Podcasts posts

More from Michael Lewis' podcast, “Against the Rules,” whose fifth season is all about how sports betting became the multibillion-dollar business it is.

That began with New Jersey trying to overturn a federal law that one of its own senators, Bill Bradley, wrote and enacted in the early 1990s. Jersey harnessed the power of Ted Olson (RIP), and he and his Federal Society buddies, including those on the bench, overturned the law in 2018. And the floodgates opened.

They didn't open uniformly. It's state to state—legal in 38 of the 50. And they're not open uniformly to just anyone in those 38 states, either. These companies want to maximize profit, of course. And how do they do that? By minimizing the amount that smart gamblers can bet and maximizing the bets of the stupid. The stupid even get VIP treatment. They get a “host,” who invites them to events, concerts, what have you. 

Lewis talks to a sports gambler he names Rufus, who uses “mules” to place bets for him, since he's limited in how much he can bet. But he has to be careful with the mules, too. They can't keep making smart bets—bets that after they're placed, the odds move in their favor. Stuff algorithms would flag. He has to mix it up. He has to lose in order to win. 

“The gambling companies,” Lewis says, “treat Rufus as a kind of cheater, a card counter at the blackjack table. But I don't think of him that way. He's actually figured out stuff about sports—about why things happen in sports—that other people don't know. He's more like a smart stock market investor. He knows better than the market knows, the right price for some bet. And what kind of market refuses to let the smartest people in? This market, it turns out.”

But it's worse than that. “In theory,” Lewis says, “these new companies are required to flag people with gambling problems and limit them, guide them to shrinks who can help them, and end the cycle of misery caused by gambling addiction. In practice, it seems, not so much.”

He talks to another sports gambler, whom he dubs Beckett, who, rather than using mules, creates different personas for himself and gambles that way. Same deal, though. He has to lose in order to win. 

I was developing my character as a very frustrated, losing gambler, who'd keep throwing money in. One day, I sent this host a flurry of messages after some really heavy losses, you know, over the previous few days. I sent message after message and the host called me absolutely exasperated and said, "Hey man, look, look, look, I know you're really frustrated. I'm sorry you lost. Don't worry, I'm going to take care of you. But please, please do not put messages like that in writing. Compliance might see it. They might get worried. They might have to close your account and you know we don't want that to happen. So just call me next time. Don't put it in writing. And hey, I'll give you 40 percent on your next deposit.

Then we get this exchange:

Lewis: It's unbelievable.
Beckett: It's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting.
Lewis: How important to those companies do you think the addict is?
Beckett: Incredibly important.

In a serious country, this might be dealt with seriously. But we haven't been a serious country for a while.

Anyway you should listen to Michael Lewis' podcast. Totally worth it. 

The other day I was telling my wife about the latest season of Michael Lewis' podcast “Against the Rules.” If you're wondering why there's so many ads and nonstop blather about sports betting as you're watching a sports event, well, this answers it. Blame New Jersey, Ted Olson (RIP), and the John Robert Supreme Court. In Murphy v. NCAA (2018), with Olson arguing for the bad guys in front of several of his Federalist Society club members, the court overturned an earlier Sen. Bill Bradley law that prevented most sports betting in the country, and the floodgates opened.

Here's the question I asked my wife. The year before that decision, in 2017, legal sports bookies generated $300 million in revenue in this country. What was that figure in 2023?

“I don't know,” she said. “A billion?”

“Wait, you think it tripled in five years?”

“Well, I don't --”

“It's $11 billion.”

And of the two big sports betting companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, that were already in place? Lewis says, “It's as if when Prohibition ended, there were these two massive liquor companies sitting there with databases on individual Americans and their taste for alcohol. And the government ordered them to go wave a glass of whiskey under the nose of every alcoholic to persuade as many as possible to start drinking again.”

All of this is from Episode 4: “A Hard Way to Make an Easy Living.” Not pretty, much recommended.