Sports Betting Opponents Try Mopping Water Off Legalized Gambling Beachhead
Photo by Sarah Stierch via Flickr. Chropped to 2:1 ratio fit. CC BY 2.0 DEED
It is a real shame Sisyphus was punished by ancient Greek mythology to rolling that boulder almost to the top of the hill every day in Hades for all eternity. That poor guy would have totally had it made in anti-gambling advocacy these days as an expert in perpetual futility.
With the bonkers story of Los Angeles Dodger superstar Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter being fired and investigated for allegedly swindling millions of dollars from his charge to pay gambling debts, timed with the start of the NCAA basketball tournament which is one of the biggest betting events in America, some anti-sports gambling folks think they have themselves a moment to roll back sports betting.
They are fooling themselves.
Since the Supreme Court ruling in 2018 that struck down federal bans on state authorized sports betting, what always has been going on in the shadows has exploded into a $10 billion industry and cultural phenomenon. The National Football League, the behemoth of American sports, has data now on the growing audience for professional football watching even bad games to the end coinciding with the legalization of betting. The wink-wink nudge-nudge “office pools” of definitely not gambling but throwing your money in to win more money March Madness stuff can now be done on an app on your phone. No longer confined to the massive sports books in Vegas casinos, folks can bet on anything from major sports teams to hot dog eating contests in the palm of their hand in an ever-growing list of states.
Ever since that SCOTUS ruling, states have had to individually set their laws, and to date 38 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing some form of sports betting, 29 of those allowing it online. Not counted in those states is California, Georgia, and Texas, which as Forbes points out are “large potential markets for the online betting industry – but so far they have fallen short. California and Texas combined account for nearly 21% of the U.S. population. Regarding population, the largest legal sports betting market is New York.”
By some estimates one in five Americans have placed a wager on some type of sport. Most folks who follow such things expect that number to grow.
In short, there will be no un-ringing the bell that launched legalize sports gambling in America. Even if something like the Ohtani situation exploded into a full-blown Pete Rose situation, and there is no evidence right now that is the case, the truth is media commentators and sports talking heads will care about it much more than the average person does who might throw a few dollars down on a Dodger game or basketball tournament flier without really knowing the ins and outs of gambling.
In a plot twist, two of the new giants in online sports betting, DraftKings and FanDuel, sense some of this opposition but are using it to their own advantage. Both companies first found footing as online fantasy sports outfits before moving into online sportsbooks and are now using the same playbook ran against them for years to try and edge out the competition that is coming behind them.
From Reason:
Years ago, brick-and-mortar casinos lobbied to ban online fantasy sports, viewing them as a direct threat to their businesses, similar to how online retailers challenge big-box stores. But now, the Sports Betting Alliance is using the same legal playbook that once threatened its operations against its smaller competitors.
Predatory lobbying is the ugliest form of what business experts call “nonmarket strategy”—trying to gain market advantage outside of market mechanisms. Businesses naturally dislike competition; most businesses would prefer to be a monopoly, even if it means stifling innovation and consumer choice. More competition, after all, means lower market share, revenue, and prices. Often, CEOs know that the best way to compete is not to compete at all, but instead get the government to outlaw competition. They will advocate for regulations or taxes under the guise of public interest when, in fact, they aim to benefit themselves.
State-imposed bans on online fantasy sports betting will not eliminate these games. Instead, they will ensure that companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings enjoy a duopoly on online sports betting in the United States. When states prohibit competition, they only funnel consumer spending toward industry giants. They are being played for suckers.
So, what is the next play for folks who don’t like legalized sports betting in America, who are clearly the minority of folks?
Usually what happens when folks can’t get what they want is they change gears and demand the government “DO SOMETHING” about whatever tickle they have in their teacup. Some of the folks who helped fight – and by fight we mean profit greatly from – bringing down big tobacco have set their sights on the gambling industry through legislation, specifically the speed and information processes that online gambling not only unitizes but requires to process thousands of bets per second. Others are working at using another tool of governmental persuasion, taxation, to affect changes in online sports gambling.
Another approach targets folks more on the cultural angle of sports betting, calling for reigning in increasing barrage of gambling advertisements. About the time the US Supreme Court was opening the floodgates of gambling and gambling advertising in America, Italy’s “Decreto Dignità (Dignity Decree) prohibited all TV, radio, press and internet gambling marketing” in that sport mad country. While a full-on advertising ban is not unheard of—cigarette ads on tv and radio were banned in America in 1971– such a move would doubtless have to wind its way through the court system on 2nd Amendment grounds. Still, the NFL makes a point to limit and regulate gambling advertisements during games, and there could be pressure on other sports leagues to do the same. Doubtless someone will also try to regulate such things legislatively.
Then again, maybe that cigarette and big tobacco model of advocacy-lawfare-settlement money is the one to watch for. Someone will no doubt start pushing that gambling is a public health threat just like big tobacco was, with all the lawsuits, lobbying, and so forth to go with it. The problem is, the more gambling – sports betting and otherwise – is widespread, legitimate, and mainstream, the less shenanigans around it. While there are inarguably downsides to gambling with folks who can’t self-regulate and self-control financially or emotionally, any type of prohibition movement would just drive them back into the shadows, not eliminate the problems that started within before being exposed outwardly by the vice of gambling.
Folks point to the Pete Rose hot mess of being banned from baseball for betting on games while participating in the games in 1989. Fair enough, but a lot has changed since 1989. Since the NFL has embraced gambling, it has swung a very heavy hammer against any player found to be betting on football. With more and more eyes on the games, the idea of rigging anything and getting away with it is ridiculously small. Legalizing gambling also incentives leagues and everyone else involved not to kill the multi-billion-dollar golden goose with some stupid scheme that would stop people from actively throwing money at them.
Even in that there is a lesson from the Pete Rose saga. Rose was initially banned from baseball for gambling, but he was kept out of baseball for being a contemptible jackass to just about everyone and anyone involved in trying to redeem him back into the game and publics good graces. Look for the companies and leagues to work to make sports gambling as inviting and friendly looking as possible. Look for opponents to nibble around the edges on things like advertising and public health worries about addition. But mostly look for the money to keep flowing, because sports betting is not only here to stay, but is going to become the eternal companion of consuming and being involved in sports in America for a whole lot of the sports fan public.
Playing the odds, mostly losing, trying again anyway, day after day. Maybe Sisyphus is the perfect spokesman for online sports betting after all. The folks who think sports betting is going to not be popular certainly will find themselves forever rolling a rock up an unscalable hill. Whatever Sisyphus’s tagline for the commercial would be, it has got to be better than those DraftKings and FanDuel ads.
Nobody could possibly like those just for the sake of liking them, degenerate gamblers or not. Right?
I’m a fan of sports gambling but I do have issues with how the industry is running right now, including:
– such an intense focus on gambling-related storylines; I once saw the ESPN bottom line show a hockey final of 7-1 and the only not mentioned that the O/U was 7.5 and the final goal was scored with less than a second. Really? That’s the only interesting thing that happened?
– Predatory marketing, particularly in the form of “bonus offers” that have insane rules that are almost impossible to understand. “Get $1000 free! With a 10X play through requirement. And every dollar played only counts at 10%. Unless you play these common games… then it doesn’t count at all.”
– And connecting these two, the advertising exposure to young people.
I think adults should be free to gamble legally, on sports and other things. And I think any gambler who thinks they have an edge deserves what they get. But I do think the above three issues cause real problems, ranging from negative impacts on fan enjoyment (less of a concern) to manipulative business practices aimed at vulnerable people (more of a concern).
I don’t know what the solution is but as someone who supports sports gambling, it is not without real costs (beyond just wins and losses).Report
I’m in a similar place on this. I never thought making gambling totally illegal outside of a town in the desert and a town in the state that is the desert of culture and human decency made sense. However I worry about the predatory aspect of this and the removal of all friction in the process via online apps. It’s a recipe for big business to take gazillions to the bank on the back of human misery.
Back when I was in college there were starting to be these legal grey area websites where you could gamble on games of virtual poker. Texas Hold Em was becoming a fad, and you’d periodically hear stories about people getting black out drunk then losing huge sums in their dorm room or frat house. Now these were college kids, and I’m not sure how collections would work (if at all) in the legal environment. My guess is worst thing that happened was people maxing out credit cards. However I think of that phenomena, legalized, with all the gimmicks, and put in every person’s pocket and get a really bad feeling in my stomach.
Anyway, it’s one thing to say we’re no longer going to treat all wagering as a crime. It’s another to say we’re going to give big business a complete free for all, open season on people. I think the latter is the path we’re on and that it’s going to get way worse before it gets better.Report
I have similar issues, but I come at it in a very different way.
When I participate in an office pool based on March Madness, it’s social. It’s something to talk about with the other employees. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s enough to get your attention.
That’s something I might participate in.
When it’s some app on my phone, I want nothing to do with it. When it’s a social thing, there is some structure that regulates ones behavior. Nobody else is throwing down big bucks on the pool, and you would look strange if you tried to, for instance.
Like so many other things in the digital space, what they are looking for is addicts. Find them, or create them, because that’s how they make money.Report
Yea, I think there’s a real distinction to the purpose of the money. In a friendly card game the point (hopefully) isn’t to try to rob your friends and neighbors blind, it’s just to force everyone to play the game with a minimal level of seriousness. In the fantasy football leagues I am in, the buy in does serve to make a nice little pot for prizes, but the point is to give people an incentive to participate in the draft and actually maintain their lineups so the match ups are all contested. It’s similar with office march madness pools.
That’s all fundamentally different than bombardment with advertising, confusing gimmicks and stakes that most people don’t get, and algorithms and ticklers unleashed in peoples phones, all to the ends of encouraging people to spend spend spend.Report
I have done the Superbowl Squares thing at work. Put five bucks in the kitty, get a square. Here’s a $20. Can I have the corners? Oh, they were taken? Well, I’ll take these four, then. I put $10 down for March Madness and did my bracket and was mathematically eliminated halfway through the first day.
$30/year is fine, though. That’s a half dozen fun conversations talking about the myriad ways to get a 9-0 score by the end of the 1st quarter or why we should have expected Oakland to beat Kentucky. (“Oakland has a *LOT* more recreational basketball players than Kentucky does.” “It’s Oakland, Michigan. Not Oakland, California.” “It is?” “It is.”)
I very much dislike the opacity of sports gambling as it seems to exist. “I’ve got $110 on Green Bay and the line is only 4.5 points (-110)!”
And then you hammer out what -110 means, the difference between 4.5 points and a touchdown or a field goal, and how easy it is to bet $X+N to win $X but what exactly goes into betting $X for a shot at winning $X+N.
And, yeah, buying a couple of squares for a superbowl party is fun. Buying a bracket is fun. $30 a year? I spend more than that on shredded cheese in any given month. But having Paige Spiranac explain to me that I can bet during a game four times during any given episode of Raw tells me that there is at least enough money in sports gambling to purchase four commercials during Raw. And learning more about lines and the numbers in the parentheses gets me to say that, yeah, whatever this is… this ain’t buying a square.Report
I enjoy a friendly wager or card game here and there. I also play fantasy football every year in a league with college friends + spouses, and will buy a mega millions or whatever when the jackpot gets so big they’re talking about it on the news.
However there’s really only one thing people need to remember about all these apps, casinos and other companies. And that’s that they would not exist if people were winning.Report
“Well, hon, it’s in your ass now, so, complaining about it is merely an exercise in futility. I suggest you stop fooling yourself. Clearly you’re in the minority here. What are you going to do, demand the government do something about this?”Report
“well what do YOU think we ought to do”
Well, when was the last time you saw an ad for cigarettes on TV?Report
I remember reading old MAD magazine articles that talked about basketball point shaving. Okay, I googled it. It was from “The MAD College Primer” from #78 which was April 1963.
Anyway, I bring that up to mention this:
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The MLB investigation into Shohei Ohtani’s possible involvement with gambling is sponsored by DraftKings. DraftKings is the official online betting sponsor of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the National League! Use promo code “ITWASJUSTTHEINTERPRETER” to get a bonus of $15 in credits for your next baseball prop! Go to DraftKings.com for up to the minute updates on the Ohtani investigation and all your sports news!Report