Against the Lines
Sports gambling and the death of podcasts
I’m not entirely sure when I started listening to podcasts on a regular basis— somewhere around 2016 or 2017, I think— but the Bill Simmons pod was a pretty early addition to my regular list. He’s pretty close to my age, and there’s significant overlap between the pop culture he talks about and the kinds of things I like. More importantly, he relies a lot on a cast of recurring guests, most of whose appearances are built around a kind of bantering I find congenial. (Not always— there are a couple of regulars who I find pretty hard to take— but enough to be enjoyable.) I’ve especially enjoyed his regular NBA-focused shows with Ryen Russillo and the weekly “Guess the Lines” episodes with “Cousin” Sal Iacono, where they recap the results for the week and forecast the following week through the device of trying to predict betting lines. (Though the real highlight is usually the “Parent Corner” section about dumb things done by their kids, who are close in age to mine…)
Recently, though, my listening has really fallen off a cliff. This is a fairly general phenomenon— I’m spending less time these days doing things that work well with podcasts as accompaniment— but has hit Simmons particularly hard. Some of this is that I’m paying more attention to baseball these days, which he doesn’t really cover in years when the Red Sox are bad, so my “sports podcast” niche has been taken over by Talkin’ Yanks and the Baseball Bar-B-Cast, for at least a couple more weeks. But a lot of it is just that I find myself becoming more and more squeamish about sports betting content.
There have been endless thinkpieces written about the rise of sports betting in the wake of the Supreme Court decision clearing the way for gambling nationwide, and every form of sports content now seems to be sponsored by at least one gambling site. This sometimes takes on a really bleak irony, as when commentary about the recent death of Pete Rose, who was (in)famously banned from baseball for betting on the game, is awkwardly interrupted by ad reads for whatever sports book is sponsoring the show. To say nothing of news about current players running afoul of their leagues and the law for dumb wagers of the exact types that are promoted on the show. Going from these stories to “Make a same-game parlay bet in the next twenty minutes and get $500 in free credit!” is a real “What are we even doing, here?” kind of moment.
More importantly, though, there’s a bunch of recent research showing that the impacts of sports gambling are… not great, Bob. In particular, there’s a recent study whose official release is headlined “Legalized Gambling Increases Irresponsible Betting Behavior, Especially Among Low-Income Populations.” The data suggest that states that have legalized betting see significant negative effects on credit scores and bankruptcies, and general financial health.
Simmons has always been heavy on the gambling content— the “Guess the Lines” shtick goes back close to 20 years— but given that he and his cast of usual suspects are mostly rich guys, that’s always seemed harmlessly entertaining. Post-legalization, though, the gambling content has expanded to a ridiculous extent, to the point where nearly everything has a betting angle. And often the most reprehensible sorts of betting angles— talking up wild multi-leg parlay bets that link together multiple events. These offer an increased payout but significantly decrease the chances of winning— one of the very first things you learn about probability theory is that the probability of two things both happening is always lower than either of them individually— in a way that’s almost completely opaque, making it nearly impossible to say whether the increased payout comes close to offsetting the decreased odds. (Tip: The fact that every sports book in the business works so very hard pushing this class of bets tells you most of what you need to know about that question as a general matter…)
I am not, by nature, much of a gambler— there’s a casino maybe a mile from where I’m sitting, and I’ve never set foot inside. If I’m in Las Vegas anyway, I’ll throw a few bucks at video poker, or budget some cash to lose at blackjack, but that’s about it. I’ve never particularly wanted to bet money on sports— the effect that the outcomes of silly games have on my general mood is already a little excessive, I don’t need it hitting me in the balance sheet as well. But my general attitude has always been kind of laissez-faire— “If it makes you happy, have at it…”
In the last few years, though, the sheer level of gambling content has gotten to the point of being oppressively tedious. I’m interested in sports because I like the games themselves, not because I care about the minutiae of point spreads and parlays and teasers, but I’m getting more and more of the latter. And the more I learn about the impact of the industry, the more gross it all seems. Simmons and Iacono bantering about the games is still entertaining (though I find their love of Cris Collinsworth’s commentary more than a little baffling), but every time they go to an ad break, I feel a little dirty. As a result, there are a couple of weeks’ worth of episodes piled up that I haven’t listened to, and I’m not sure I ever will.
It hasn’t quite gotten to the games themselves yet, but I worry that it’s only a matter of time— there are already betting lines in the score crawls on most of the networks carrying live sports. I fear it’s only going to get worse, particularly as broadcasters like ESPN launch their own gambling services, and have even more incentive to promote sketchy odds to their viewers. I don’t like where this whole thing seems headed, but it all has a kind of sad inevitability that makes it even more depressing than just losing interest in a former favorite show.
That’s some “Old Man Yells at Cloud” content for the end of your week. If for some reason you want more of this, here’s a button:
And if you want to argue about this, the comments will be open:
(But please don’t use this space to promote ridiculous multi-leg parlay bets…)
I feel the same way about gambling's new dominance of sports.
The only times I ever thought about gambling on sports was way back when I still had a rooting interest in certain teams. I would sometimes ask myself, "How much would you pay to have {team} win?" And then I'd think about trying to get a bet down on {team} to lose. I figured, win either way, or at least, get a consolation prize.
I can't remember whether I never actually got such a bet down, or did it once, and was unhappy with the result (whichever the result was).
Might just be a fad. I feel like maybe a decade ago sports broadcasts were filled with fantasy league content, but that seems to have mostly died down.