Should athletes be allowed to bet on themselves?

Summary

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NO SUCH THING – "Should athletes be allowed to bet on themselves?" (March 25, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this lively episode, hosts Manny, Noah, and Devin explore the explosive growth of legal sports betting in the United States and its impact on sports, fans, athletes, and society at large. The trio dig into the fundamental question: Should athletes be allowed to bet on themselves? The conversation blends personal anecdotes, cultural critiques, and expert insights—culminating in an illuminating interview with journalist and author Danny Funt, whose book Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling provides historical context and a critical look at industry practices.

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1. Ubiquity of Sports Betting in Modern Life

[04:05-06:05] The Inescapable Presence of Sports Betting

• Advertising Overload:

  • Manny, Noah, and Devin note the inescapable prevalence of sports betting ads—on TV, during games, and through celebrity endorsements (e.g., Kevin Hart for DraftKings, Jon Hamm for BetMGM).
  • Devin points out how even Apple’s baseball broadcasts display live betting odds on screen, making gambling an omnipresent part of the sports viewing experience.

• From Taboo to Normal:

  • Where once betting ads felt odd or shocking, now they're the “background noise” of every sports event—a normalization that makes betting almost invisible and routine.
  • Manny: “It ruins the experience of watching the actual game.” [05:51]

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2. Legalization and Personal Experiences

[06:07-09:20] Sports Betting Then and Now

• Manny recaps the 2018 Supreme Court decision that paved the way for nationwide legalization, describing the shift from illicit, in-person betting to the ease of placing bets via smartphone apps.

• The hosts share their own experiences:

  • Manny and Noah have both “dabbled,” sometimes betting to enhance boring games.
  • Devin resists, joking about the futility of betting on his beloved, unpredictable Mets: “Nothing in my body wants to bet on sports... I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen day to day.” [08:17]

• Types of Bets Summarized:

  • Money Line: Pick the winner.
  • Over/Under: Bet on total points.
  • Spread: Bet on margin of victory.
  • Parlay: Combining multiple bets for a bigger (but unlikely) payoff.

• The Allure and Dangers of Parlays:

  • Manny criticizes how apps push parlays as “lottery-esque,” calling them “dark and insidious” for hooking people with low-probability, high-payout bets. [10:40-11:28]
  • Noah and Devin highlight the addictive rush and social engineering of sports betting apps (promotional incentives, dopamine hits, endless options).

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3. The Dark Side: Fixing and Corruption Scandals

[12:44-16:38] Real-World Consequences for Integrity of Sport

• Hosts discuss mounting scandals where athletes allegedly manipulate games due to betting:

  • NBA: Jontay Porter received a lifetime ban for leaking confidential info and betting-related game manipulation. [13:12]
  • Baseball: Cleveland Guardians pitchers indicted for “throwing specific pitches for balls so bettors could place prop bets and profit.” [14:20-14:35]
  • NBA: Terry Rozier arrested in a broader betting investigation.

• Quote:

  • Manny: “Sports gambling is starting to permeate actual sports. It’s jeopardizing the purity of the game.” [13:57]

• Players Affected by Bets:

  • LeBron James recounts fans begging for specific stats so their bets would cash out—a “funny but dark” tale. [16:17]

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4. Should Athletes Be Allowed to Bet on Themselves?

[16:40-21:17] Philosophical and Practical Dilemmas

• The hosts weigh the idea:

  • Could it incentivize better performance if athletes bet on themselves to win?
  • Where’s the line between performance bonuses (common in contracts) and wagering on yourself?

• Concerns:

  • Collusion (“What’s to stop LeBron’s friends from profiting if he intentionally influences outcomes?”).
  • Contractual incentives may already blur lines between legitimate play and profit-driven self-interest.
  • Manny: “Even if we decide it’s okay, it still affects the sanctity of the game.” [20:33]

• Devin Suggests: Any such betting must be fully transparent and limited to “outcome-of-game” bets, not performance micro-bets.

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5. Interview with Danny Funt – Author & Sports Gambling Expert

[25:08-49:31] A Deep Dive into the Business and Social Impacts

Danny Funt joins to provide historical, industry, and human perspectives on sports betting’s rise and effects.

A. History of Gambling in U.S. Sports

• Betting is “as old as organized sports”—with 19th-century baseball deeply entwined with gambling (sometimes more than the sports themselves).
• Early scandals (e.g., 1919 Black Sox) catalyzed efforts to “clean up” sports via official bans and oversight.
• The ban on sports betting outside Nevada held from 1992 until the Supreme Court reversal in 2018.

Quote:
“[Baseball] is a contrivance for gambling.” — New York Times editorial, via Danny. [25:51]

B. Bookies, Odds-Setting, and "The Vig"

• Pre-legalization, illegal bookies “ran on the honor system... which is why knees get busted and thumbs get chopped off if you’re not paying.” [29:22]
• Modern odds aren’t set by Vegas “geniuses” but by aggregating global betting activity and responding to professional betters (“sharps”).
• The oddsmaker’s edge ("vig" or “juice”) bakes profit into every bet—bettors need to win >52.5% to break even. [33:40]

C. Industry Tactics and Predatory Practices

• FanDuel and DraftKings marketing research reveals:

  • Most betting is done alone, regardless of ads framing it as a social activity.
  • Most people are embarrassed by how much they bet—or lose.

• Companies exploit fans’ optimism with “micro-bets,” shading payouts to profit from natural fan bias (“your fandom as a vulnerability”). [36:59]

• “No Sweat” promos are misleading: “It couldn’t be further from the truth.” [39:42]

D. Economic & Social Costs

• State revenue is real but frequently “a drop in the bucket”—with New York an outlier due to high taxes.
• Social harms are severe:
  • Domestic violence rates spike after unexpected local sports losses in betting-legal states (University of Oregon study): “Intimate partner violence... can increase by 10%.” [42:38–42:48]
  • Athletes & coaches receive a flood of online and real-world threats. “Inevitably, someone's going to try to kill someone... only a matter of time before there's a gambling-related murder.” [43:47]
  • Bettors themselves often lose more than anticipated—DraftKings: average customer loses >$100/month. [45:06]

E. Policy Failures

• U.S. ignored “hard lessons” from UK & Australia markets, “writing laws with complete oblivion.”
• Danny: “It's undoubtedly a mistake the way they went about it... There’s so much that was ignored that would have informed these laws.” [46:45–48:11]

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Notable Quotes

• Danny Funt on micro-betting incentives:
  “They're basically using your fandom as a vulnerability to make more money off of.” [36:59]

• Danny Funt on wider social impacts: “The amount of abuse that athletes are getting from enraged gamblers... is grotesque and relentless.” [42:50–43:47]

• Devin on performance incentives vs. betting: “How is [a performance-based contract] so different than betting? ... Does happen.” [18:58]

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6. Final Reflections and Solutions

[52:38-End] How Do We Put the Genie Back in the Bottle?

• The hosts reflect on what they learned:

  • Sports betting is “a way to get people interested” in even riskier forms of gambling—losing a little at a time on a phone app is the “gateway drug” to bigger casino losses.
  • Making betting less accessible (i.e., having to go somewhere in person) would curb compulsive betting.

• Simple solution ideas:

  • Limit bets to outcomes (who wins) rather than a sprawling matrix of micro-performances.
  • De-escalate the culture—but acknowledge "we’re probably too far gone" for fully reversing the trend.

• Bleak anecdote:
  Russell Westbrook’s wife receiving a death threat because of a bad betting loss. “The idea that this is such a big part of your life that you need to go confront the person who has inadvertently lost you money is really bleak.” [55:32]

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7. Summary Table of Key Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------|--------------------| | Sports betting in everyday life | 04:05–06:05 | | Legalization & personal gambling stories | 06:07–09:20 | | How betting now works (and ensnares) | 09:20–12:44 | | Corruption scandals in sports | 12:44–16:38 | | Should athletes bet on themselves? | 16:40–21:17 | | Danny Funt interview begins | 25:08 | | History, business, and social damage | 25:08–49:31 | | Final takeaways & possible solutions | 52:38–55:56 |

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8. Conclusion

Tone: The conversation is sharp, irreverent, and honest—mixing friendship banter with expert analysis.

Big Takeaways:

• Legal sports betting has fundamentally changed American sports—for both better and (way) worse.
• There are no easy answers: even betting “on yourself” or tying incentives to performance blurs the boundaries between healthy competition, personal gain, and systemic risk.
• The U.S. is repeating mistakes of other countries, under-regulating and naively celebrating dubious “freedoms.”
• The hosts and their guest agree: society needs real guardrails, not just empty promises, to handle this new era responsibly.

Most Memorable Quote (Devin):
“The idea that this is such a big part of your life that you need to go confront the person who has inadvertently lost you money is really bleak.” [55:32]

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For further reading:
Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling by Danny Funt
Visit www.nosuchthing.show for newsletter and more.

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Transcript

[Manny]

Hey, everyone. Manny here with a quick, shameless plug. Before we start today's episode, if you're in or around New York City, Noah, Devin and I are putting on a live event book talk on March 29th. Now, you may be wondering whose book we're going to be discussing at this show. Is it Gavin Newsom's? Is it Josh Shapiro's? Is it a third future presidential candidate? Well, maybe, because we're going to be talking about my new book. It's called Colored People Time A Case for Casual Rebellion. And it's a collection of humorous essays about my personal life, about politics, about video games, about revolutions and partying and gardening. There's a lot packed into this book, and it's all connected by the theme of the concept of time. Now, one great thing about this book is how short it is. Take it to the beach. Take it to the doctor's office. You can tell your friends that you read a whole book and they don't have to know that it only took you 90 minutes. In the description for this episode, you can find my book and you can find the tickets to the live event where we will talk about said book. Thank you for your attention to this matter and enjoy today's episode,

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Kaleidoscope.

[Manny]

I'm Manny.

[Noah]

I'm Noah.

[Devin]

This is Devin.

[Manny]

And this is no Such Thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. And today's episode, we're going to be taking a deep dive into the world of sports gambling. Ante up.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

What do people say? Hold them.

[Manny]

All bets are off.

[Noah]

All bets are off.

[Manny]

There's no. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing. No such thing.

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[Danny Funt]

We prepped.

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[Manny]

Guess who. Guess who's back.

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[Manny]

Guess who.

[Danny Funt]

Guess who's back.

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[Manny]

All right. By now we've all heard about sports betting.

[Noah]

Yes.

[Manny]

Not only have you heard about it, you've seen it everywhere. You've seen Kevin Hart promoting DraftKings with LeBron James.

[Danny Funt]

Aren't you a little too old to be playing football?

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Wait, what?

[Devin]

They want somebody that can run at 40, not somebody that is 40.

[Manny]

You've seen fucking John Ham promoting BET. MGM.

[Devin]

So they pulled out the BetMGM app and put together a live parlay. But what would the fourth leg be? Bingo.

[Danny Funt]

New York.

[Manny]

And those are just during commercials. You've also seen this stuff, like, literally during the games. I feel like I'm watching sports most days, probably more than the average person. But I'm curious, how often have you two seen sports gambling promotional material in your lives?

[Devin]

I don't really watch sports besides baseball.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

But it's become really annoying the amount of just sort of sports gambling. Odd stuff that, like Apple has now started broadcasting baseball games and they'll have like the likelihood that this next ball is going to be a strike. Just stuff that's just like so inconsequential.

[Danny Funt]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Like graphics on screen the entire game.

[Noah]

And like I feel like on baseball they have it on the actual, like, not on the bottom. I feel like I've seen it.

[Devin]

Like it's in. Yeah. Apple does it. Like Apple does it on screen. Yeah.

[Noah]

Like, which is really crazy.

[Devin]

Yeah. It's insane. The local stuff. The local. Like my local S and Y, which is the Mets local. They don't do. It's not as in your face, but it's like. Like you're saying it's every single commercial. They come back from break, they're talking about the odds. Yeah. It Just feels like in the beginning, it was really like, oh, my God, this is crazy. Now it's just, like, so normalized. I don't even think about it anymore.

[Manny]

Yeah. And during basketball games, you'll get, like, the live odds thing, which just feels wrong. Like, they're literally trying to win the game. And it's like all these stats and graphs and shit. For me, anyway, it ruins the, like, experience of watching the actual game.

[Devin]

Yeah, yeah, agreed.

[Manny]

In case people don't know, sports betting is a type of gambling, except instead of risking your money on poker or roulette, you're risking your money on, for example, whether the Lakers are going to win a game against the Celtics. Now, it used to be the case that if you wanted to bet on sports, you'd get your ass in the car and drive all the way to, like, Atlantic City or some casino in your area and you place a bet there. But in 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a law that banned sports betting in most states. So because of that, you're now seeing this proliferation of sports betting all over the place, and you can now legally place a sports bet on your phone, which was, you know, not the case before. I. You know, I'll be honest. I've. I've dabbled. I've probably.

[Noah]

Thank you.

[Manny]

More probably more than dabbled.

[Noah]

You're on the record.

[Devin]

Yeah. You're very much on the record. Talking about.

[Manny]

Just got to be transparent about this. And I think, like, if you're responsible, obviously, it can be, like, a fun way to kind of heighten the urgency of the watching experience. Have you guys ever placed a bet or.

[Noah]

I've dabbled. I'm clean now. But, yeah, I mean, there have been times when, you know, I used to go to a lot of Nets games and it would add a layer of excitement to what would otherwise be a pretty boring.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Unclimactic game regular season when you, you know, maybe you want the Nets to win, but you need Julius Randle from the Knicks at the time to score over a certain amount. And it's down to the last minute. It's exciting stuff.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Now, I never bet anything, you know, more than, I think $50 in.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Yeah. One.

[Noah]

But, yeah, making some crazy parlay, which is, you know, layering a bunch of random things to happen, essentially, and hoping they all happen to make, you know, say, $1,000 on that $50. Yeah, it was a exciting high, you know, but, you know. Yeah.

[Manny]

I think I remember we went to a Nets game together once, and we would both have kind of a. A bet writing. And I remember you won a decent amount once. Congratulations on that.

[Noah]

Had to quit.

[Manny]

Quit while you're ahead.

[Noah]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Manny]

Devin, have you partaken at all?

[Devin]

No. Nothing in my body wants to bet on sports, especially because, you know, I'm a fan of the Mets, and they're just so such an unpredictable team that I'm like, I have. I watch them every single day, and I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen day to day.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

So I am not putting money on the line for this. Although you guys have. You haven't convinced me yet. But I guess my initial thought with sports betting was like, you just gotta pick who wins and who loses. And I was like, I will never do that because I don't know day to day whether or not the match is gonna win. But then y' all talked about, oh, you can bet on smaller things. Right. You can bet on whether or not somebody gets a certain amount of hits or. So that's a little bit more fun because it's less, you know, you're kind of leaning into the uncertainty of it versus, like, trying to make calculated decisions. It's a little bit more like. Feels a little bit more like the lottery to some degree of, like, all right, you know, I'm gonna put some amount of money down and, like, if I lose it, whatever. Yeah, but you're not, like, thinking so much about it. You have, you know, obviously you have a little bit of insight, but it's a lot of it is up to chance.

[Manny]

Yeah, I mean, there's this kind of idea, I think that it's different than regular gambling because, you know, people feel like they know sports, they know a team in and out, and they feel like they can affect some money coming their way because, you know, they know that Shohei Ohtani is going to get one hit per game. I don't know if that's a real stat. I don't watch baseball. But if you're. If you bet on that every game and he does it most games, you know, you're not going to win that much money.

[Noah]

That's the.

[Devin]

If. If it's an easy bet, then you're not going to win that much.

[Manny]

Yeah, exactly. Just really quickly, I'll just go through, like, the popular kinds of bets. One of them is called the money line, which is literally just choosing which team is going to win. One of them is called the over under. You're just choosing whether the amount of points in a game will be over X amount or under that amount. And Then the other one is the spread. So like if Vegas will determine that the Lakers are going to win by seven points and then you can bet on the Lakers covering that spread. Spread if you think they're going to win by more than seven points. Now, sports betting has gotten a lot more complicated. There's like a million more things you can do now. One of those things being in recent history, the parlay, which is for example, saying that the Lakers are going to win, they're going to win by over seven points and LeBron James is going to score 20 points. And the more things you add to the parlay, you know, your bet becomes lottery esque. It just multiplies the amount of the payout that you're going to get, but also makes it that much more unlikely. And I think it's that kind of bet that I've, I feel like is, you know, the, all these sports betting apps are promoting the most because they know it's. They're so unlikely. And that feels kind of like dark and insidious to me. Yeah, they're like giving you free money to do these things so that you can get hooked on it. And I have seen people get hooked on it. Like I know people who are parlay, specifically parlays, but also like once you're in the app, I think the app is like designed in a way almost like social media where like you're, there's these like little dopamine.

[Noah]

There's promos and stuff like that too. So it's like, oh, you'll get an extra point. Like you'll get some credit if you do a five leg parlay instead of a three leg one. Exactly.

[Devin]

A lot harder to hit.

[Manny]

The worst kind of promotion I've seen is like, all right, we're going to give you free money to work with if you make a parlay bet that's plus 500 or longer. Which means like you're only, you're only going to get free money if you make a bet. That's impossible. So it's just like this kind of loop. It's the cycle that keeps you in there.

[Devin]

My introduction to the parlay was uncut gems.

[Manny]

That's right.

[Noah]

See a famous example.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This is me, all right.

[Devin]

I'm not a fucking athlete. This is my fucking way. This is how I went.

[Noah]

Look how that turned out.

[Devin]

It did not. Spoiler alert. Did not work out so good for Mr. Sandler.

[Manny]

Yeah. That I think maybe Uncut gems was. That was a little bit before it was not legal betting popped off online yeah. And I think it kind of popularized it, too.

[Devin]

I think they did a great job explaining what it was too.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

In the movie, because I had no idea. And by the end I understood.

[Noah]

Everyone pause this and come back in two hours.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Pull up, you know, HBO Max.

[Devin]

Yeah. If our explanation didn't make sense.

[Noah]

Yeah. Click the link below.

[Manny]

So we'll talk to our guest, Danny, in a little bit about kind of the detrimental aspects of sports betting, what it's done to us as a society. But briefly, there's also been controversy with sports betting fiascos in the NBA, particularly where players are getting caught up in allegedly rigging games. And so we know this has happened with Jontay Porter, Michael Porter Jr's brother.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter has been banned from the NBA for life, the league announced.

[Manny]

The NBA said that Porter provided confidential

[Ryan Seacrest]

information to betters, limited his own participation in games for gambling purposes, and bet on NBA games.

[Manny]

And he's alleged to have, like, basically played worse because someone else that he knew bet on the game, bet on his unders. So maybe instead of jumping up to get that rebound, he would let someone else do it so that his friend's bet could hit. And then more recently, we've seen Terry Rozier.

[Ryan Seacrest]

All right, some breaking news is catching everybody by surprise. The FBI arresting NBA player Terry Rozier early this morning in connection with a widespread sports betting investigation. And he's not the only one.

[Manny]

We know that that's bad.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[Manny]

So, like, sports gambling is starting to permeate in actual sports. It's like jeopardizing the kind of purity of the game. Like the sports is supposed to be very merit based. Now you've got the case where, like, this new phenomenon is causing these players to play differently.

[Devin]

It's come up with baseball, too.

[Manny]

Yeah. Why don't you walk us through some

[Devin]

of the baseball Cleveland guardians I heard.

[Noah]

Really?

[Danny Funt]

Ye Guardian's pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz had been charged with fraud, conspiracy and rigging pitches. Prosecutors said in the indictment that Klasse and Ortiz threw specific pitches for balls so bettors could place prop bets in profit.

[Devin]

So this is like you're talking about, like sick people. Like to be voting on a specific pitch type is crazy. But these two pitchers have been indicted for throwing specific pitches. And one of these was in the playoffs, like purposely throwing a type of pitch, you know, not for a ball, like purposely like out of the strike zone and having someone, you know in connection to them betting on that specific pitch type a lot of money down and, you know, getting a lot of money paid out for being correct on those pitches. And you can say, oh, this is like, you know, what's the big deal? You know, like, these pitches didn't change the outcome of a game. Sure, maybe not, but it is like, the sort of thing that, like, okay, this is how you start. Right. Like, you do the really. Okay, I'm just gonna throw this one pitch out of the strike zone and start out this batter not the way I naturally would. But then you start to wonder, okay, if this is the only thing we caught, what else are you actually doing behind the scenes?

[Manny]

Yeah, it's really disturbing because there's clips now circulating of, like, Terry Rozier putting up some horrific shots or, like, losing the ball all the time in ways that just look a little bit weird.

[Devin]

And look, he made that. May. It may be legit. May be like, you were just trash today.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Like, these pictures may be like, hey, you just didn't have your stuff today. But now when you find out that, like, oh, there may be something happening here, you start to question all these things.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Manny]

And that's what makes it so dangerous, because I know people are getting caught now, but I think it is relatively easy to hide your assistance on someone else's bet. There was a clip of LeBron last year where he was, like, in a post game interview, and he said that some fan was screaming at him that he just needed one more rebound from LeBron.

[Danny Funt]

Yeah.

[Manny]

For it. So his bet could hit. And then LeBron was like, so I just helped him out, jumped up to get a rebound. Boy, he definitely yelled at me, got

[Ryan Seacrest]

my attention, said, one more rebound.

[Devin]

I'm like, what?

[Manny]

He was like, one more.

[Danny Funt]

So I got one more, and I

[Manny]

pointed at him to acknowledge that I was listening. And that's kind of like a funny moment, I guess, but, like, underneath the surface, it's like, oh, that's kind of dark.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

All right. So we know that sports betting has invaded the sports infrastructure in such a way that is detrimental to the purity of the game. But I am curious. It made me think about, like, what if a player is betting on him or herself to do well? What if LeBron can bet on himself to score, you know, 30 points? Should. Should that be allowed because it incentivizes him.

[Devin]

Exactly.

[Manny]

To do well? I'm kind of curious, like, what the

[Noah]

pros and cons I'm trying to think of, you know, I'm trying to make the argument. Of course, that sounds great. LeBron says, hey, I'm going to Try to score at least 20 points today and if I get that, I win. Whatever. $2,000. Like he needs it.

[Danny Funt]

20,000 more.

[Noah]

Whatever, whatever you want. $20,000 in the wine cellar or whatever. Yeah, but the issue though, I think it's like, if you can do that openly, then it's like, who's to say he's not making a little carve out for his friends on the Celtics who he's playing against.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

To make sure, you know, to make

[Manny]

sure he does okay.

[Noah]

I'm not gonna block him so hard so I can get a piece of, of this. Yeah, I think it's, it seems simple, but then it's like so easily opens it up to anything else.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

So unless you, you all have secret bets in some, some system that then like why are we making like, why.

[Devin]

No, it can't be secret. Gotta be all out in the open.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

So you know, like you want to put all these other eyes and stuff on the screen. I want to see what LeBron is betting on himself for this.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

He's gonna.

[Devin]

And it's like, you know, there's no more underground. There's no, no more underground. You know, get rid of the under. We're legalizing, you know, like you say, legalize drugs. We're going to legalize sports betting. So like it's just going to happen.

[Manny]

Decriminalized.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Devin]

Just all out in the open. Yeah, I think, you know, I think

[Manny]

about it or what if it was as simple as, you know, he's only allowed to bet on the Lakers to win. Not like necessarily.

[Devin]

Yeah, you could pick out what like, you know, I think there's ways you could work it out so you're not getting so specific that like it's altering like you're saying whether or not somebody's going to put up a shot or something. But I think about this like, I don't know how it works with contracts and you know, the sports. Do y' all watch all the other sports besides baseball?

[Noah]

Yeah. Sounds degrading.

[Manny]

Making it sound like we watch some

[Devin]

freaky, nasty ass sports.

[Noah]

Those kind of sports, if you call those sports.

[Devin]

But like in baseball, right, Especially with say someone has kind of like a, an off year or they're injured or whatever, there'll be incentives that like, hey, yeah, and this contract, if you start a certain amount of games, if you win whatever award, if you, you know, get a certain amount of strikeouts or home runs or whatever, you'll get a bonus added to your to perform contract. Exactly. How is that so different than betting Right. Like if someone, because this has come up where it's like someone may have, let's say, you know, a pitcher needs, you know, 150 innings to, to get that, that contract clause and they have 149 and it's the last game of the season and the manager is like, do I take this guy out or do I give him another pitch? You know, and people start to second guess like, oh, they took him out cause they didn't want to pay that out, you know. So like that sort of stuff does happen.

[Manny]

That's a good point. I mean that happens in football all the time. Where let's say there's a wide receiver who needs one more touchdown to like trigger some clause in his contract.

[Devin]

Yeah. Do you drop a play knowing that?

[Manny]

And then, you know, if it's a substantial amount of money, could you then talk to the guy on the other team like, who's covering you?

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Be like, hey, I'll throw you some of this if you let me get.

[Noah]

I need this.

[Manny]

If you let me get this touch,

[Devin]

especially the game's out of hand already. Hey, let me catch you. Yeah, I'm gonna give you 50.

[Manny]

I hadn't thought about performance bonuses that them being similar to, you know, betting on yourself.

[Noah]

Yeah, I guess those are long term goals though.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Yeah.

[Manny]

Or like a, you can't do it every game.

[Noah]

I think the per game ones is I think scary or like, I think that's a bad, bad hole to go

[Manny]

down because then even if we decide it's e okay. It still I think affects the like sanctity of the game where like let's say LeBron James is allowed to bet on the Lakers to win. He might be making different decisions at the end of that game than he would have. He might feel like, oh my God, the only way we're going to win is if I take this last shot instead.

[Devin]

Who cares if the team.

[Noah]

I guess.

[Manny]

Yeah, well, I just mean it's, it changes the dynamic a little bit.

[Noah]

Yeah, I guess. I think, I think it should be more for either full games or more team based than individual based. I think once we're doing this individual stuff, that's when you're going to get kind of the more selfish play from players who aren't LeBron.

[Manny]

Yes.

[Noah]

Who can.

[Manny]

Maybe people have egos that are bigger than.

[Noah]

So I think it's like, yeah, if the Detroit Pistons say, hey, we're going to try to win 60 games this year and Cade Cunningham wants to bet on that, that seems fine to me. Because he wants to win.

[Manny]

Yeah. But I can see your concern that you were saying earlier with essentially it opens the door to maybe working with some other team to let. There's too many to let them perform a certain way.

[Noah]

Unknown unknowns.

[Manny]

As Donald Rumsfeld would say, too many unknown unknowns. This is just like the war in Iraq. Well, the good news for us is we're going to learn a lot more about this with our guest today, Danny Funt. Danny is the author of Everybody Loses the Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. And we're going to talk to him right after this break.

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Yes, it's me again. And I've got a message for you. You gotta think about sexual health no matter what, when, when, or with who. Yeah, yeah. To all you lovers out there, ain't no judgment. This is a cue. Guess who? Guess who's better. It's time to talk about pre special prophylaxis, a part of HIV prevention. Talk to a healthcare provider and visit carefortheculture.com to learn more.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hunts, Nerds, Pillsbury, Lowry's, Breyers, Quaker and Culture Pop. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.

[Danny Funt]

Hello.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Mbetta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing at IBM Research.

[Jake Mbetta]

What we always do is answer what is the future of computing? Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together? It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff that's a building actual physical machines.

[Danny Funt]

Yeah.

[Jake Mbetta]

It's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right?

[Jake Mbetta]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How Far are we from that point

[Jake Mbetta]

with Quantum, by 2029, we'll build the first fault tolerant Quantum computer that is one that can run a very, very large, large problem.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit IBM.com quantum.

[Manny]

All right, we are back and we're joined by Danny Font, the author of Everybody the Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, which happens to be exactly what we were just talking about. Danny, thanks for joining us.

[Danny Funt]

What's up, man? Thanks for having me on.

[Manny]

First, I just wanted to ask if you could briefly walk us through just the history of sports betting in the US in general. I know there were some kind of big sports betting controversies, I think, in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. If you could just walk us through that, how did we get here today?

[Danny Funt]

There's been betting on sports since there have been organized sports in America, even going back to like the very first baseball games in New York city in the 1850s. It was such a big part of why people cared about baseball in the first place that the New York Times wrote an editorial that said we can't even think of this as a national pastime because as they put it, it's a contrivance for gambling. And then the National League was created in large part to rid the game of gambling because it felt like it was corrupting the sport and putting off a lot of prospective fans. And then that leads us to the Black Sox scandal in 1919. You probably know about that. Eight players on the Chicago White Sox colluding with gamblers to fix the World Series. And the Commissioner of Baseball was established after that specifically to get gambling out of baseball. There were scandals basically every decade, most notoriously in college men's basketball in like the 50s and 60s, getting caught up with mob people who wanted them to fix games. And all of that brings us to 1992, when the leagues lobbied Congress to officially ban sports betting outside Nevada, where it had been legal since about the 50s. And then that law was struck down in 2018, and things were off and running from there as far as states legalizing sports betting

[Manny]

and what was kind of the sports betting environment, so to speak, in the 50s and 60s? I know there were some of those, like, specific scandals, but how did, like, your average American get involved with that?

[Danny Funt]

So in Nevada, as I said, they had a legal bookmaking infrastructure, but it was really an afterthought and it was mainly just a draw to get people into casinos. And it remained that way, honestly, to today, like in the casino business, sports betting is almost a rounding error. Like it's really just yet another thing, along with restaurants and other gimmicks to get people to come in and then go to the blackjack tables and the slot machines where they really make money. In the rest of the country, it was largely mob run, which is why you might have heard of the Kefauver Commission, which was this massive congressional inquiry in the 50s that looked into how gambling was funding the mob. And this senator from, I think Tennessee made it a huge TV attraction. These congressional hearings where they would bring in gang leaders to testify about how much they were taking in bets. And that was the first time a lot of Americans even heard the word mafia. And it led the Kennedy administration to push for a number of laws that made it officially illegal.

[Manny]

And then, of course, the mafia responded by killing John F. Kennedy.

[Danny Funt]

Right, right. A fun historical fact. The guy who invented the point spread was, I think, JFK's elementary school teacher.

[Noah]

Oh, yeah, this goes all the way to the top. Yeah, yeah.

[Danny Funt]

Ye.

[Manny]

But after 1992, you basically could not bet on sports unless you traveled to Nevada. Is that true?

[Danny Funt]

Or you had a bookie. Yeah.

[Manny]

Okay. And just for the audience, like, describe what a bookie is. How was that allowed or. It wasn't. It was like under the table.

[Danny Funt]

Totally under the table. Everywhere but Nevada. And basically that's someone who, you know will take your bet on a game. It was probably only against the point spread. Maybe they took over unders on the point total and they're kind of writing numbers down in a book, hence the name bookmaker, and hopefully paying you if you win. Most of that's done on credit. You're not handing them money and saying, pay me back if I win. It's the honor system, which is why knees get busted and thumbs get chopped off if you're not paying. But that was a pretty big business. I remember there was a bookmaker in Nevada who was. I think it was a Sports Illustrated article where they were talking about trying to figure out the size of the illegal sports betting industry in the middle 20th century. And this guy was like, I know of a town in Wisconsin that has 13,000 people and two bookmakers. So just think about if a middle of nowhere town in Wisconsin has two bookies. It probably suggests that there were a ton of them across the country.

[Manny]

That kind of leads me to my next question. When I bet on a game today, I'll open the app and it'll. And I'll bet on whatever the Lakers to win. And it'll say, plus 200. And I understand that that means if I bet $100, I'll win 200. But where the hell do they get that number from? Who actually is responsible for providing the odds on a given sports match?

[Danny Funt]

That's an important point because we still say colloquially like Vegas thinks X, you know, Vegas thinks the Seahawks are a three point favorite. It really almost has nothing to do with what anyone in Vegas thinks. It's an aggregation of worldwide betting trends. And usually when they'll open with numbers, they're basing it on betting markets in Asia and other parts of the world that might be ahead of us just on the time difference and then going from there. And then the numbers get sharpened mainly by the bets that you see coming in from professional gamblers. A lot of bookmaking is just responding to what these sharp betters are doing and then massaging the numbers accordingly. It's not like a genius oddsmaker who posts a number and then takes on all these different people and is trying to outsmart them. It's the wisdom of crowds, as it's sometimes said.

[Manny]

And people would say colloquially Vegas because those bookies were normally in Vegas before the Supreme Court action.

[Danny Funt]

Yeah. And a lot of these companies, you know, based in Vegas, whether it's Caesars or MGM or what have you.

[Manny]

So then what is the format of that business? How exactly do they make money? Like I know how I lose money to them, but like what's the structure? Exactly.

[Danny Funt]

So the simple answer is they bake an edge into the odds so that they win no matter what. And there's complexity to that. But basically it's the reason why if you bet 20 bucks on both sides of a bet, it's not gonna be a wash. Right. You're gonna lose a certain amount. And that certain amount is roughly what the sportsbook is making. It's complicated because there's a common misconception that the art of bookmaking is posting odds or a spread or whatever that's gonna attract 50% money on both sides. And then you get the vig, that house edge that I just mentioned. And that's how they make money. They're really not going for 50 50. They're going for being on the side of the professional gamblers, but posting a number, that's going to get a lot of money on both sides. But the sportsbook wants to basically bet on the side of the Sharps, cuz they're right more often than not. And if that happens, then they're going to the house is going to win even more than that edge that they bake into the odds. So gets a little complicated, but that's the business. It's not like, let's figure out what's going to get half and half on both sides.

[Manny]

Well, I was going to ask if you could clarify a little bit about the vig. Okay. The Lakers and Celtics are playing, and I bet $20 on each of them to win. I'm going to win $20. Right.

[Danny Funt]

So you're going to see minus 110, typically on both sides. So if you bet $110 and you win, you make 100. If you bet 110 and lose, obviously, you get nothing. So that 10 bucks, the difference there is the vig. Right. So typically, it's why in order to beat those sorts of bets and make money, you have to win about 52 and a half percent of the time. Because if you just won 50, 50, the house has that edge and they're going to beat you. And it's really, really. It's really hard to win more than half your bets. Conversely, if you think about it, it's really hard to lose more than half your bets if you're. If you're betting those types of straight bets.

[Manny]

That's what I tell my wife. In your book, you interviewed and talked to a lot of people who have influence, I think, at some of these companies, like FanDuel and DraftKings. Like, what did you learn from talking to them about, how about, like, the average American's relationship to sports betting and how they try to recruit more people into it?

[Danny Funt]

There was a bunch. Cause some of it I think is pretty sinister. And I definitely wanted to get into that of some of the predatory tactics they're doing. But some of it also was just interesting to me of how this business actually works. There was someone who was in marketing insights at FanDuel, and she told me a bunch of things that I found really interesting. One was that people are always thinking, there's so many ads that must turn off a lot of people. Cause they're like, I just can't stand seeing all these FanDuel ads. I'm never gonna give them my business. And she said from their research, that's not true at all. No matter how much you hate a company's advertising, it doesn't stop you from patronizing them. So that's instructive. But another thing she said that was interesting was, although these companies like to brand sports betting as this social activity, and this idea of me and my buddies gather and we place our bets, and that's a way that we socialize around sports. Based on her research, a lot of people are doing it when they're alone and they don't like to talk about. They don't like to talk about their betting. Cause they're kind of embarrassed about it, that it's this thing they do to like liven up a boring night alone. And I mean, I do that, you know, sometimes. So I'm not here to judge. But I think that's maybe a huge percentage of this business is people like that.

[Manny]

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting dynamic. When sports betting was legalized in New York, like me and some buddies, I. I think I noticed that we were socializing more often than we were before. And a part of me was like, oh, this is kind of nice that like, you know, in what so many people are calling a male loneliness epidemic, we're kind of like, we've got this like Discord channel now and we're hanging out. But you know, I think it's very easy to see how that turns sour because sometimes I see people who are just really deep in it, like really addicted to trying to make their money back for sure.

[Danny Funt]

And also think about a lot of states legalized, including New York during COVID So people were extra isolated and bored and like doing anything, you know, baking sourdough and sports. Right.

[Manny]

Yeah. What are some of the more predatory behaviors that these companies are engaging in to keep me on the app?

[Danny Funt]

I'll get into some of the messed up ones. But one that I find interesting, that I think you and your listeners might too, is maybe not as predatory, but it's just, it's a counter argument to this idea that sports betting just enhances fandom, which is an argument you hear the leagues make. It's like this just makes you extra locked in as a fan. It's just taking an interest you already have and putting it on steroids. And I remember talking to this guy at a company called Simple Bet, which creates these so called micro bets, which are like bets on a shrunken down timeframe. Like will the next pitch in a baseball game be a ball or a strike in a football game? Will they score a touchdown, punt, get a field goal, whatever. And he was telling me that when they're setting the odds on those bets, they do what's called shading, which is they recognize that fans have a bias to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes. Like if you're watching a football game, you're gonna overestimate the odds that a team scores in A given possession. Right. Either just cause you're rooting for them or you. It's nice to think that the good thing's gonna happen. And so the payouts on those bets are less than if you're betting for the negative thing to happen. So basically they're taking the inherent optimism that comes with being a fan and using that against you so that you make less money if you bet on optimistic things. And I just, I heard that and I was like, that's really shrewd from a business standpoint. But it totally goes against this idea that betting is just like, you know, encouraging people to be fans. Cause they're basically using your fandom as a vulnerability to make more money off of. But as far as the predatory stuff goes, I think one is these enticements that dangle what sounds like free money. And then you read the fine print and you're like, this is not free money at all. The furthest thing from it, whether it was no sweat bets, oh my God, that sometimes advertised really enormous dollar figures, like $3,000 risk free bet or no sweat bet. Risk free was like the term of art for a while. And then they realized that was just even too outrageous for bank companies. So they dialed it back to no sweat, which really conveys the same thing, which is you don't have any reason to worry that you're gonna lose this money. And that couldn't be further from the truth. And that's a gigantic bummer to people when they figure that out.

[Manny]

Yeah. Cause it's like no sweat. If you bet $25 on this and you lose will give you $25 in the app that you can, you can't withdraw. You can only use it on another bet, which you are likely to lose.

[Danny Funt]

And you know, if you bet 25 bucks, let's say you bet 25 bucks on an overwhelming favorite, you might win 25 plus $2. Like you get your 25 back and then the two. In the case of those free bets, you don't get the stake of the bet back. You would only get the two bucks. So you're really down 23 bucks. And I've. I made this mistake when I was in New York and like an idiot about these promotions and a lot of people did as well, where they're like, okay, if I lose my no sweat or risk free bet, I'm just gonna bet it on favorites and have a really high chance of, you know, coming back even does not work that way.

[Noah]

When sports betting became legalized, I remember states were talking about this will, you know, be an influx of, you know, money for the state has. Now that it's been a few years, has that kind of come to fruition? Like, are states actually making money off this, too? Or is it kind of marginal, or do you have any insight on that?

[Danny Funt]

It's mostly a drop in the bucket. Like, it does not solve their budget problems at all. New York is a slight exception just because they get away with taxing online sports betting at 51%, which is way, way higher than the rest of the country. And these companies feel like, how could they not operate in New York? You know, it's where Wall street is and where they're based, so it'd just be insane not to. But they're being taxed through the roof, so. New York has generated almost half of all the tax revenue on sports betting in the country.

[Manny]

Holy shit, that's good.

[Noah]

Thank you, Manny.

[Manny]

Yeah, yeah. I'm like a third of that.

[Danny Funt]

And for a lot of the country, it's like, you know, it's a trivial amount of money. And then the other side of that is, like, they make it sound like it's just found money, like they, you know, struck oil or something. But people aren't spending that money on other things, you know, or they don't, or they're not investing it, or they have health problems now or like, you know, debt that people need to deal with. And that's a cost on the other end. So I think people. When people start studying that holistic picture of this, it's going to be pretty bleak for that argument.

[Manny]

Yeah. What are some of the other social costs we've seen from this proliferation of sports betting? Because I saw. I read in an article, I think that domestic violence, for example, has increased since 2018, when this was all allowed to happen. Curious about that and any other negative effects that we've seen.

[Danny Funt]

Yeah, that study. I wish I remembered the college to shout them out, but it was so dark. I think they looked at. With the home football team wins or loses in states with or without legal sports betting. And in places where it's legal and then the home team loses, domestic violence incidents were demonstrably higher than in places where it's illegal.

[Devin]

Yeah. And I found that stat, it's University of Oregon. They found that when a professional football team has an unexpected loss, intimate partner violence in its home market can increase by 10%.

[Manny]

That's so wild.

[Danny Funt]

One of the things that I find just so upsetting and scary is the amount of abuse that athletes are getting from enraged Gamblers. Now, I lead my book off of that just because to me, it's one of the strongest examples of how things are totally different now. Even if people used to bet under the table, the fact that they're betting so easily and so much on so many different things is creating a lot of new problems. And the online abuse that they get is just grotesque and relentless. I remember Jalen Brunson on the Knicks was like, I think this was with the athletic. He's like, think of the worst stuff you might think we're hearing. And it's way worse than that. But then it goes way beyond that sort of harassment where, you know, athletes have been stalked at their team hotel or at their home. J.B. bickerstaff, the Pistons coach, said people were texting his personal cell phone, that they knew the identities of his kids and where he lives.

[Manny]

Oh, my God.

[Danny Funt]

The manager of the Padres just resigned last season in part because he was so exhausted from all these death threats. And there have also been people arrested for really credible death threats targeting athletes when they lost a bet. And I just think inevitably someone's gonna try to kill someone. And I heard that from the former chief security officer of the NFL, who, as he put it, it's only a matter of time before there's a gambling related murder. That's just super grim to think about. But when we talk about what would actually have to happen for lawmakers to say, enough is enough. This is way out of control. I think that would be on that list.

[Manny]

Yeah. I mean, when you think about being a fan of sports, there's like an emotional stake you have in it, but then once that is converted into a financial stake, you can easily see people kind of going down the wrong path. But, okay, so we talked about, like, how this has been affecting athletes and managers. I am curious too about the, the betters themselves. Like, are people. We of course know the answer to this question, but are people being responsible or are they spending money they shouldn't be spending? Like, is there any data about, you know, how, how like the better is. Has been affected?

[Danny Funt]

Yeah, and like the industry always says, you know, oh, the majority of people bet and they have no issue and it's just something they do now. It's like no different than spending money to go to a movie. I think there's studies. Of course that's true on a simplistic level, but there's studies that indicate a lot more people are betting more than they wish they were than you might think. So there was one study that found That a third of people who bet on sports have felt ashamed after the fact at how much money they lost. Half of people who bet concede that they're not honest with family and friends about how much they're losing and how often they're betting even, just, like, the amount being lost. I remember DraftKings. In one of their quarterly earnings reports, the average customer loses more than a hundred bucks a month, which, you know, on average, that's a lot if you're losing $1,200 a year. Yeah, yeah, a year. And the amount that you have to bet to lose that much is a ton. So I think it's designed to get you to bet more than you intended. A moment ago, I told you about that executive who crafts these micro bets and was talking about shading. Let's say someone's okay betting $50 pregame. If they're betting constantly during the game, they might bet $10, 10 times, and then look up and be like, oh, I just bet twice as much as I intended. And this guy was like, yes, exactly. That's the goal. That's what we're going for. And yeah, I mean, it's again, like, from a business standpoint, it makes total sense, but from a customer safety standpoint, it's problematic, for sure.

[Manny]

Do you feel like the legalization of sports betting was a mistake?

[Danny Funt]

I think the way they went about it is undoubtedly a mistake. And too often this gets boiled down to, like, prohibition or legalization with no guardrails, and there's so much in between. It would be pretty hard to defend the manner through which so many states decided to do this. For one simple reason, among others, is they were often completely oblivious to what could have been learned. If you looked at the UK and elsewhere in Europe and Australia and other places that have had sports betting for a while and have had arguments and dealt with the fallout from all the things we've been talking about, you know, misleading ads, excessive ads in general, types of bets that encourage compulsive behavior, on and on. Those are all tired arguments in a lot of elsewhere in the world. And they've had to learn the hard way that you shouldn't allow that stuff. And they had to re regulate after a while. And from my reporting, it sounds like Americans just paid no attention whatsoever to that when they were writing their laws. It was like, this is this grand American experiment, and we're gonna figure things out as we go. And I guess that's pretty typical in this country to just be completely arrogant and oblivious that way. But there was so much that was ignored that would have informed these laws in a pretty profound way.

[Manny]

So before we let you go, we earlier were having a very brief debate about whether it would be okay for athletes to bet on themselves to excel. So, like, would it be okay for LeBron James, for example, to bet on the Lakers to win? Because technically that would only incentivize him to, you know, play better. Just curious your own thoughts. Do you see any kind of pitfalls

[Devin]

with pitfalls with that?

[Manny]

After one hour of talking about how terrible this is?

[Danny Funt]

I mean, the risk would be it's hard to stop at betting on yourself and then they just start betting on everything and that's where they get into trouble. But if we're just being like purely intellectual about it, I don't think there's anything wrong with betting on yourself to win if there's no caveats. I'm pretty sure, and I hope I don't get this wrong. I'm pretty sure fighters are allowed to bet on themselves to win outright, but they can't bet on like, I'm gonna win after the eighth round. And I remember for the. I think it was the Mayweather Jake Paul fight, Mayweather tried to bet on like, I'm going to win in the seventh round. And they were like, absolutely not.

[Manny]

Because he could totally affect. He could play with him for six rounds and then knock him out. Yeah.

[Danny Funt]

Which I think he did. Makes sense.

[Manny]

All right, well, thank you so much for joining us, Danny. This was illuminating.

[Danny Funt]

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Yes, it's me again. We prepped. It's the time for empowerment and I've got a message for you. You gotta think about sexual health no matter what, when or with who. Yeah. Yeah. To all you lovers out there, ain't no judgment. This is your cue. Guess who. Guess who's back. It's time to talk about pre special prophylaxis, a part of HIV prevention. Talk to a health care provider and visit care for the culture.com to learn more.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for store wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hunts nerds, Pillsbury, Lowry's, Breyers, Quaker and culture pop. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery Restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.

[Danny Funt]

Hello. Hello.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Mbetta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing at IBM Research.

[Jake Mbetta]

What we always do is answer what is the future of computing? Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together? It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff.

[Jake Mbetta]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Building actual physical machines. Yeah.

[Jake Mbetta]

It's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far away from that point?

[Jake Mbetta]

With Quantum, by 2029 we'll build the first fault tolerant Quantum computer that is one that can run a very, very large, large problem.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit IBM.com quantum.

[Manny]

All right, we're back. I'm Manny Noah Devin and we just had a conversation with Danny Funt about the sports gambling world. One takeaway. One thing I found interesting, I would have assumed that sp what was actually a big chunk of the gambling industry, but Danny was saying it's basically a way to get people interested in. Yeah. Like online, more classic versions of gambling like roulette and blackjack and craps and all that.

[Noah]

Yeah. It's interesting. I mean those are obviously more time consuming in a way. So I can see once you get in there, you're going to be really in there versus the sports betting. It's, it is relatively easy to dip your toe in.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Noah]

And if you only follow maybe one sport and maybe only one team, maybe you're only doing it a little bit efforts at least.

[Devin]

But you think about, I don't know if y' all have gamblers in your life, like family members who like are obsessed with the casino. But people lose a lot of money when they go to the casino in a way that would be very hard gambling on your phone to lose. Like people will go and lose thousands of dollars, you know, like spending a day or two in a casino.

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Yeah.

[Noah]

You're not going there from in there and spending $10.

[Devin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Noah]

That's what I did when I went to Atlantic City. But that's Me.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

That most people are showing up ready to spend.

[Devin]

At least spending real money. So there's probably. Maybe there's a scale. It's not as easy.

[Manny]

Yeah.

[Devin]

You know, to get as many people in the door as a casino, you know, as opposed to your phone. But you're going to. The people who get in the door are big spenders.

[Manny]

Yeah. They're spending, like, as if they're 10 sports gamblers.

[Devin]

Yeah. Exactly. At the right.

[Noah]

The thing of, like, solutions. If, like, okay, we're too far gone on this. How do we pull back or put it. Guardrails. It's like, one thing. It's like. Yeah. Well, like, having to go somewhere in person.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

To bet on sports or anything.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Noah]

Is a big difference. Then I'm in my basement, you know, my family's upstairs, and I'm just watching tv.

[Manny]

I would literally never bet.

[Noah]

It's like, it would change it so

[Manny]

much if I had to go somewhere to do it.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

That would immediately curb the activity. And I think. Yeah. Just in terms of, like, guardrails. You know, ask someone who does enjoy, like, here and there, throwing, like, the cost of a couple of, you know, lattes on a sports. On a game. Okay. Being big.

[Devin]

You're gonna say an alcoholic drink.

[Noah]

How much is a latte these days?

[Manny]

Yeah. That's more accurate. Instead of buying, like, a cocktail, I might throw that on a game. I think one way to kind of reel this back a little bit would be to only allow people to bet on the outcome of a game.

[Devin]

Yes.

[Manny]

Like, who is going.

[Noah]

Simplifying stuff.

[Manny]

Who's gonna win the game? That's the only thing you're allowed to bet on. You can bet as much as you want on that, but this whole thing with, like.

[Devin]

Yeah.

[Manny]

The really intricate nuance. Yeah. That kind of stuff is what I think.

[Devin]

Trapped. So there was a story recently about Russell Westbrook's wife got a email threat saying, like, I hope you die or something over someone who's betting on her husband.

[Manny]

That is so terrible. I mean. Yeah. You see every day, Kevin Durant's on Twitter fighting some guy who needed him to get an extra rebate. The idea that this is so such a big part of your life that you need to go confront the person who has inadvertently lost you money is really bleak.

[Devin]

Damn.

[Noah]

Someone betting on him is.

[Manny]

Now that's bleak.

[Noah]

Respectfully, Russ,

[Manny]

No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hatakador. The show was created by Manny Fadal Noah Freedman and Devin Joseph. The theme and credit songs are by me, Manny, and the mixing was done by Steve Bone. Thank you to our guest, Danny Funt, the author of Everybody the Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. You can find that book in the link in our bio. Visit Nosuchthing show to subscribe to to our newsletter and if you have feedback for us or a question, our email is Manny Noadevin gmail.com See you next week. No no, no, no such thing.

[Julian Edelman]

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time, and one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete, my identity is something I am proud of, but I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired during the big Game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words. And sometimes standing next to someone is enough and you can show support by sharing the Blue Square hey, it's Ryan

[Ryan Seacrest]

Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for store wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Lindor, Chips Ahoy Gatorade, Post Ziploc and Zoa. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more or enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

Yes, it's me again. The time for empowerment and I've got a message for you. With who? Yeah, yeah. To all you lovers out there, ain't no judgment. This is is Q. It's time to talk about HIV prevention. Talk to a health care provider and visit carefortheculture.com to learn more at Applebee's

[Manny]

Drink stays better when they're sipped together. That's why they're dropping two new still

[Danny Funt]

together sips Cocktails made with still gin

[Manny]

by Dre and Snoop. After one taste, you'll have your mind on your sips and your sips on your mind. Must be 21 plus void. Will prohibit the tax and gratuity excluded dining only acceptable carry out alcohols permitted by law, participation may vary while supplies last.

[Promo Voice / PSA Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.