unregulated, and we have very little idea of what this advertising is doing to people, I think thats a concern. Tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, they all have very sharp rules about advertising. I dont see ads on ESPN about Raw Garden or Stizzy or KIVA Chocolates, right? What gambling sites offer instead are caveats in tiny type, or read in hurried voiceover. When you put the helpline number in an unintelligible message that no one can see or hear or understand, that is not effective prevention advertising in my book, Fong said.

If you are even a passive consumer of sports media, you know about the role that sports gambling advertising partnerships have taken in the industrys future plans for expansion. Interest in gambling drives interest in sports; an audience already interested in sports will see, alongside ESPN+ programming, random European basketball games, Southeast Asian cricket matches, and various college football games, dozens of things on which they could bet at all hours of the day; leagues, teams, and media companies have official partnerships with gaming concerns. Fears about gamblers influencing players or the tawdry world of gambling making a notionally wholesome sports product inaccessible to children have been kicked down the trash chute. Gamblings relationship to pro sports is historical and habitual, yes. But the leagues creating a product that depends on gambling for its very existence is new.

Last year, Mark Cuban sold a majority portion of the Mavericks to the Adelson family, who are the owners of the Sands Casino and some of the worst people in America. The play was not just a cash-flow move for a leveraged billionaire. It was part of a new vision for the Dallas Mavericks, one in which the teams new home arenatheyre angling for one nowis inextricable from a casino, where sports betting and watching the game were happily cuddled up together. Cuban made the sale because he thinks the Sands Corporations involvement will make his remaining chunk of the team that much more valuable; the idea, there, is that the new world of sports gambling will make owners rich in more or less the way that tech IPOs made people rich.

If you are a sportswriter or a fan, and your point of view is fixed on the stuff of sports, the winning and the losing and the roster construction, a neverending barrage of threats to outcomes might seem unbearably chaotic to you, an untenable state of affairs. Such a person can look at the torrent of speculation surrounding Shohei Ohtanis gambling interpreter, or the tragicomic Jontay Porter gambling and ban in the NBA, and taste the future. Team owners, though, are capitalists, the most rapacious and valuation-oriented group ever to dump their money into the pocket of a 20-year-old, and as such have different interests and concerns. There is no reason to believe that even a steady stream of scandals would deter them until or unless it threatened their profitability. The safer option is to enforce the rules to the best of your abilities, act shocked and offended when the public expresses suspicion about the vagaries that plague the league, and keep the revenue pumping. Play it right, and the extra suspicion that clouds peoples perceptions will just give the audience another fun variable to speculate about.

But this shit is not consequence-free. Apps have no incentive to prevent addiction, and gambling addiction fucks people up. If it fucks enough people up bad enough, the gambling app economy could become something more akin to a public health crisis; if the federal government (finally, belatedly) comes calling on that front, how will a sports industry increasingly reliant on all those partnerships and gambling revenue respond?

There is a way to make money, or at least not lose money, gambling on sports, and people who do it. That work involves crunching numbers, diversifying risk, seeking out small inefficiencies; it is, more or less, a job. A friend I spoke to for the story made a bunch of money betting the under on steals for various defense-deficient NBA guards. Its not glamorous, its not juicy, it provides no mondo paydays. Its barely fun at all. Again: its work.

Sports gambling apps do not want people to gamble like that. What they want bettors to do is put money on parlays. Apps push them in that direction constantly, even offering no-risk parlays to whet a prospective gamblers appetite for the harder stuff. When I mentioned slot machine gambling to Dr. Fong, he immediately mentioned the same-game parlay. Its an inevitable winner for casinos that also looks and feels good for the casual gambler.

In Addiction by Design, Schll talks to slot machine designers about the process of making an effective slot machine. (Theyre all from Australia, for some reason.) They tell her that its mostly a matter of feelingfinding a way to build in enough winning to maintain hope in the player, but also enough losing to make it profitable for the casino. Its pretty nauseating; reading about otherwise sane people succumbing to sophisticated Skinner Boxes is dispiriting, and terrifying.

Here is one way that could all look: You watch a game with the app open. It gives you a personalized stream of quick, ever-changing, algorithmically generated bets. It also tracks what you will bet on and what you wont, and then adjusts to create something akin to a personalized slot machine; the idea is to create an experience that feels good to you. If you are even a little bit inclined toward problem gambling, this will bury itself deep, and it will take your money; it will all be, as it currently is in 30 states, legal. And you can play like this until the government or a medical professional intervenes, or doesnt. Everyone with any skin in the gameevery business interest that sees its fans as a renewable resourcewants that to exist.

Whatever form the product takes, there is clarity in the near future. The sports and internet sportsbook industries are determined to cultivate and profit not just from gambling but from gambling addictions; thats where the money is. Sooner or later, if history is any guide, society will come to regard this as a public health concern. The clamps will come out and there will be some attempt to regulate the space into something approaching responsibility. Whenever it happens, it will be too late for a lot of people. How the sports industry will react when its dream of the new cigarette is extinguished seems, in contrast, kind of insignificant.

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Sports Is Betting It All On Gambling - Defector

Some people like to sweat out a bet for 9 hard innings others like immediate satisfaction. Count us as being in the latter, which is why we like to get down with MLB NRFI and YRFI picks. And weve decided to pass that knowledge on to you with our NRFI bets for May 11. Go here for MLB World Series odds.

Of course, there are plenty out there taking blind guesses at this stuff. Its easy to pick the best hitting team or look at what happened in the last game. However, we spent the time pouring through the analytics to make sure that we give you the best odds to stay in the green on these NRFI and YRFI props for May 11. Come check out what we have cooked up for this slate of games.

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First Pitch 4:10 pm EST Fenway Park Boston, Massachusetts Broadcast NESN

I love an NRFI play with only one side to worry about. In this Saturday contest, I dont have to worry about the Nationals scoring at all. Firstly, theyre the worst team in the majors in terms of first inning runs just 0.25 per game. Theyre a bit higher up for the full game, but they take a bit to get going. Hurting their chances is Cooper Criswell and his 1.74 ERA. Hes been solid for the Sox and all hell need to be is decent to shut down the Nationals early.

On the other side, I think the Nationals can keep the Red Sox at bay over the first inning. Jake Irvin has been decent for the Nationals. Hes allowed two or less earned runs in three of his last four games. The Red Sox havent been hot early in games either. They have no runs in the first inning in any of the last five games. Plus, theyre in the bottom half of the league in scoring in general so give me that NRFI for this one.

NRFI/YRFI Bet for May 11: No (-130)

First Pitch 9:38 pm EST Angel Stadium Anaheim, California Broadcast MLB TV

Kansas City might be one of the best teams in the majors in terms of scoring in the first inning (currently 5th at 0.69 per game), but they face a good arm in Tyler Anderson. Anderson has a 2.74 ERA on the year and its a touch lower when hes at home. Hes also only allowed more than three earned runs one time this year (seven starts).

On the other side of things, the Angels havent been all that strong this year on offense. They are 19th in the league in runs per game and 19th in first inning runs as well. Theyll face the live-arm of Cole Ragans. While his scoring numbers are a bit worse than Anderson, the strikeouts are out of control. The Angels are in the bottom third of the league in strikeouts, which should help this NRFI stay in play.

NRFI/YRFI Bet for May 11: No (-130)

If youd like even more info to help make your NRFI picks for May 11, check out the MLB Gambling Podcast. Theyre dropping episodes five days a week to make you the smartest guy/gal at the bar with their MLB picks today.

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MLB NRFI and YRFI Picks - May 11 - SGPN

Just one day after former Los Angeles Dodgers translator Ippei Mizuhara pled guilty to stealing millions from Dodgers designated hitter and pitcher Shohei Ohtani, the two men's stories are headed for the small screen.

Former Sports Illustrated senior editor Albert Chen and Station Eleven producer Scott Delman will produce a scripted drama for Lionsgate Television about the affair, they told Hollywood publications in a statement Thursday.

This is Major League Baseballs biggest sports gambling scandal since Pete Roseand at its center is its biggest star, one that MLB has hitched its wagon on. Well get to the heart of the storya story of trust, betrayal and the trappings of wealth and fame," Chen said in a statement.

Mizuhara's theft of $17 million from Ohtani's bank account to finance a gambling habitto which he pled guilty Wednesdayhas dominated headlines since the start of the MLB season.

Ohtani has continued to thrive in the first year of his 10-year, $700 million pact with Los Angeles. The two-time American League MVP currently leads the majors in batting average (.355), slugging percentage (.678), hits (54), total bases (103) and doubles (14).

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TV Series About Shohei Ohtani Interpreter's Gambling Scandal in Development - Sports Illustrated