Sports Gambling in Tennis, Fonseca’s First 500, & Bencic Comeback

Summary

Served with Andy Roddick Podcast Summary

Episode: Sports Gambling in Tennis, Fonseca’s First 500, & Bencic Comeback
Date: October 28, 2025
Host(s): Andy Roddick with Mike Tucky (Producer) and Jon Wertheim (“JW”)

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the complexities and consequences of sports gambling in tennis, addressing the influx of betting partnerships, increasing player abuse, and integrity challenges. Andy and Mike begin by celebrating remarkable recent player stories, then welcome Jon Wertheim for an in-depth discussion on the risks, ethical questions, and the urgent need for transparency and player protections as tennis embraces the gambling industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Racket Rundown: Celebrating Standout Stories

• Belinda Bencic’s Comeback

  • Returned from maternity leave, skyrocketing from world No. 913 to No. 11 in one year.
  • [02:12] Andy: “I am happy to talk about it. Belinda Bencic winning last week is up to 11 in the world. Her year end ranking in 2024 was 913 in the world… That’s absurd.”
  • Praises her as a model professional and highlights the rarity of such a comeback.

• Ann Li’s Breakout Year

  • Noted for a 33–24 win/loss record and achieving a career-high ranking at age 25.
  • [03:37] Andy: “Just a great year. Not one that we've talked about a ton. Still doing work at the end of the year…”

• João Fonseca’s First ATP 500 Win

  • Youngest since Nadal to reach back-to-back third rounds at French Open and Wimbledon.
  • [05:27] Andy: “Props to Xiao Fonseca. Listen, we've been spoiled by the likes of Rafa and Carlos… This kid’s the real deal.”
  • Praises Fonseca’s maturity and locker room likability.

• Jannik Sinner’s Ongoing Dominance

  • Noted for winning tight matches against top players.
  • [06:18] Andy: “That’s how dominant Yannick Sinner’s been, especially indoors.”

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2. Sports Gambling in Tennis: Scale, Impact, and Integrity

The Explosion of Gambling and Its Effects

• Enormous Global Betting Volume

  • [09:07] Mike: “100 million pounds wagered on tennis globally each day… 1.6 million social media posts analyzed by Threat Matrix in 2024.”

• Player Abuse Linked to Gambling

  • 40% of all detected social abuse comes from angry gamblers.
  • 458 pro tennis players targeted with abuse in 2024 – often lower-ranked or Challenger level players with little notoriety.
  • [10:12] Andy: “You are going and trolling players that aren’t playing on the tours, that are just trying to scrape by... That’s so stupid.”
  • 5 players received 26% of all abuse; 97 accounts responsible for a large share of it.

• Micro-Betting Complexity

  • [13:02] Andy: “1500 unique betting opportunities per ATP match… Someone can say, ‘I’m going to double fault the first point of my fourth service game.’”
  • Raises challenges around monitoring and incentive for isolated “point-shaving.”

• Revenue and Distribution Unclear

  • [16:06] Andy: “How much of these betting deals is going directly to prize money?... It didn’t go up a dime… for 20 years before that.”

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Special Segment: Jon Wertheim Discusses Integrity Risks

• Tennis Is Especially Vulnerable

  • [20:11] JW: “There are few sports easier to manipulate than tennis… now it’s not just match fixing, but micro-bets — all of these prop bets.”

• Recap of High-Profile Match-Fixing (Davidenko 2007)

  • Explained as an insider trading-like scenario, but very hard to prove.
  • [25:08] Andy: “If I remember correctly, you wouldn’t think... a guy No. 4 in the world wins the first set, that you’d get $7 million in action for the other guy to win the match...”

• Threats and Duress

  • Some players may be coerced by criminal elements, not just lured by profits.
  • [28:39] JW: “I think there’s a whole element in some of these match fixing cases of duress and defense. And we know where your family lives…”

• Transparency and Player Compensation

  • Repeatedly question how much of new gambling revenue flows to players, who receive the brunt of abuse and risk.
  • [32:04] JW: “Anytime you see a data deal... that's just a euphemism for we're making a deal with a sportsbook. ...What are the players getting out of these data deals?”

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3. Timeline: Tennis and Betting — From Ban to Embrace

• 2018: ATP bans betting sponsorships after integrity concerns.
• 2020: Ban reversed amid COVID-19 revenue shortfalls.
• 2021–2023: Data/streaming partnerships accelerate; SportsRadar secures six-year ATP deal, opening floodgates to global micro-betting.
• 2024: Threat Matrix launched to monitor online abuse (8300 players, 40 languages).
• 2025: Major bans for match fixing handed out, and controversial sponsorships (e.g., 1xBet) signed.
  • [45:14] Mike: “SportsRadar secures a six year global ATP data embedding streaming rights deal, covers 250+ tournaments, 17,000+ matches annually…”

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4. Player Protection, Abuse, & a Call for Accountability

• Abuse Disproportionately Targets Women

  • [43:31] JW: “…disproportionate. It does seem like the women get the disproportionate brunt of this.”

• Demand for Transparency

  • Consistently ask for clarity on:
    • Distribution of gambling revenues to players.
    • Details of safeguards and responses to player abuse and threats.
  • [41:33] Andy: “Wouldn’t it be rational to say, okay, this sucks, but here is the financial offset to that very clearly, right?… There needs to be a very detailed offset…”

• The Paradox of Sponsorship

  • Players banned from having gambling sponsors, even while the tours themselves profit.
  • [32:50] JW: “Imagine if the US Open said, ‘Here’s a splashy press release. But if any player is seen driving a Lincoln, they're automatically banned. The product is so problematic that the players would face a ban... but not problematic enough so that you can take sponsorship money if you’re the institution.’”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bencic’s Comeback
  • [02:51] Andy: “That's absurd. Like, 913 is like, you don't even… don't really have a ranking. Almost non ranking. 11 in the world. Crazy cool story.”
• On Gambling Revenue Transparency
  • [33:10] JW: “Simple question, simple math. How much money of this is going to waterfall down to the players?”
• On Abusive Messages
  • [12:19] Andy: “If you make a bet and you’re shocked that you lose money, you’re an idiot.”
• On Micro-Betting Risks
  • [21:12] JW: “…We’re in a world now where you don’t have to lose a match. You need to double fault the third service point of the second game of the second set. All of these micro bets and these prop bets, I think that’s where a lot of the issues arise.”
• On Player Safeguards
  • [47:03] Andy: “How do we value online threats? Is it the responsibility of the Tour? If you’re going to be in on profiting... what are the fail safes, what are the responses to threats? How are they valued versus in person threats?”
• On Betting and Abuse Culture
  • [52:42] Andy: “All you losers tapping away your keyboards at people who are actually trying to, you know, blood, sweat and tears on the tennis court. This is a you problem. This is not a player problem.”
• On the Growth of Gambling in Tennis
  • [52:41] Andy: “Cities have been built with people going there knowing that they're most likely going to lose.”

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Timestamps by Section

• 01:13–07:45 — Racket Rundown: Bencic, Li, Fonseca, Sinner
• 07:53–17:02 — The Scale and Consequences of Betting in Tennis
• 17:02–39:12 — JW Joins: NBA Betting Scandal Parallels, Tennis Integrity, Davidenko Case, Threats and Intimidation
• 39:12–46:42 — Financial Transparency, Player Compensation, Timeline of Betting Partnerships
• 46:42–50:38 — Threat Matrix, Player Abuse & Data
• 50:38–53:56 — Final Thoughts: Is Tennis Handling This Well? Calls for Accountability, Balancing Growth with Player Protection

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Conclusion

The episode masterfully balances tennis storytelling with hard-hitting questions about the sport’s future as betting partnerships proliferate. The hosts challenge listeners (and the sport’s authorities) to demand transparency, fair compensation for players, and robust systems to protect those most affected by sports gambling—the athletes themselves. All agree: Betting is here to stay, but the tennis community must do far more to ensure its growth doesn’t come at the players’ expense.

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Open invitations were issued throughout the episode to any tennis executives or officials willing to come on the show and answer for these issues “on the record.”

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(End of summary)

Transcript

[Andy]

Support for the show comes from Nutrafol, the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand. One and a half million people have tried Nutrafol, including me. I've tried it before myself. It's been great. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping. When you go to nutrafol.com and enter the promo code served that's spelled N U T R a f o l.com promo code served nutrifold.com promo code server.

[Mike Tucky]

Serve.

[Andy]

Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Mercury knows that to an entrepreneur every financial move means more. A credit card on day one means creating an ad campaign on day two. And a business loan means loading up an inventory for Black Friday. That's why Mercury offers banking that does more all in one place. So that doing just about anything with your money feels effortless. Visit mercury.com to learn more. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group column NA and Evolve bank and Trust members FDIC.

[Mike Tucky]

Hey everyone.

[Andy]

Welcome to served. I'm Andy, he's producer Mike Tucky. Sean Social. Sophie's got something for me after this segment it looks like because she's here in the room as well. All a big happy serve family today. Welcome into the show. We are going to get straight into the racket rundown brought to you by Wilson. Story of of the week I think which leads into one of the bigger stories of the year which I think has been kind of underserved. Get it? See what I did there?

[Mike Tucky]

Oh God.

[Andy]

Okay, if I said someone's ranked 913 in the world, let's just, I don't know, let's take it back like a year. 913 in the world. What do you think the odds were would be of that person being ranked 11 a year later? And wouldn't everyone know those numbers off the top of their head? Yeah, that'd be crazy. That'd be a crazy story.

[Mike Tucky]

That'd be nuts.

[Andy]

Now what if that person was coming back from from time away because she had a child and went from 9 13, didn't play tennis for a long time, went from 913 to 11 in the world. I feel like everyone would be talking about that right? Like all the time. Like one of the stories of the year. I am happy to talk about it. Belinda Bencic winning last week is up to 11 in the world. Her year end ranking in 2024 was 9, 913 in the world.

[Mike Tucky]

That's crazy.

[Andy]

You believe that?

[Mike Tucky]

It's crazy.

[Andy]

That's absurd. Like 913 is like, you don't even, don't really have a ranking. Like it's Almost non ranking 11 in the world. Almost in the top 10. Crazy cool story. I don't know her and also I'm positive that I really like her. Yeah, like those that, you know, those kind of people where it's just like no one says anything wrong. They go about it the right way. Nothing they do on court ever really rubs you the wrong way. Like they're just good. Props to Belinda Benich. Eleven in the world right now.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah.

[Andy]

9:13 a year ago, on the road with her kid.

[Mike Tucky]

Which is cool.

[Andy]

Like I.

[Mike Tucky]

It's a family effort. We had, we had her on Love all and she talked about, you know, kind of how her family structure was set up to support her.

[Andy]

It's amazing.

[Mike Tucky]

She's incredible.

[Andy]

Superheroes, absolute superheroes. And I love that this is a story that is now happening more often. Our dear friend Kim Kleisters, you know, was, was one of the ones who kind of set the terms that, you know what this is. This is something that's real. That's. This, this is something that's going to happen. It doesn't always happen from 9:13 to 11. It's nice to see it when it does. I think this is such a cool story. Congrats to Belinda Benchic on her win last week. Congrats to Ann Lee. Like it's another story that we haven't talked about enough. Winning last week in Gwangju. 33 and 24 in the year. Like it's. There are really good players who have been like top 30, 40 for a long time that don't have a winning record on tour. Right. And that doesn't count challengers. Tour record 33 and 24, career high ranking. Now 25 years old. Just a great year. Not one that we've talked about a ton. Still doing work at the end of the year. Jow. Wow, wow, wow. Fonseca. We've been wanting it. Everyone's been ready for it. Top 30 in the world. Imagine breaking out like he did and getting kind of the name value and the name recognition that he did at the beginning of the year. You know, doing casual things like making the third round. The youngest person in 25 years to make the third round of the French Open and Wimbledon back to back, you know, stuff like that. And people going, man, he hasn't progressed like we thought because he lost sometimes. He's pretty young.

[Mike Tucky]

He's pretty young. It's okay to lose sometime.

[Andy]

Winning in Basel last week in the top 30, sending a message going into the next year. And also we have to remember he's going to get some time off. He started by winning Next gen finals. And what is that? Played December.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Great.

[Andy]

Fantastic. So he's been playing 12 months straight?

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, it's great.

[Andy]

Props to Xiao Fonseca. Listen, we've been spoiled by the likes of Rafa and Carlos and these people that go from 40 in the world to one in a cup of coffee. This kid's the real deal. I had the pleasure of meeting him in New York this year, and engaged looks you in the eye. I like everything about him. Being around him, it seems like everyone. It seemed like you can always kind of tell how the other players act around someone. Someone that came out with that much hype is that young, you know, I felt a lot of pushback in the locker room when. When I was in his position, probably because I was a prick also, or still am one. But he doesn't seem like that. He seems really nice. It seems like the other players really enjoy being around him. So props to him. Big week for him, winning in Basel. And the other crazy result, Sinner won this week.

[Mike Tucky]

Oh, no way.

[Andy]

Nuts. You know, someone's good, right? When you see the scoreline and people like, oh, man, he, he. He had a tough one. He almost lost to the number three player in the world. That's crazy. That's not normal. Win 75 in the third, loses the first set against Alex Verev, and it's like, man, that was a tight one. It's the number three player in the world who's probably the best player ever not to win a slam. I can say that statistically, you can argue with me on, you know, you like this person, that person. But statistically, Zverev is such a good player, has been so good for so long, hasn't won. He is the best player to have not won a major. No, no. And it's not. There's not a statistical argument to be made against it at this point. He is so, so good. But also that speaks to the greatness of a sinner, where someone who is, you know, made a bunch of finals and won the Olympics and won a bunch of tournaments and one year in finals multiple times, and all of this stuff, it's like, oh, man, he was. He got. He got taken to 75 in the third. That's how dominant Yannick Sinner's been, especially indoors. Like, we forget what he did last year, World Tour Finals, where I don't think he lost more than four games in a set the entire tournament, which is absurd on a fast indoor hard court. Just crazy. I've enjoyed the opening to this particular show, not because it's anything out of the ordinary. We do racket rundown a lot. But because it's about tennis and it's fun and you get to celebrate Stories.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And they're not controversial. Well, that shit's over for this episode.

[Mike Tucky]

But it's important what we talk about.

[Andy]

It is important. And we don't just lean into, you know, the. The fluffy stuff like hot guy draws and stuff like that. Like, we what?

[Mike Tucky]

We're not going to run this through AI and put hair on it.

[Andy]

What we actually get into the nuts and bolts and the things that make the tennis world go around, like why we have these things and why we have a podcast that people listen to, is because we lean into stuff and listen. Not every opinion I give is right. There's no way it could be right. But you have to talk about the hard things in tennis and the things that are making the tennis world go round and not just act shocked by them. So obviously this week, and we're gonna have JW here in a little bit to kind of discuss his opinions on the FBI investigations and the arrests and the Terry Roziers and the Chauncey Billups and the game fixing and everything that's going on that you all have probably heard about with the NBA this week. What does that look like in tennis is the obvious question, because we have a tennis podcast. This is our lane. This is what we do. Mike, you put together a lot of crazy stats to kind of define scale of where betting is specifically in tennis. 100 million pounds wagered on tennis globally each day. 40% of all detected abuse came from angry gamblers in 2024. 77% of direct message abuse stems from angry gamblers when monitoring messages. 1.6 social media posts analyzed by Threat Matrix in 2024.

[Mike Tucky]

1.6 million.

[Andy]

1.6 million. 458 players targeted with abuse in 2024. So that's interesting in that we should take a second to define that how many players actually make the main draw of tournaments of which, you know, like 20% of those players. 256 between the men's and the women's draw is the right answer. So we're talking to get to 458 players. You are going and trolling players that aren't playing on the tours, that aren't playing on the main tours, that are just trying to scrape by in. In Challenger Tours. 458 players targeted with abuse in 2024. You're literally going and searching for players that might have like 14 followers.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah.

[Andy]

And crushing them for a set they lost somewhere. That's so stupid.

[Mike Tucky]

And not just saying like, hey, you lost me money.

[Andy]

No, that's your fault.

[Mike Tucky]

They're like threatening them.

[Andy]

That's your fault.

[Mike Tucky]

Because you're saying disgusting.

[Andy]

Said player playing in some play, you're never going to have enough information to make a logical bet. If you go to the lower rungs of tennis, you morons, don't send them a message. Idiots. 5 players received 26% of all abuse. 5 players received 26% of ALL abuse. So let's run that back. 458 players received abuse in 2024. 5 of those players received 26% of all of that abuse. Identities kept confidential. 97 accounts responsible for about 23% of all abuse. So this is a habit from these accounts. This is not a one off my angry Uncle Larry getting pissed. Which by the way, if you make a bet and you're shocked that you lose money, you're an idiot. Also, 1902 abusive incidents detected at Wimbledon in 2025, up from 511. So 400% more ish. Just under. This is a problem that's getting worse at a crazy clip. Fifteen cases escalated to law enforcement in 2024. And by the way, that seems low to me because if I walk in here, Sean, and I say, I'm going to insert threat here to you and because we're standing and I can see your eyeballs, that's a threat taken seriously. And I would get arrested for that. Correct. Now, if I type it, apparently it doesn't write because I mean. And you can post in the newsletter like the actual quotes from the actual players, which seem to overwhelmingly be women that have come forth and talked about it. It's a crime.

[Mike Tucky]

I want to clarify that a lot of the data that you're reading right now comes from the threat matrix, which is a system that is. Was started by the WTA, ITF Wimbledon, US Open. This isn't even inclusive of like ATP.

[Andy]

So this isn't the first scale they haven't published.

[Mike Tucky]

The way they have this is. This is mainly faced by female players. What we're, what we're saying the male players is probably just as prevalent.

[Andy]

Over 100 billion global sports betting market value in 2024. 187 billion. So you can do the math on that and how quickly it's growing. Projected sports betting market value 2030 tennis ranks the fifth most bet on sport in the UK. 1500 unique betting opportunities per ATP match via SportsRadar's ATP service.

[Mike Tucky]

Plus. You gotta have a plus. I don't care who's got a plus.

[Andy]

Okay, so that's an interesting thing too, because I think we'll probably talk about it because it's impossible to talk about the origin story of when this all kind of started without talking about Davidenko in 07, but used to bet on like the outcome of a match, right? So that would take three hours of your afternoon. I'm going to repeat what I just said. 1500 unique betting opportunities per ATP match. So that invites a lot of things. That invites. Someone can try their best for an entire match and say, I'm going to double fault the first, the first point of my fourth service game. It's tough to detect intent when it happens in three seconds, right? This makes it a lot. This makes the problem a lot tougher. It makes people a lot angrier. There's a lot more volume because you provide more betting opportunities. You're going to, you're going to also provide a lot more problems for the players, which is, it's going to happen because betting is not going away. Gambling's not going away. I'm not mad at that in general. I just want to make sure that our players are protected and I want to make sure that if we are signing these deals with these huge companies, it's a very, very, very detailed breadcrumb trail of how much of that goes directly back to the players and prize money and X, Y and Z. Right. Because I know 1,000 owners make a lot of money when they sign these deals. Players can't sign gambling deals per the rules. Therefore, that money should flow through to the players in some way, shape or form because they are the ones that.

[Mike Tucky]

I don't think they're allowed to wear like patches or anything.

[Andy]

Nothing that are bearing the. I can as a podcaster, but they can't. They're creating the revenue and I can, I can benefit off of it.

[Mike Tucky]

That's nuts. Can I, can I give you a crazy number? So if it's 1500 touch points, 20, 24, there was around 17,000 matches played, meaning there's 25.5 million opportunities to place a bet annually on tennis. If that's true.

[Andy]

So that's like one per tournament.

[Mike Tucky]

It's crazy.

[Andy]

Schedule, joke, schedule, joke. Let's see how hardcore you are, Chuckers. There it is.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah.

[Andy]

So listen, the numbers are just getting crazy. And obviously with the story last week, it's our job to kind of pay attention to it.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

I would love.

[Andy]

I just like. If you haven't figured it out by listening to us for two years now, I just crave clarity.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right.

[Andy]

I get big problems, and I don't think there are simple solutions to big problems. Right. Masters 1000 goes last week to say I understand the market forces involved. We don't want live. We don't want to break up tennis. That's. No one wants that. Is it the best solution? Do they have a lot of financial benefit? Yeah. What are we using it for? Can we fix the schedule with it? I have a lot of questions past just Saudi money deal. Like it's more complicated than that. And I fully understand it. It's not an easy call for anyone to make.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right.

[Andy]

Are we able just to make up new Masters 1000 licenses? Can we make up 16 of them if we set precedent? Is that where we're going? No answers to any of these questions. How much of these betting deals is going directly to prize money? And their answer will be challenger. Prize money has gone up 142% since 2022.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Yeah.

[Thumbtack Advertiser]

Great.

[Andy]

It didn't go up a dime or close to it for the 20 years before that. So, like, there's a way to tell a story without actually giving us any detail whatsoever. You look at the NBA betting revenue, it's. I'm assuming it's billions of dollars. Right. Let's call it $1.5 billion. It's a safe assumption based on the deal that the NBA has with the players, that half of that or 600 million of that is going directly to player salaries or directly to the players because they have those terms negotiated ahead of time. It's like they're doing these deals and then it's to play. And then what we're doing is we're playing catch up with what goes to the players based on the deals that are coming across the line. That's a problem. What do you think, Mike?

[Mike Tucky]

I mean, it sounds like we should bring JW in and talk a little bit more about it.

[Andy]

We'll be back with John Wertheim after the break. Support for the show comes from Nutrafol. Nothing beats the ego boost that comes with a good hair day. So if you want a whole body approach to tackling hair issues like shedding or thinning, give Nutrafol a. Nutrafol is the Number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people, including me. I've tried Nutrafol before myself and it's been great. In just three to six months, you can go from a hat guy to a hair guy with visibly thicker, fuller hair and improved scalp coverage. Nutriful Men is clinically tested to improve hair growth and quality. So hats off to great hair. For a limited time, Nutrifol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to nutrafol.com men and enter the promo code served. Find out why Nutrafol is the leading hair growth supplement brand on the [e-mail] spelled N u T R-A F o L.com Men promo code served. That's nutrafol.com Men promo code served. Support for the show comes from Mercury, the banking product that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. For entrepreneurs, your banking transaction history is like a scrapbook of important moments in your company's history. That deposit isn't just a deposit deposit. It's the first batch of seed capital. Sure, business is business, but to entrepreneurs, it's also personal. Mercury is the banking product made by entrepreneurs. For entrepreneurs. It's meticulously designed with your needs in mind to make managing your business's money effortlessly simple and streamlined. Here at Served, Mercury has been a game changer when it comes to organizing our invoices, tracking our billing and most importantly, being sure we take care of the people that make this show possible. With on time payroll banking cards, spend management, invoicing and more are all in one place. With Mercury ready to see what powerful banking can do for your business, visit mercury.com to apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a banking services provided through Choice Financial group column NA and Evolve bank and trust members fdic. All right, and here now with us as promised, JW gonna weigh in on obviously the sports world's attention and you see stories that cross over into interest with people who don't know that basketball is spelled with two Ls and all of a sudden they're interested in what's going on. On the heels of Terry Rozier being arrested, Chauncey Billups being arrested and they're seemingly being, you know, I don't know, NBA players used as bait, maybe, maybe throwing, you know, Rozier faking an injury, obviously getting the under on stats and controlling bets and all that. And Chauncey Billups being a part of poker games. Jw as you kind of process and digest those stories from last week and what the NBA is going through. Where does your mind go as to how it applies to tennis? Are we fraught for corruption because there's only two players and one can throw it? Where does your mind go with this? Jw, we are fraught.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Yeah. I mean this was sort of the sexy story this week and some of this was about X ray rooms and contact lenses that can read poker cards. But I think the bigger question is about integrity of competition in sports. And what do we love about sports? That it's unscripted and we don't know what's happening and the whole bottom falls out if competition gets corrupted. What do you need to have happen? Well, you need to have someone who can manipulate an outcome and there are few sports that are easier to do than tennis. And I think that's one thing. I mean we can, maybe we'll talk, maybe we'll get to Davidenko, which is sort of the big tennis scandal. It's almost 20 years ago. That was match fixing. What does match fixing mean? One player dumps a match. Allegedly. We are in a world now where you don't have to lose a match. You need to double fault the third service point of the second game of the second set. All of these micro bets and these prop bets, I think that's where a lot of the issues arise. And yeah, I mean tennis is just go through the checklist, right? I mean first you need economic incentive. There certainly is that A lot of these suspicious wagers are coming where there's much more money wagered on the match than the player could ever make. You've got one athlete, right. You don't the running backs. The football team's a tough, that's a tough sport to throw, right. Unless you're a quarterback. Right. But a tennis player, hey listen, we hit 40 unforced errors anyway. What's one long forehand? And I mean part of me with this whole story, what did you expect was going to happen? Right? We had this huge about face in sports where suddenly the same leagues that were saying this is going to invite unsavory characters and this is going to ruin competition and this is going to sully our sport. They all did an about face, right? And they all said well it's going on anyway, we may as well bring it in from the dark corners and apply sunlight and we'll be able to catch people with all these partnerships and with technology and we'll be able to monitor. You've got athletes, they are all you Know, we're all creatures of incentives. They're very, they're competitive to begin with. A lot of them are young. It's sort of like what, what did you expect was going to happen? But as far as tennis goes. Yeah, I mean, this is a very popular betting sport. We've all heard whispers. Do I think the Wimbledon final is, is rigged and tainted? No, but I think just a lot logically, just as a common sense thought exercise, tennis is pretty vulnerable here. Doesn't take much, especially in this era of live betting and prop bets where it's not a question of winning or losing and match fixing. It's second serve, 70 minutes into the match fixing. So, yeah, I think tennis is in a pretty precarious spot here. Yeah.

[Andy]

And you mentioned the David Anko match. And so let's just. For people that have just kind of read headlines and are like, wait a minute, I thought it was about poker. It's about throwing a game. So Terry, Roger was a player for the Hornets. I in someone that we watched and like weirdly played his ass off, but then apparently didn't for at least a game.

[Mike Tucky]

At least a game, yeah.

[Andy]

So basically the way it works is betters come in and they bet the under on like 3, 4, 5 statistical categories for Terry Rosier. So let's say he, that year he's averaging, he averaged close to 20 points a game. They're like, okay, we're going to take the under on, on his average or whatever he's suspected to score based on matchups that day. Same with assist, same with whatever else. Terry Rogier, you know, six minutes in, you know, he played 10 minutes, whatever it was, said, my ankle hurts.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right.

[Andy]

There was no documentation before the game. You know, I don't know what the fallout was afterwards, but by him taking himself out of the game, all of a sudden all those betters win. So it's basically like insider trading, right. For lack of, if we're putting it in, in financial terms. So he controls the outcome of all of these bets. And there was a, an uncharacteristic amount bet on the unders for his statistical categories for that day. So that would imply, and they've since proven, that there was something sideways. Information was getting out, right. The betting markets were getting tips on who was playing. Chauncey Billups was sitting, you know, his good players for his bad players. And it seemed like the betting markets were ahead of the official announcements. That means someone has inside information and is releasing it to this ring of betters, which obviously is an illegal Activity so level set. We rewind to Nikolai Davidenko where I. And I'll get some parts of it wrong. But I promise you the gist of it is 95% there. Right. Playing Vasalo Aguello in 2007 at Mar Monte Carlo, David Anko was, I don't know what he was at that time. He's always like a top five guy.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

For I think, I think it was Poland for what it's worth.

[Thumbtack Advertiser]

So.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

So pot Poland.

[Andy]

Oh, it was, it was in. So okay, so. So pot Poland. So somewhere around there David Anko. So maybe even more, more obvious to throw a match at a 250 and not a 1 1, 1000. Anyways, so David Anko wins the first set. Rolling. And David Anko's 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in the world, whatever it is. And Versalo Goello is, is, is not. He's 60, 70, 80, you know, challenger kind of, you know, maybe between the, the Tours type guy. If I remember correctly, you wouldn't think Mike and techie Sean that if a guy 4 in the world wins the first set that you would get $7 million in action for the other guy to win the match. Like Vasalo Aguile is going to turn this thing around against a much better in inform everything else. That's what happens. So also it's very outsized the amount of bets. Like they said, most matches at that moment got like 300k in action. This got 7 million in the first little bit of the second set. So you fast forward what's going to happen. Aguello wins the second set. Strange. David Anko pulls out with an injury that was not previously disclosed. So it's pretty similar to the circumstances around Terry Roger. Right. And then the betting companies kind of void it based on like crazy practices. And then there are lawsuits, people saying give me my money. It got really ugly. There was a full investigation. The ATP you felt like kind of just wanted it to go away. There was ultimately, I don't think there was any punishment for Davidenko.

[Mike Tucky]

And if cleared.

[Andy]

Yeah, if there was, it was like, it was like, you know, not, not much. I don't remember him being gone. Pretty sure I remember him kicking my ass shortly there afterwards. But if there is inside information that is how someone can affect millions and millions in betting markets and shifts and it's, it's basically insider trading and you need a single person to affect it in tennis. I know another story just to provide some color because we don't know the reasoning behind, you know, if David Anko knew what was going on and he was cleared. So let's make that very, very, very clear. We also don't know the reasoning. Right. It could be I'm in on it like a Terry Rozier or it could be I have a friend, I'm not going to name names, but played in Moscow or St. Peter's somewhere in Russia one year and gets a call in his room at the host hotel one night and says, this is the offer for you to throw the first round match.

[Mike Tucky]

Wow.

[Andy]

You know, you can contact us here. And it was 7.8x what he would have gotten. And this is someone who was, I don't know, a career high 60, 70 and then played between 70 and 200 for, you know, bulk of their career. Didn't, he didn't, didn't do it. But the implication was we're there, we'll be watching you, we'll be in the first row. Like it was intimidation, right. And it was, it was, it was threatening. So he had two decisions. One, he goes, the financial one, that's not worth, you know, any reputation tarnishment. I like, you know, I like, I like being on tour. I'm not going to do that. But then it's the other thing. It's like go to certain places. You know, this, this NBA thing was a, was driven by the mafia, you know, it's, it's a, it's a scary thing. Jw, that's, that's a great point.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

And in the Davidenko case, the vast majority of the money was bet from the account traced to Russia. Right? It was, it wasn't like that wildly disproportionate amount bet on this, this throwaway 250 match was spread out during the investigation. The investigators were threatened. One of the reasons the investigation took, I think it was more than a year. One of the reasons the investigation took so long was because the investigations were, the investigators were being threatened. And then Davideco, it was very strange. I don't, I mean, I guess technically the headline would be he was cleared, but the ATP essentially said that there was no evidence of wrongdoing. I don't have in front of me, but it was like no evidence that there were of wrongdoing, which is not quite. It's like we couldn't prove the case. It's not like, yes, you're free to go. And one thing that always stuck me, I'm glad you raised a point because we also, we're creatures of incentives. We just said this, right? And a lot of it's like why would these millionaire athletes risk their reputation? I think in a lot of these cases there is a duress angle as well. And I'm glad you brought up threats because some of this is like, hey, here's an easy way to make more in money than you would ever make in prize money. All you have to do is dump, dump. But these are some unsavory characters sometimes. I mean, you know, the mob poker game allegations, the kind of folks that threaten investigators to the point that they remove themselves. I think there's a whole element in some of these match fixing cases of duress and defense. And we know where your family lives and we often frame this as why, you know, why would, I heard this, why would Chauncey Billiams make $9 million a day? How great, how much money do you need? He makes $9 million a year. How much money do you need? That's one angle, another one, and this is utter speculation, but there's an element of athletes feeling threatened as well. And to your story about the colleague who went to Russia, I've heard similar things, that sometimes this is an easy way to make more money than you're ever going to make by winning this match. All you have to do is double fault or get broken in the third game of the second set. But I've also heard some pretty unsavory threats. And if there's a temptation, it's not to make money, it's defense, it's to prevent harm. So I think just something people might want to bear in mind.

[Andy]

Yeah, and obviously you're not going to get someone putting their hall of Fame resume at risk for, in my opinion, for 50, $100,000 to take a dive at a 250 somewhere. But the Challenger ATB Challenger Tour they just signed a huge deal with, was it Sports?

[Mike Tucky]

Well, it's all part of the larger deal with SportsRadar, which basically has a six year deal overall with the ATP. And so they claim that due to that deal and this thing called the tdi, the Tennis Data Innovations, which the ATP owns, that you've seen 160 some percent increase in Challenger Tour prize pool money since like 2022.

[Andy]

Well, it's 14,000 now to win the same tournament that I won in 2000 when I played Challengers at $7,000. So math is, that's, I don't, I don't, I, I need to have some details on that. So I'm assuming they have details on what percentage split goes straight to the player's prize money with these betting deals.

[Mike Tucky]

One would assume that'd be easy to find, but no. Great.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Why don't we ask the ATP? Would they like to comment? Anytime you see data deal, by the way, I mean that's just a euphemism for we're making a deal with a sportsbook. The way these press releases are worded always cracked me up where you make it sound like these are great analytics and these are problem solving, innovative. They have all these buzzwords. It's basically just you're paying a sportsbook for the right to the data so they can have gaming and gambling. Yeah, that's a great question to the ATP. Just flat question, how much money are the players getting out of these data deals? What is. I mean they can't have sponsorships, which I always think is kind of weird, right? Imagine if the US Open said, hey, we've got to just name a Lincoln Continental is our sponsor, we're doing a deal with them. Here's a splashy press release. But if any player is seen driving a Lincoln Continental, they are automatically banned. So the product is so problematic that the players would face a ban if they used it. But apparently not problematic enough so that you can take sponsorship money if you're the institution. I'd love to. That's a great question for the ATP. Simple, simple question, simple math. How much money of this is going to waterfall down to the players and.

[Andy]

At all levels they, they're using basically like the candy of this much is raised and it's, it's going to go down to the challenges. How much is going to go there and is that going to go to infrastructure or is that going to go to pockets? Right. And the increase since 2022, that's fine. But the prize money challenges was an increase for 20 years before that. So like I could, I could almost make a press release say anything that I wanted to. Right. Like, so I struggle and I will say like to your point, jw, I'll give you real life experience. I had a deal with, with Betway for two years. I am not clean of any of this. There's no, I didn't give gambling picks. I basically took a. It's not dissimilar to what I do here where you give an overview of a tournament and they use it. So I wasn't making specific picks so I wasn't tilting Betty lines or anything. Me saying Carlos Alcaraz, I think he's one of the favorites at Wimbledon isn't really. I would assume it's not changing much. But the reason why I bring that up is to one, listen, raise my hand and if we're gonna talk about something, let's be fully transparent. And two, as they're going through it, the amount of people that weren't allowed to be associated with it was pretty airtight. Obviously JW mentioned the players and I'll get some of the timelines wrong, but you'll get the gist of it. It was anyone who's going to be like a captain, you know, so basically, is there a captaincy in the offing some point at, in this deal and is that a barrier? Right, Those are conversations had if you had worked with a player, if you were currently coaching a player, or had worked with a player in the last two years, if you're credentialed, you know, at certain tournaments by a player, right. So there were all these restrictions to where the only people left to, you know, give a tournament summary for any one of these companies was like a podcaster, right? It was a pretty skinny, Narrow Lane to JW's point. But then all of a sudden we're announcing, you know, these massive deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the tours and it's like, listen, if we can't sign the same deals with the same partners that you're signing to benefit, how much of it is actually going into our pockets? Because there's an offset, right? And this is the way I look at it's, nothing's, nothing's clear. Like we talked about the Saudi 1000 last week and one of the points I've heard, I've heard, I've had a lot of chatter. We do these shows and I get a lot of texts from people. By the way, I hate requests for off the record conversations. Just so we're clear, I don't want an off the record conversation. If we're talking about something that you're addressing that I said on the air, yeah, I'm happy to be wrong, but just tell me I'm wrong on the record and I'll come on here and explain why I was wrong.

[Mike Tucky]

Or you can come on it the show.

[Andy]

Open invite. Always. Always an open invite. Yeah, always Clear as day, no problem. Come on, tell me why I'm wrong. I would love to hear it. The Saudi thing was interesting because there's like different layers to all of these things. So I came on last week and we didn't really talk about the Saudi specific of the deal, is more just schedule and where it's going to place and we knew this was going to happen and you know, hopefully it's for good and hopefully it's going to make a change. Right. Despite of, you know, and then everyone's like, you didn't talk about how bad it is enough. Okay, but listen, the ATP, what's your data point with, with these, with the Saudi money coming in, and I'm using this as an example, and we'll get back to gambling because it does come together. The example that we have is the Saudi money coming in and blowing up Gulf. That's, that's our data point, that's our precedent. That's what we have. Now. Do we want to potentially invite that into our sport where all of a sudden it's blown up and no one knows what's going to happen, or do we want to give them a tournament in the calendar? Yeah, seems like the safest option is to give a tournament in the calendar. Right. So it's not a perfect decision. There are a lot of strings. There are a lot of things. But is it the biggest insurance policy to not get the, you know, your entire tour blown up by people that probably can't afford to really cause havoc? What do you think? J.W.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

I think that, I think it's a really good point. I think the difference between the live approach and tennis's approach. But I also think it goes the other way too. Right. If part of the reason you are investing in sports is part of this, this national rebrand, right. Part of this sort of reputational laundering, I'm not sure Saudi Arabia looked great blowing up golf and having dueling lawsuits and this tour and viewership drops. I think tennis had some leverage here and said, listen, guys, you can go ahead and try and go bull in a china shop and blow this thing up and go sort of hostile takeover. Is that really going to accomplish your end? If part of this is reputational, is that really good for you? I'll tell you what we're going to do instead. You're going to get an exhibition. You're going to bring the women over here. We'll have Nadal, we'll have some big names come and legitimize this. You'll sp sponsor the rankings and this will look a lot more strategic and civil. You're not going to blow up our sport. You're not going to get the bad headlines that came with live. I think tennis had a lot more leverage here than perhaps they even knew.

[Andy]

Well, but we don't know how they exercise their leverage because we don't know the financials of the deal.

[Mike Tucky]

Right. You're talking about 1000 specifically yeah, like, we don't.

[Andy]

That's the point. With like the Gap. Like, they announced this gambling deal, but we don't know what goes to what. The Saudi deal. We don't know what's going to go to buybacks. We don't know if they come and they say, listen, this was the least worst of our decisions on the table and we can accomplish a month back in the schedule and fix this problem. That's been an issue for a long time. Okay. At least maybe we can. There's something good that might come out of it.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right?

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[Andy]

With the gambling thing, it's going to happen, right? It's going. There's no way you can stop it. On tennis, I'm not mad at the partnerships. You just want some clarity. So there are two things that I, that I really, really want to know. And then I'm going to kick it over to you, Mike. So get ready for the timeline on how quickly it's gone from we will not take betting partners to let's go. The two things that really concern me are where's the money going and what problems is it fixing in tennis, Right? Is it going into someone's pocket who's not actually playing, winning the matches and. Or having to deal with the fallout, Right? Because NFL players are eyes wide open. There are dangers to this game. CTE is a massive problem. And most of you know, my former NFL friends would say I would do it all over again. They knew what they were going to get paid. They knew the risks. They. They knew what the upside was to this potentially risky decision. Now you up the volume of trades with partnerships and making it easier to bet the number of bets that are available that JW has mentioned a couple of times. Who is taking the negative brunt of those things? And by negative brunt, I mean volume. I mean harassment. I mean death threats. I mean, you know, all of these comments. Who is taking the brunt of that? Is it the people making the deals? Who is it?

[Mike Tucky]

Players.

[Andy]

The players. So wouldn't it be rational to say, okay, this sucks, but here is the financial offset to that very clearly, right? We have these deals, yet we still have, you know, letters being written. And I can't get anyone on to fucking talk about the letters written and what the players are requesting from the slams, by the way, I've struck out on that. So anyone who would like to come on and actually discuss the issues, that'd be fantastic. But there needs to be a very detailed offset and then maybe you feel a little bit better, right? It's, it's not going to make it go away because the stuff that you have, we have a, you know, you can publish in the newsletter maybe Mike, but the stuff that's been written and documented and, and the stories the players have told, it's not as if it's not like, oh, you suck. It's not that.

[Mike Tucky]

No, it's. It's just racing death and it's disgusting.

[Andy]

It's disgusting, right. And so you're like sending players into.

[Mike Tucky]

Like panic attacks and events.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

So, and, and disproportionate. It does seem like the women get the disproportionate brunt of this. Yeah, but I, I like what you said before. Look, you can a couple of keystrokes. I don't have the Google in front of me, but here's what the NBA gets from, from the betting sector and X percent of this is going to the players. I would love a straight flat answer. What are the players getting? We know they're getting all sorts of abuse online. We know they're probably getting threats. We know they're not allowed to use patches or. Steph Curry's got a deal with a sports book. Tennis players aren't allowed to have that.

[Andy]

What?

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Very simple question of the tours. We get these splashy press releases. It's sports radar. It's a re up. There's streaming video. It's not just the ATP and WTA. The ITF has a data deal. Even the UTR has a data deal. What are the players getting out of this? Simple question. Anybody wants to answer that, you know where to find us.

[Mike Tucky]

Well, let's level set with a bit of a timeline. So you know, back in 2016, there was like a major report that 16 players ranked in the top 50 were flagged for match fixing which led to a major investigation internally by tennis, which led to in 2018 the ATP banning tournament sponsorship from all betting companies.

[Andy]

Did we, did we get, did we, how many of those names did we get?

[Mike Tucky]

I don't know. I don't have that exactly in front of me. I could look into that more.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

That was the buzzfeed.

[Mike Tucky]

That was the buzz.

[Andy]

You can find them online, but I.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Don'T believe there's any discipline.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, and they're in the Russian mafia. Was, was connected to it and Italian syndicates. So 2018, ATP bans betting. And then in December of 2020 they reversed this ban. Some say amid, you know, COVID 19 financial crisis and betting a daily fantasy is allowed in 250 and 500 tournaments. Masters 1000s are daily fantasy. Only tournament directors apparently, you know, celebrate the new revenue stream. And then in 2021 the ITIA launches the International Tennis Integrity Agency, the fully first fully independent anti Corruption Organization. 2021 also the WTA signs a deal with FanDuel. ITIA expands in 2022. And then in 2023 Karen Morehouse, who's been on the show before, joins the ITIA as CEO. And then in December of 2023 this is kind of where it all kicked into hyperdrive. SportsRadar secures a six year global ATP data embedding streaming rates deal. Covers 250 plus tournaments, 17,000 pluses match matches annually. Launches ATP service plus a 1500 plus micro betting opportunities per match.

[Andy]

But the headline is data and streaming deal.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, so then this, this creates the tennis data and innovations which is owned by the ATP, 80% by the ATP tour, 80 or 20 by ATP Media, which ATP Media is also owned by, portions of the Masters 1000s and tournaments, blah blah blah.

[Andy]

It's been a good, it's been a good run for the owners of the Masters 1000s.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, and then, and then 2024 through 25, there's, there's a, there's a slew of match fixing bands that range from 12 years to lifetime bands. There's, there's refs, there's umpires, you know, there's, there's players. And then the official betting partner of the ATP Challenger tour becomes 1xBet which apparently is banned in the UK and US. I don't know. That was October of 2025. We'll have to look into that one more. But then the threat matrix launches in January of 2024. That's the WTA, ITF, USTA, Wimbledon deploy threat matrix system by Signify Group. AI powered monitoring across social media platforms covering 8300 WTA and ITF players operating in 40 languages. Just so we can see the abuse. I don't know what it does to stop the abuse. Yeah, it's, I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot here. And then obviously in the calendar year of 2025, we have seen some super big headlines from some pretty big players receiving pretty disgusting threats. Mostly WTA players.

[Andy]

Yeah, I guess the, the whole thing is, what are we doing? Like, if someone sends a death threat online, do we have any, if all of these amazing deals and software and AI and data and streaming and all of these buzzwords, I haven't seen security in, in those.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right.

[Andy]

And, and, and so how do we value online threats? Is it the responsibility of the Tour? If you're going to be in on profiting, which I'm, I'm all for listening. This is all a business, so I'm not, I'm, you know, pretty capitalistic. Right. Like, I understand what needs to happen for things to continue to go. And all of these deals, what are the fail safes, what are the responses to threats? How do we investigate online threats? How are they valued versus in person threats? If someone says the things to these young women that they are saying, what is the responsibility to the Tours that have signed these deals that have ultimately increased the volume of bets, therefore increasing the volume of threats?

[JW (John Wertheim)]

That.

[Andy]

And how much of the money is going directly to the players? Jw, is that, is that kind of the two.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

I mean, no, I'm in total agreement. I do think we should reserve some sympathy for the Tour. You know, the flip side to all this is, look, this stuff's going on anyway.

[Andy]

I agree with this, by the way.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

And I think that's a, that's a fair point. I mean, I do think the micro bets on the prop bets put this in a different space. Right. And the neighborhood bookie is not saying Sean Wilcoxon is going to have fewer than three assists in the next game.

[Andy]

I take the under.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

But I also think, I mean, one thing that's kind of chilling to me, if you're the kind of person who's going to say, you know, hey, hey, you fat cow, learn to hit a backhand. You cost me money again. Is it that big a leap to. There are going to be real problems here if you don't get broken in the fifth game of the second set. I mean, if you're that much of a sociopath, that you are writing to strangers because you lost a few bucks on their tennis match in some cases. Is it that big a leap to real threats if you don't do X? It's not a simple. We love binary and we like right and wrong. It's complicated. But I think the point that you raise. Where is the player's voice in this? Where's the player's revenue? Where are the players protections? The players bear the brunt of this and also it's their labor that's creating this whole market. What are they getting out of it? A lot of nasty like DMs, but it's really. Yeah, it's going to happen anyway. Look, we talked about this, right? You only need one person to manipulate a result. It's a global sport. There are a million matches. Matches. Right. That There are only 17 NFL games for a team. I mean, think about. You're talking about 1500 data points you can bet on per match. There's always a match, some time zone like in some horrible, nefarious, evil genius way. Tennis is kind of a perfect sport for betting. What are the players getting out of it would be my principal question.

[Andy]

And Mike, there. A lot of the abuse comes from a lot of the same accounts. Correct. Like it's. Yeah, there's a. In edit the pause, but it, it.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, they said, they said basically five players receive 26% of all abuse, which they, they claim that they want to keep those identities.

[Andy]

They want to confidential. But they want us to know.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah, they want to know that 5% receive a disproportionate amount. And then 90, 97 prolific accounts responsible for 23% of all abuse.

[Andy]

There's your target. Listen, this is imperfect because if you want tennis to grow and if you want it to be part of everything becomes normalized. Even jw, when you were talking about Liv, and it's like they didn't get any flowers from the way that they did the live tour. And I'm going to. Well, I don't know.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Like.

[Andy]

Yes, I agree with you. It was a. It was a stain they got. They got smoked early and there were like bans on players for majors and there were like all these things that, that doesn't exist anymore. Sports washing doesn't happen overnight. Like it's, it's. It's kind of like we now are kind of normal. You know, it's like we kind of give a couple of years. They weren't in a rush for everything to be great. Like that's not the way it works.

[JW (John Wertheim)]

Right, Right. No, and say same, same with this. I mean, Davidenko was match fixing the result. Who's going to win? Who would have thought that less than 20 years later you could have a point by point micro bet? I also, I mean just, just big picture on this. I'm not sure why you would bet on tennis. There's always going to be someone with better information than you. Right? I mean you, you walk around the US Open and you can see this player's got an ice pack on their shoulder and this player's coach says, I don't even know if he's going to post. If he is, I'm telling him to pull the rip cord. If the hamstring hurts, you're on the other side of an ocean and you're taking action on that. I don't know.

[Andy]

Cities have been built with people going there knowing that they're most likely going to lose. I think our sober minds, I think it's more, I think entertainment is a piece of it and also it needs to be said. I think we kind of referenced it and if it's not assumed, then it should be said. If you like. I have no problem with people making bets, but it's, it's fun to make a bet with your buddies. Fun to like there are people that bet. I like that. That's fine. If you're an adult and you go online and whine about your bad decision making off.

[Mike Tucky]

Yeah.

[Andy]

Like all you losers tapping away your keyboards at people who are actually trying to, you know, blood, sweat and tears on the tennis court. This is a U problem. This is not a player problem. This is a U problem. Jw, what else?

[JW (John Wertheim)]

I think next time we're going to talk about, you know, Belinda Benchic is climb up the rankings. We're going to talk about some, some tennis results. Yeah. I mean this, these have been two kind of existential macro topics. I think they're important. I think that there's a lot of money at play. They really have a, a lot of foundational sort of importance to the sport. But we can also get back. It's like the criticisms of tnt. Like we can talk about the actual, the NBA show. We can talk about actual athletes doing great things next time. We can balance this. But I'm happy we talked about this.

[Andy]

You weren't here for the opening that we haven't shot yet. Jw but we're going to give Belinda benches her flowers. Fonseco already did it. We already did it. We haven't shot it yet, but we did it. When this Episode Presents we will have done it anyways. Some serious stuff going on. Obviously. Money makes a go round and we're in the middle of it right now with tennis.

[Mike Tucky]

I would love to have somebody on to talk in more detail about it.

[Andy]

Listen, I understand why you have to make the deals, right? You need to be a part of this ecosystem that makes it bigger, better. People are like, why don't we have events here? It's like, because that takes money. The answers to a lot of the questions that we get in the comments, well, why don't we send an event here? Or why can't we have more here? Why can't there be more seats? Why can't ticket? A lot of it's going to be based around these deals. It makes it, you know, some are, for lack of a better word, like some are a necessary evil. They're not all perfect and very basic. We have to protect our players. We cannot expose them to the new age form of Uber abuse and simply where is it going? How do the players benefit from the upped volume, rhetoric, etc. Etc. Thank you for watching served. We'll see you next week.

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