February 3, 2026 • 51 mins
Hosts Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci welcome author Danny Funt, who wrote the book, Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, which explores the growth of gambling and social acceptance in sports. Danny discusses the mixed messages being sent and methods used to create habits which now has fans gambling on their phones throughout a game. How did gambling go from 'evil' to being a partner of the professional leagues?
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey thereon, Welcome back to the Book of Joe Podcast
with Me, Tom Berducci, and of course Joe Madden. Joe,
we know, I think there's a football game coming up
(00:25):
this weekend and a lot of people like to watch
the game with money on the line, which really makes
this the perfect week to talk about a book that
I think is not just fascinating and entertaining, but I
would use the word necessary to try to define a
problem that's on our hands.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
We're talking about sports.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Gambling and the book is called Everybody Loses The Tumultuous
Rise of American Sports Gambling, written by our guests Danny
Funt and Joe. I know you've written a blurb for
this book, so Danny and Joe, thanks again for this
book and Joe for the blurb.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, listen, when Danny approached me about this, and he
had done a little research regarding my feelings on gambling
and what it's done to sports. Yeah, I was all
in when he approached me on that. And again, you're
talking and we I would probably get into this at
some point, but I grew up in a gambling culture
in my hometown. But it all happened in the back
room of a bar, and or at a card table
(01:24):
and uncle at third Base, lunching at till like six
o'clock in the morning with a bunch of friends.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
There.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You had to work a little bit to lose your
money back then. You don't have to work so hard
to lose your money right now. And so there was
always this romantic component of gambling as it used to
exist back in the day.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
I think it's become.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Ubiquitous to the point now that you could just so
easily lose your money the moment you wake up and
just pick up your phone. So that's what he and
I talked about, Danny and I, and yeah, I believe strongly.
I can't believe we've gotten to this point, very strongly.
So it's great to have you here today, Danny, to
talk about this in greater depth.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Well, thank you. I think it was listening to this show.
I don't remember exactly whether it's the in light of
the Tani scandal yet. It's easy to lose track of
some of these gambling scandals nowadays. But hearing both of
you express your concerns about what's happening with gambling made
me say, I got to see if Joe would be
kind enough to endorse this book. So thank you very
much for that. That meant a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, Danny, congrats on the book. It's doing very well.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
More importantly than that, you know, it's as I said,
it's necessary. It's an important book, not just a good read.
I want to take you back to where the book
for you begins, and it kind of begins with the
old borrow of gambling term risk reward.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You start with a question like what do we stand
to gain with all this sports gambling and what do
we stand to lose? And those were questions that were
not being asked with our rush to get into the
sports gambling universe here at least legally, which really goes
back to the Supreme Court ruling of twenty eighteen. So
I want you to tell our listeners here, you know
(03:01):
now that we were in this deeply, how would you
describe that risk reward ratio? Like what do we stand
to gain? And what have we learned about what we
stand to lose.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
It's still unbelievable to me that we as a nation
and the world of sports didn't really stop to process
that question. And give it the time you'd think it
would deserve. I feel like we sort of got cheated
out of that debate, as fundamental as that is. In
reporting the book and talking to so many people in
and around sports, I just got overwhelmed by all that's
(03:36):
at stake.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Beyond money.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
You know, there's so much money that Americans are losing
as they bet one hundred and fifty billion dollars a
year on sports nowadays, but beyond that, when you think
of faith in the integrity of the game, even for
fans that don't gamble and are just increasingly cynical as
they hear about fixing scandals or the threat of those.
(03:58):
The independence of sports media in some respects is there's
just such an jaggering amount of gambling advertising being poured
in and the tough spot that puts some sports journalists
when you think of the health consequences of so much
gambling for gamblers and also for athletes, and I get
(04:18):
into that in my book, how there's just this scourge
of harassment targeting athletes nowadays that's fueled by enraged gamblers
who want to get even all of that is hard
to even process, and then you ask, what do we
stand again, and I think that's a much harder question
to answer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I mean, we talked about this too, Danny and I
don't even know. You know, first of all, why, you know,
why did it? Why did it become so necessary to
incorporate this legalized version of gambling into our sports world.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Why?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And of course it comes down to money, obviously, but
for me and I think we discussed this also, the
need for perfection in the results of games.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I think accelerated all this gambling.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Gamblinglerated all that into the games because people are beening
exorbitant amount of money is on different sporting events, not
just baseball obviously, every basketball, football, whatever, And with that,
I think that is really accelerated check in the game
because you need to be right. I mean, gamblers cannot
be losing grand amounts of money on calls by normal
human beings, umpires, referees, whatever, and it's going to get
(05:26):
I thought, you know, probably it would even get worse
if that was not was that, if that was left unchecked,
where you're losing a lot of money without the last
last downs of checks and balances incorporated. So I mean,
regarding all of that, I mean, why why does it
gotten to this point. I just like hear your answer.
I mean, I think it's obviously one here we have
to say. And then, do you think the perfection in
(05:48):
the game is the result of the accelerated level of
gambling in the game where you have to be right
because the gamblers are really going to be upset if
they lose on a bad call.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Yeah, it is interesting the way, like the analytics boom
coincided with so many people taking an interest in gambling,
and maybe it gives you a full sense of confidence
if you think you've run the numbers on a game
versus just having an educated guess, and yet you find
out pretty quickly it's just unbelievably difficult to win money
betting on sports, the house that had just so dominant
(06:19):
in the long run, and yet people kid themselves because
they think I know my team or my you know league,
or what have you better than the bookie, And it
just does not work that way. As for why the
leagues got in bed with this, I was happy to
shed some light on that in the book. I think
baseball and the NBA really led the charge. The NBA
because they wanted to grow their game internationally, and they
(06:42):
looked at European soccer in particular and saw how the
English Premier League had used gambling to attract such a
big global audience, and that was very appealing to Adam Silver, saying,
you know, we're doing everything we can to grow our
game outside of the US, and gambling is a proven
way to do that. And then with baseball, from what
(07:02):
I'm told, league executives were just thinking, our audience is dwindling,
it's getting older, Young people don't want to sit through games.
How can we turn the leisurely place of pay into
an advantage where you know, this pauses between pitches is
a chance for people to be betting constantly on their phones.
That was very appealing to Major League Baseball. And I
(07:25):
did have to stop for a moment when these two
pitchers on the Cleveland Guardians were arrested last year for
allegedly fixing pitches, these so called micro bets, The league
kind of sounded aghast, like, oh boy, whoever thought it
would get to this place where you're betting on balls
and strikes? That was exactly what you know, got them
(07:46):
interested in the first place, was the prospect of that
level of NonStop betting during games. So things like that,
things that you can bet on explicitly through your phone,
which is how something like ninety five percent of bets
are placed nowadays. That was too good to pass up
for major league by small in the NBA, and then
the other leagues got on board and do time.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, Danny, I wanted to follow up on that. You mentioned,
you know, the how easy it is.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Essentially to bet, and you know, going back to Joe's days,
you know that you had to work at it. As
Joe said, right, we've removed a lot of the barriers.
We've were a society of convenience and then especially works
in the world of sports gambling.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you know, I note that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You know these these companies, and I think you referred
to this in the book, that they kind of prey
upon people and it's more manipulative. We saw the same
tactics work with Silicon Valley and social media, where you thought, hey,
this is great, we can connect with other people, but
the algorithms are designed to be manipulative and essentially addictive.
(08:51):
Is the same thing happening with sports books and the
way that they can use algorithms to essentially tailor betting
practices and and and just say, strategies to get people
not just to join up, but to stay in No question.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
From the moment you sign up, they're studying you to
profile who they're dealing with. Even how you use a
new customer promotion that's often sort of a honey trap,
as someone put it. So if you leverage that promotion
as strategically as possible, the operator is going to say, hey,
this person knows what they're doing. Let's tread carefully with them.
(09:33):
If you take a short break, they'll send you, you know,
customized appeals. Hey, here's some here's a promotion, come back,
start betting. That's all a total byproduct of online betting,
and i'd say just the user experience, you know, the
idea that you could be betting constantly through a game.
More than half of bets now are placed during the game,
as opposed to pregame That obviously didn't occur with street bookies,
(09:59):
or you know, having to go even if you're in
Las Vegas and you have to step up to the
counter to bet, you know, it's not very practical to
wait in line to tell someone, hey, i'd like to
bet on the runner on first stealing second. That's totally
something that's made possible by online betting. And I remember
speaking with an executive at one of these companies that
(10:19):
generates those sort of micro bets, these things that you're
betting on constantly through the game, and I said, it
would seem logical that if you're betting, if you're comfortable betting,
let's say fifty bucks pregame and back of the day,
you'd bet your fifty bucks and then sit back and watch.
Now you might bet ten dollars ten times or more
than that over the course of the game, so the
(10:41):
money's going to add up. And he said, bingo, that's
exactly what we're going for. The other thing was, you know,
if you're betting every few minutes as opposed to every
few hours, it really starts to resemble playing a slot machine.
And that's an analogy I hear a lot from health experts.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
You know this.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Days you get in as you're just banging away at
your phone or at a slot that you know is
a recipe for compulsive behavior. And I ran that by
this same executive and he said, well, we don't like
to think of it as compulsive. Sticky is how we
think of it, which is obviously just a tech euphemism
for something you can't put down. You know, your glued
(11:22):
to your betting app. So, yes, it's the engineering of gambling,
when you sort of step away from the moral implications
of it, is masterful. It's such a laboratory of psychology
and exploiting human weakness. That's, by the way, the way
Bart Giamatti, the former commissioner, put it, gambling exploits human weakness.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
But he could never have dreamed.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Of how today's apps, you know, take that to such
higher levels.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, it seems like it especially praise upon young people,
you know. Looking at some numbers from seeing a college
poll from last year, twenty two percent of Americans have
an account with than a sports book, and it's forty
eight percent of men between eighteen and forty nine.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What do the demographics tell you about who is betting?
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Yes, So I mean that those numbers are hard to believe.
I just saw a study recently that a third of
boys between I think it was eleven and eighteen are gambling. Now,
you might say, how on earth are they even doing that? Well,
it's not too hard to get your older sibling or
cousin or neighbor or whatever to place bets for you.
So kids are finding a way to bet. I think
(12:35):
clearly this. You know they're not kids, but young men
are the target demo. You think about who's the spokespeople
for these companies, it's the heroes of people, you know,
my generation and a little younger. You got so many
trusted voices in sports media saying this is the way
to engage with sports. Now, I think that has a
(12:56):
real effect. I remember speaking with a guy who was
at NBC Sports when they struck a five hundred million
dollar deal with an operator called points Bet. It was
one of the first big deals between a broadcaster and
a sports book around twenty twenty one. And you know,
they integrated points bet odds and all their coverage pre
(13:18):
and during the games. And then this guy went to
work more recently for a telehealth provider that provides addiction services,
including especially for gambling. There might be a little bit
of repentance involved in why he's drawn to that work now,
but he told me that he talks to a lot
of colleges and a lot of fraternities in particular, and
(13:38):
just seeing how those guys it's just totally second nature.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Now.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Oh, the game's about to start. Who you got, let's
all rush and get our bets. In the idea that
that is just the default way of preparing to watch sports,
or watching you know, or behaving as you're watching sports.
He couldn't help but feel like that was a consequence
of things that his former company did to just make
(14:03):
this seems so harmless and innocent, and like, you know,
if you're a fan of sports, this is what you're doing.
And he could see kind of the ruboff of that
with these college guys.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, that's gambling. Is attracting new fans is a kind
of a false positive.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I mean, you want to grow the game. For me,
growing the game.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I always thought a very naive perspective. You want to
get youth involvement, you want to get more kids playing
the game on a field in the countryside, with big
city wherever that might be. But the new fan attraction
is a false positive. They say the game is in
a good place. Is it really as it really? I mean,
if the new fans are just there to bet on
(14:42):
the game and an attempt to either satisfy and urge
or whatever the addiction may be, does that really growing
the game?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Again?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
It's a false positive as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
I'm a purist with all of this, and I think
a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Of us are.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And so when you hear those kind of phrases and
the fact that the game was in decline and we
got to get the young guys, young folks back into
the game, men and women.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
You know, okay, great, how are we going to do that?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And and the strategy is anything but in involving youth
more often and growing the game in that regard, even
the world wide stuff. I get it in other sports too,
and even baseball is making that attempt. But it really
comes down to get any more kids wanting to, you know,
smell their glove during the wintertime, throwing the ball into
(15:29):
their glove, eager to get out there when the weather
just turns like into the forties in marsh and Pennsylvania.
I mean, those are the That's what I when I
hear those kind of request or thoughts, are you know
this is this is what we need to get done?
Those those are the kind of moments I think, and
how do you get that done? As opposed to making
this a gambling centric kind of a situation where all
(15:50):
the sports is really not about the purest form of
the game, but an attempt a week attempt to make
a couple of bucks. And when all of a sudden
you become a fan, not a fan of the Mets,
the Yankees, the Cardinals, whatever, but a fan of gambling
within the confines of the game.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
That really is kind of repulsive to me.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Not to mention, if you think the game is rigged,
that's pretty that's a big turn off. And the fact
that more than half of Americans now think some athletes
at least are altering their play to swing the outcomes
of bets. I think that cynicism is a really big
problem long term for fandom. I can't help but admire.
How so, the commissioners of a prior generation said all
(16:31):
this stuff, and they, you know, they clearly were profit motivated,
but they thought it would be so shortsighted for the
very reasons you were describing. You know, yeah, you might
hook people in the short term, but if all they
end up caring about is gambling, that's not a recipe
for generational fandom. And you know, you think about people
nowadays who say I can only watch a game if
(16:53):
I've got skin in it, Like if I'm just watching
for the sake of watching the game.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
That's boring to me.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
That feels bad for the business of sports when you
hear people who develop problems and then they say, I
can't watch sports anymore because it just gives me this
urge to gamble. And the ads certainly don't help either.
The you know, the idea that you have to protect
yourself from your worst instincts by not watching sports. Now,
for some people, that's a problem. And as you were saying,
(17:21):
you know, if what you're caring about is, you know,
will a pitcher meet some prop bet, or you know,
the game within the game, that can be so trivial,
that also is a strange relationship with sports. And not
to sound judging or moralistic about that, but just if
we're thinking about the business, I think if people are
(17:42):
tuning in because they're worried about, you know, an obscure
prop bet, that's not gonna make them, you know, obsessed
with sports the way that we all were, you know,
for much of our lives.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
So I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, great points by both of you, especially when it
comes to the when the buy in as a fan
lacks emotion and is predicated on pure finance. That's when
you see and I see it all the time now,
the anger in the ballparks and the stadiums on me
personal anger. Now, you're not just getting frustrated because your
(18:14):
team is losing. You're getting mad because it's literally costing
you money. And I've talked to players about this. It's
a real thing. I see it getting worse. We're going
to take a quick break. Our guest here is Danny Funt.
He wrote a terrific book, Everybody Loses, The Tumultuous Rise
of American Sports Gambling. We will continue with this right
(18:36):
after this on the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
This Sunday, they say, while the American Gaming Association says
a record one point seven to six billion dollars will.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Be wagered on the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday.
That's up twenty seven percent just from last year. Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And if you watch even a little bit of television
or go online, you understand why.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Because Joe, you mentioned a great word, ubiquitous.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Gambling is ubiquitous when it comes to these ads, and
why these celebrities feel like they need to shell a
shill for all this.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Is beyond me, but anyway, it's here, it's in our face.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
My question for you, Danny, is is this a growth industry?
Are all these companies sports books making money? Or are
we in a phase now where you mentioned this kind
of get the people to get people hooked in. These
incentives costs these sports books a lot of money. They
try to make it out on the other end of it,
what they're paying these celebrities to endorse, it cost them
(19:48):
a lot of money. Do we still need to shake
out this industry or it is a growth industry for
anybody who wants to get in.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
So the industry as.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
A whole is definitely still growing. There was speculation that
maybe there'd be like an initial craze when a state legalizes,
of oh what's this about, let me seize a new
customer promotion and get a little taste, and then it
would kind of flatline. That hasn't really happened. New York
legalized sports betting about four years ago, and in a
(20:16):
recent week they set a record for the amount of
money wagered over a week, more than half a billion
dollars in the New York state alone. So the graph
is still pointing upward. As a country. But part of
the reason why I name the book Everybody Loses is
because of this unexpected realization that it's not a slam
(20:36):
dunk business for so many of these companies, Something like
sixty sportsbooks flooded the marketplace, initially thinking the house always wins.
If we pay our bills and run our business competently,
we can't lose.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
Not the case.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
A lot of them have gone out of business or
pulled back from certain states just because it's too expensive.
It seems like we're headed toward a duopoly of FanDuel
and DraftKings and maybe one or two other companies dominating
and everyone else fading away. But even them, even the
you know, the one or two companies that are actually
turning a profit, they're under so much investor pressure to
(21:15):
keep growing, partly because they spent billions of dollars to
get profitable in the first place, and also just because
investors are never satisfied, so they're trying to grow their
margins on each bet. That means pushing more parlays on
people bets that lose, you know, sometimes six times more
than the traditional way you'd wager on sports. There's also
(21:38):
a lot of pressure to grow online casino gambling across
the country. Only like half a dozen states have legalized
this now, but there's a lot of pressure for more
states to do that. I know Virginia is considering it
main recently legalize that. You're going to keep hearing about that.
FANDL and DraftKings and all these companies have online casino
(21:59):
versions of their apps. And the appeal is if you
can pull someone through the door betting on sports and
then say, hey, you know what's in between innings or
your game's about to start, why don't you go play
blackjack or roulette or slots or what have you. That
is so much more profitable than sports betting. It's also
so much more bankable just because it has fixed odds.
(22:21):
So I remember seeing in Pennsylvania, where they've had online
casino gambling and sports betting for several years now, that
just the revenue they're getting off of online casino gambling
just blows sports betting out of the water. It's also
the main reason why people are getting help for gambling
addictions in Pennsylvania now, So I think that's where this
(22:43):
is heading, where in some respects, sports betting is a
gateway to get people to be gambling on all sorts
of things on their phones.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I mean, you're talking about my home state right there.
Probably that's the point, probably talking about a lot of
my buddies right there.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, it's that dopamine rush, right, I mean, place a
sports bet, man, you gotta wait till the game is played.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I mean, you're whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I've never played these online casinos, but if you're playing
roulette or pulling a slot, virtually the man, that rush
or the thought of that you're going to hit and
win is immediate, and I'm sure there is again an
addictive element to those.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So I have heard that sports.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Gambling is as big as it is, it's a drop
in the bucket compared to the market for these online casinos.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
And I mean I've heard people just say, like, gosh,
I said, what the heck, I'll play some you know,
blackjack on the bus home from work, and just it
feels like monopoly money. And then you're like, wait, but
you know the bus stopped and then it stopped again.
I lost fifty bucks, Like, how did that happen? It's
so easy to get in over your head. So I
remember one former employee at Fandle said it's their most
(23:52):
ethically problematic product, just because it's so easy to overdo it.
It's so easy for people with any sort of gambling
problem to get hooked. And that I mean, and that
could be if we talk about, you know, the public
health implications of sports betting.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
If that takes off, that's a whole different story.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I would imagine in the cold weather right now becomes
even exaggerated a bit. People can't even go anywhere, so
they're you know, back in the day, like I've always
referenced the barroom. I mean, you'd sit at the bar
and then guys would talk about stuff, and you go
in the back room make your bet. But I would
imagine that under the circumstances of winter storms like this,
it's almost like a baby boom. I mean, you're gonna
have even more people wanting to sit there. Gamble get
(24:32):
some kind of release in a sense, because they're just
so isolated. We're stuck, we can't go anywhere, we can't
do anything, so let's just pick up our phones or
whatever and gamble.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Is that part of the equation too, Oh.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Yeah, And I mean the fact that a lot of
people nowadays don't leave their homes even when it's sunny.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Outs you know, has a serious a factor.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Like people in the industry you study, you know, customer
behaviors say, this is largely something you do alone, you know,
when you're bored at home, and that's a piece of it.
It's also this like cold weather spell. It's sort of
a micro reminder of what COVID was like. And so
many people took up sports betting and so many states
got on board during COVID because people were itching for
(25:14):
anything to do to relieve their boredom and this was
an easy.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
Way to do that.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
And yeah, I talked to a lot of people who
are just like, you know, thank god sports came back.
But I had nothing else to do, and I was
getting all this free money to sign up for a
sports book, and who could resist?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Danny, you use the phrase there.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I want to follow up on public health, which doesn't
necessarily come immediately to mind when you talk about sports gambling,
but I do see some parallels here with the cigarette industry. Again,
you've got something that people probably know is not really
good for them, but there's this aura of coolness about
it and an ease and convenience about it, and it's
(25:54):
sold that way, And I'm wondering if now we're starting
to see an awakening at all, as much as we've
just talked about how popular it is.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Just referring to one.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Poll done by the Pew Research Center, forty three percent
of adults now say that sports betting is bet for society.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Three years ago that was thirty.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Four percent, So more people are looking at it with
kind of this. I don't know if this is really
good for us kind of way. Is there an awakening
going on here or is this just a thick niche
of society that is really wedded to sports gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Are we waking up to some of the dangers here
or no?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
I think slowly. I think it's going to take more time.
One reason I'm skeptical that that awakening is quite as
broad as you might wish is there's such a problem
of kids now betting, as we were discussing, and I
hear so often that parents are saying, hey, you know,
son or daughter, I'll place your bets, like what you know,
tell me who you want and I'll bet it on
(27:02):
my app, or I'll just hand you my phone. You
can bet through my account. I think they're thinking, is
there's a lot worse that their kids could be doing
betting a little bit on sports, So why not facilitate that.
I think once people get a firmer grasp of the
rates of addiction, how expensive it is to deal with that.
You know, just when we're thinking about money, the costs
(27:22):
that states are going to have to expend to pay
for people getting help who can't afford it could potentially
so outweigh whatever they're bringing in from tax revenue. And
Tom when you brought up cigarettes, I used to be
a little reluctant to make that comparison, just because it's
so inflammatory. People who worked in fighting the tobacco business
(27:44):
and now have set their sights on gambling. The comparison
they make that I think is hard to deny. It
is just how similar the advertising is. Where you had
superstars and TV shows, you know, saying smoking is no
big deal. You know, kids don't worry about it. You
know your heroes are smoking. So seeing you know, Lebron
(28:06):
James and Derek Jeter and these types of people starring
and in advertising, I think has a big effect. It's
it's hard not to relate that to tobacco. You know,
my grandfather had a TV show called Candid Camera, and
I you know, it blows me away now that the
presenting sponsor of the show was Philip Morris for a
(28:30):
long time and on his on the studio table were
two ash trays. He wasn't smoking during the show, but
it was just not so subtle of hey, this is
what someone like the host of Candid Camera would be doing.
And now it is that just feels, you know, insane
and so irresponsible. And I think maybe we'll feel that way,
you know, thinking about letting beloved superstars promote gambling companies,
(28:55):
even a lot of the world is kind of a
guess that that's the norm in the US. Canada doesn't
really allow that. And I even spoke with representatives of
the casino industry in Canada and they're like, what are
what are you Americans thinking to allow celebrities and athletes
to be promoting gambling. That's just not not the right
way to do it.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Alan Front, I'm in Royal, I'm in front of Royalty
right now. My god, to watch it every every Sunday night,
And it was a Sunday night, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Oh my god, Tommy, you watch it all the time too, Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right show. Absolutely, it was way.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Ahead of its time. My god, the guy pure genius.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah, I mean even even greater respect right now, brother,
I didn't even put that together.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Yeah, well, I'm glad the tobacco stuff didn't. You know,
you didn't connect the outs there.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's it's a week.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
But that was so normal for television.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
You know, every every minor league ballpark had the Marlborough Man.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
When I was coming up and left a lot of
times left field, left center field, the big Marlborough Man
would be on attached to one of the light towers,
and that was a that was a part of the
fabric back then.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You know, smoking was much work on and listen, I'm
not I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Want to get off on that subject, but yeah, that
was that was a big part of the ball It
was like part like a couch in the living room.
The Marlborough Man was in left field. It was it
was so part of part of the landscape. So yeah,
things have changed dramatically with that. I just want to
ask you a question to be just like kind of
digressing to the back last segment. You know, the decisions
(30:24):
made back in the day, Tommy, and the one thing
I used to remember all the time when and this
is a selfish component for me, in a sense, every
time something big would happen, the commission would decide what
was in the best interest of the game.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
You never really like was more, uh, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Dictatorial in a sense which he was elected to be
that this guy would make the final decision which is
in the best interest for the game. So it's easy
to look at a lot of this stuff and it's
hard to imagine. And I'm a big fan of Commissioner Manfred.
But I'm just saying to to why you don't hear
that phrase anymore. I don't hear two phrases that I
really wish I heard more often, what is in the
best interest of the game? Number one and number two
(31:04):
referencing our game as a national pastime.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I never hear that anymore. And I guess they're saying.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
There were conceding defeat to other sports, which I hate.
So those are the two things that and I guess
the genies out of the bottle. I don't know, but
ever could be recaptured again. But part of the purity
of the game for me as a kid growing up
that I loved was that the game was referenced as
a national pastime, and I thought that was really wonderful
to participate in something that grand. And then every decision
(31:30):
was made in the best interest of baseball and not
commerce or economics or wherever you want to label the
best interest of all these different decisions being made. I'd
love to see it kind of revert back to that
at some point, because I think if it did, like
you're just tending to what the Canadians have already spoken about,
this would never been permitted in the first place.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Yeah, you know, I didn't realize that the Commissioner of
Baseball that job was created post Black Sox specifically to
rid the game of gambling. That kind of saw Mountain
Landis and all of his successors that was one of
their chief responsibilities was being a guardian of the sport
and protecting it from the influence of gambling. I remember
when Fay Vincent was testifying before Congress in the early
(32:14):
nineties as they were considering this federal ban on bookmaking
outside of Nevada. He said, they asked him, you know,
would baseball ever do business with gambling companies? And he said,
that would make a mockery of my office and you know,
times have changed. I remember I interviewed I was lucky
enough to interview him and another commissioner who testified than
(32:36):
Paul Tagliabu. They both have since passed away, and fave
Vincent was just so upset by what he was seeing
with how gambling was taking over sports on so many levels.
And I got to say, when you talk about, you know,
protecting the game and the integrity of the game, the
argument that all the commissioners made that this would somehow
(33:00):
protect the integrity because they would be able to monitor
vicious betting and have you know, a window into betting
activity that they didn't when it was done.
Speaker 6 (33:09):
Through the black market.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
I get into this in detail in my book, but
it's it's so disingenuous. I think they knew better even
from the beginning that they were inviting a level of
corruption that never used to exist, and that it would
be borderline impossible to stop it. Even if you're monitoring
betting data, there's still a robust black market that sophisticated
(33:32):
fixers are going to go through, and you're going to
have as difficult a time spotting that as you ever did.
And also you've made it so easy to gamble on
so many different things. You know, forget the black socks
or Pete Rose betting on games. The idea that you
can make a lot of money betting on individual pitches
is just such a huge new threat for them to
(33:54):
have to deal with. And you know, lastly, you top
it off with all these athletes are seeing the same
ads we are, and as foolish as this is in
high inside, a lot of them when they're caught gambling,
say I didn't you know, I saw the league embracing it.
I saw all these ads. I didn't see what the
big deal was if I was betting on on my
off day, on you know, other games. So all of
(34:17):
that stuff, I I you know, disingenuous maybe is a
strong word coming from a reporter, but I think they
knew better. That's what my reporting seems to point to.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, Danny, let me ask you about the way that
they're able to bet in so many different ways. I
can see an athlete saying, well, I'm not throwing a
game here, if I'm just betting, in Baseball's case, say
on a singular pitch that doesn't necessarily affect the outcome
of the game. Easy to rationalize, easy to get your
friends and family involved. So even when you've got multimillion
dollar players under investigation for doing this, I understand that
(34:50):
that kind of pull, if you will, temptation. My question
is now that baseball seems to be putting a governor
a limit on those micro bets. Is that a real
fix or should well just get rid of micro bets?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
I think it does make a difference, Like the idea
that you could win tens of thousands of dollars or
more than that on a single pitch, especially when you
stack these bets together in parlays that pay out exponentially more,
that seemed to be invited, you know, such a temptation,
inviting trouble. I think putting a cap on how much
you can bet on that will make a difference. I
(35:26):
could also see this is just hypothetical, but like if
there was ever you know, fixing isn't always intentionally failing.
It's you know, it's one thing if a Manuel Classe
says I'm going to spike a slider and bet on
me to throw a ball, but he could also you know,
you can bet on whether a pitch is going to
be off speed or not. He could just say you know, hey,
I'm going to throw a breaking ball to start, you know,
(35:49):
as the first pitch against this bat or bet on that.
It's not necessarily doing anything wrong in terms of how
you're trying to win the game, but you could give
someone an inside angle on that, and over time they
could make a lot of money. I think the question
of banning micro bets might be more of a going
back to public health. It might be more of a
(36:10):
something to do in the interest of fans rather than fixing,
because if you do put a cap on it, maybe
it won't be as tempting to gambling syndicates. It's a
lot harder to make money if you're what is it
five hundred bucks that you can bet on them now.
But again, if you were systematically fixing micro bets, that
could add up. I just think, you know, I heard
(36:31):
a psychologist at the University of New Mexico say to
him being able to bet pitch by pitch, He was like,
you know, we don't sell two hundred proof alcohol either, Like, yeah,
it might be fun to get hammered off one sip,
but that's not just whatever's most fun for people isn't
necessarily the best thing to be encouraging from a policy standpoint,
(36:55):
and in the same sense that we put some limits
on how quickly you can get inebriated, maybe we should
chill out with letting you bet on a second by
second basis. So yeah, and he's he had a grant
to study the mentalities of sports better. So I think
he's very insightful about just how people are thinking about this,
and I think I think that recommendation is pretty convincing.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Tommy. One worthing.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Do they still read the rule UH in the in
the clubhouse? Did the gambling grul every spring training? Is
that's still part of the fabric?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, Rule twenty one.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
It's posted in every clubhouse in Spanish Japanese, and.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
So contradictory that that they go ahead and do that.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
And then, of course, like you're whether you turn on
a TV, you look at the outfield. Fantasy's in Saint Louis.
I'd look out to write center and there'd be the
Fantasy UH billboard out there, and then during the course
of the game, you see all these little percentage bets
coming up on the on the board. Who's going to succeed,
who's who's had a good day? And according to you
(37:54):
know that that version of the baseball game, the uh,
the analytical version of the game. And I I used
to bother me just from the dugout watching all that.
But I just I don't know, I just can't see
this ending well at some point, I mean turn to
we turned to kind of a blind eye to steroids
in the eight nineteen, eighties, nineties until they finally came
(38:15):
to a head at some point. Danny's right, I mean,
there's gonna be something severely bad that happens. It's going
to happen, and then you're gonna get all the knee
jerk reactions. So why didn't we do something in advance?
It was so obvious this would occur, And then you
get all these people rushing to the front. You're gonna
get all these articles written. Why wasn't something done sooner?
(38:36):
All this stuff's gonna happen, and so it's it's just
it's just a matter of time before some kind of
real I don't know if tragedy is gonna occur, but
something's gonna happen that's really gonna shed this negative light
on this to the point where it's really gonna have
to take a step back eventually. And I just love
when you have the ability to stay in advance of
(38:56):
a problem and solving, attempting to solve a problem before
it actually becomes crises.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
And I think that's what's going to happen here.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
The two of you. Something.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
I heard some rumblings that the push for you know,
automatic automated ball and strike calling and other technology you know,
to replace umpires was done in part to remove the
risk that they would be fixing games.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
Have you heard anything along those lines.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, I think there is some truth to that.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I think it was mostly driven by technology that just
the technology was advancing so fast you just couldn't turn
a blind eye to it. But yes, trying to control
as much as you can control those things for betting
purposes is I think it's an underlying I don't think
it's a motivator, but I think it's an underlying part
of it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
It's things have moved so fast.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And Danny, just to follow up on what Joe said,
we'll end this here on I don't know whether this
is optimistic or not, but where we are going right
because we've talked about this and the increase and especially
as you mentioned, it's in the hands of the very young.
So generation now is growing up without obstacles between them
(40:08):
and gambling.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
In fact, it's encouraged. There are no obstacles.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So I mean, you're sort of like, if I can
stretch the analogy a little far, you know what Jeffrey
Wygan was the cigarettes to say, hey, people, the emperor
has no clothes here. But then I see these predictive markets,
the calcies of the world, and I see how it's expanding,
and we're becoming, if not a world, a country of
people who want to gamble on anything and everything, so
(40:37):
that you know, whether Chris Collinsworth says a certain word
during the Super Bowl broadcast, you can bet on that,
and that brings announcers and media into the world of
people who might be influenced. So I guess I'm struggling here, Danny.
I want you to give us a reason to be
optimistic that you know, we're not putting the toothpaste back
(40:59):
in it.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
But do we have hope that we can get control
that we don't have now.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Yeah, there's a lot on the table that could make
customers more protected and remove a little bit of the
thread of the corruption of sports. All that there's so
much room in between just legalizing with no guardrails and prohibition.
You're seeing some momentum toward that, you know, after these
guardians Pitchers were arrested, the governor of Ohio said the
(41:26):
prop betting experiment has failed. He wants props banned. He
also said more recently that legalizing sports betting was his
biggest mistake in office. So you're hearing more politicians talk
that way. I don't think this will make you feel optimistic.
But as far as what could move the needle enough
to actually motivate big change on a national level, I
(41:48):
don't think it'll be a gradual awareness that things are
getting out of hand. I think someone proposed three outcomes
that could I think it'll take a shock to our
systems to say this is overboard. You know, this is
out of control. So I heard three theories of what
could do that. One was a major max match fixing scandal,
(42:10):
you know, not on balls and strikes, but something really bad,
high profile game or star athlete caught fixing that would
upset so many people of you know, this is tainting
sports beyond the payout. The other was a rash of
suicides among people with gambling addictions, which has happened in Europe,
(42:30):
especially in the UK, and when that happens, people are
just so disturbed they say enough is enough sometimes. And
the third is we touched on this briefly, but there's
so much harassment of athletes. Now you've got the manager
of the padres resigning in part, he said because he
was fed up with getting so many death threats from gamblers.
(42:51):
That it's not just threats. There are people getting stocked
at their houses and their team hotels and people texting them, hey,
I know you know who your kids are and where
you live. All that seems to be pointing toward a
deranged gambler trying to kill someone. And if that were
to happen, I think people, you know, lawmakers on down,
would say, we're going to put a stop to this.
(43:13):
This is outrageous. So I don't know that that's a
happy note to end on, but I do think those
things seem in play, and like that would make people say,
you know, this is out of control, because I unfortunately
I don't think just wow, people are losing so much money,
or while addiction rates are inching up, I think this
(43:34):
is too much of a juggernaut for those sorts of
things to put a stop to it.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I mean you talked to a corruption failed performance equally
that leads the threats. And why wait, already you're talking
about Mike Schilt. I mean, obviously it's already occurred, and
that's just one guy, and I know they have to
be aware of other potential threats are actual threats.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
And the my.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
God, the really awful feeling of even in the ballpark,
getting your car driving home, tail lights following you all
the way back, and so many different ways that communicate
with me just by getting my information somehow just all wrong.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's just all wrong in every kind of level.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I mean, I don't even know what the follow up
looks like to those kind of moments right now. We've
always were told if we had anything like that, that
would be a clubhouse meeting in spring training to make
sure that the appropriate people knew that we receive threats
or were being followed or whatever. And then it comes
down like you're saying, your wife, your kids, et cetera.
So it's not like it's we're waiting for it to happen.
It's already happened. So I again, it's just you're you're
(44:37):
waiting for this really awful moment to occur, to actually.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Try to fix it. In a sense, it's don't.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I just don't understand the perceived good outcome of all this.
I don't see the good outcome of all of this.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I don't understand it other than people making money and
the false positive of the game becoming more attractive because
you have more people following it, right, And I think
that's a false positive.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
His name is Danny Funt. He's been our guests.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
His new book is Everybody What He Loses, The Tumultuous
Rise of American Sports Gambling, and it includes a blurb
of endorsement from Joe Madden.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
That's good enough for me, jeez, So go out and
read it.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
It's an important book and very well researched and reported.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Danny, great job. It's been fascinating to have you here.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
We could talk all day about this, and thanks again
for your contribution to a very important topic in really
public health.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Hey, thanks so much, much respect to both of you.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Appreciate it, Danny, Thanks Danny. Great stuff from Danny.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
We appreciate his time, and we'll take a quick break
here on the Book of Joe and be back to
wrap things up right after this.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe. Man, Joe.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
It's an important topic. We both feel very passionate about this, man.
I could talk to Danny all day about this. There's
so many layers to it. What stood out for you.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yeah, again, how well he presents it, That's what state
stood out to me.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
I mean, the research is so precise, he's got.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
A great way of explaining all of this, the people
that he've spoken with, and again, just the web is
so tangled, man, it is so tangled, and it's to
me to be somebody that could do something about this
and not eventually that's going to come back and invite
a lot of folks, although it might be so big
(46:39):
that it can be glossed over somehow, which is really
unfortunate too. But he's truly passionate about it, Danny is.
His research and his intellect are outstanding. And like you
just mentioned, we talked about it briefly. We could talk
to her for another hour easily about just keep diving
into this a little bit more, just unpeel the onion
a little bit more, and you're going to find even
(47:01):
more interesting detail to be spoken about it.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Stuff.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
It is fascinating, it's interesting, and I really wish that
it would not be part of the baseball discussion where
tech continually takes over everything and now it's our game.
And as tech becomes more involved, the passions leaving the
field and it's now going to be incorporated off the
(47:25):
field for those that.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Do not win.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, I mean a couple of scary parts we touched
on here was the anger that's involved now. The buy
in now is financial and when you're on the losing side,
most people are losing, right the house does win creates
just this ill will And as you mentioned, Joe, he
put this so well. You know, people are not emotionally
attached to the game itself. Is it's attaching to the
(47:50):
financial ramifications of you know, these especially the prop bets.
To me, I don't even know why they exist. Even
if there's a governor on them. They should just get
rid of these micro bets. Agree, there just have to
be more controls. I get it, it is a revenue source.
I don't I think it's polyannis Joe to think that
baseball can't be involved with legal gambling. You know, it's
(48:12):
just too big, it's too ubiquitous at this point. But
there do there has to be a rethinking here of
you know, how deep do we want to go down?
Speaker 2 (48:21):
This rabbit hole?
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Can't get any deeper yet, Maybe you know I never
I never, I always would refrain from using the phrase
it can't get any worse, But somebody on my staff,
somebody on my staff said that after like a six
game losing streak, I say, be quiet, because you're going
to find out that it can. So I really refrain
from using that phrase with anything in my life that
(48:43):
it can't get any worse, because you know what.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
It can.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
This brings us to the end of this episode of
the Book of Joe. So what do you have in
mind after this very interesting conversation.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Joe about it?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
How to end this talk about sports gambling?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
I just was looking up weirdly different quotes on gambling, right,
and there's so many different things out there. My god,
it's it's incredible. And you know, bertrand Russell to Oscar
Wild to Barack Obama, there's all kinds of different things.
But I chose Oscar Wild. He's always he kind of
(49:17):
always came through he was an Irish writer and a
poet and actually eighteen fifty Ford to nineteen hundred, so
died a young man, but nevertheless said a lot of
really interesting things. And this, really, I guess this is
we're talking about earned money, right, people.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
You earn your money, you work hard, or most.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Everybody does, and then you're gonna just serendipitously lose it
and become addicted to this potential to make or earn
a lot of money where you really know, you should
know that you're going to actually lose all of it.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
And then more one guy talks.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
About, yeah, the gambling brought our family closer together because
I had to buy a smaller house. That was just
one thing that I read. But this is from Oscar Wild.
It's better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
I mean, we talk talk about like your gambling, like
I referenced the romantic part of it, bell hops, guys
going in the back room, sitting at the bar, and
(50:11):
everybody's talking about Celtics, Knicks, Yankees, Mets, Orioles, Phillies whatever.
And I have to admit most of the guys that
were really into the gamble were rather funny entertaining, always
buying you a drink. Patchy, one of my buddies on
my offensive line that with the hazel and high school Mountaineers.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Not in high school, but right afterwards.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Frankie, Frankie will love love going to Pocono Down's funny guys.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Mind did they make me laugh?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
So it's better to have a permanent income than to
be fascinating or humorous, because a lot of these guys
can be. And so anyway, I just it's a bad
way to go. Man. You work too hard, you have
a family. Let it go, man, just keep doing the
right things.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, great stuff. Joe is really good conversation. And thanks
to Danny and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
On the Book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Thanks Tommy, see it.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey thereon, Welcome back to the Book of Joe Podcast
with Me, Tom Berducci, and of course Joe Madden. Joe,
we know, I think there's a football game coming up
(00:25):
this weekend and a lot of people like to watch
the game with money on the line, which really makes
this the perfect week to talk about a book that
I think is not just fascinating and entertaining, but I
would use the word necessary to try to define a
problem that's on our hands.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
We're talking about sports.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Gambling and the book is called Everybody Loses The Tumultuous
Rise of American Sports Gambling, written by our guests Danny
Funt and Joe. I know you've written a blurb for
this book, so Danny and Joe, thanks again for this
book and Joe for the blurb.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, listen, when Danny approached me about this, and he
had done a little research regarding my feelings on gambling
and what it's done to sports. Yeah, I was all
in when he approached me on that. And again, you're
talking and we I would probably get into this at
some point, but I grew up in a gambling culture
in my hometown. But it all happened in the back
room of a bar, and or at a card table
(01:24):
and uncle at third Base, lunching at till like six
o'clock in the morning with a bunch of friends.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
There.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You had to work a little bit to lose your
money back then. You don't have to work so hard
to lose your money right now. And so there was
always this romantic component of gambling as it used to
exist back in the day.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
I think it's become.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Ubiquitous to the point now that you could just so
easily lose your money the moment you wake up and
just pick up your phone. So that's what he and
I talked about, Danny and I, and yeah, I believe strongly.
I can't believe we've gotten to this point, very strongly.
So it's great to have you here today, Danny, to
talk about this in greater depth.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Well, thank you. I think it was listening to this show.
I don't remember exactly whether it's the in light of
the Tani scandal yet. It's easy to lose track of
some of these gambling scandals nowadays. But hearing both of
you express your concerns about what's happening with gambling made
me say, I got to see if Joe would be
kind enough to endorse this book. So thank you very
much for that. That meant a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, Danny, congrats on the book. It's doing very well.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
More importantly than that, you know, it's as I said,
it's necessary. It's an important book, not just a good read.
I want to take you back to where the book
for you begins, and it kind of begins with the
old borrow of gambling term risk reward.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You start with a question like what do we stand
to gain with all this sports gambling and what do
we stand to lose? And those were questions that were
not being asked with our rush to get into the
sports gambling universe here at least legally, which really goes
back to the Supreme Court ruling of twenty eighteen. So
I want you to tell our listeners here, you know
(03:01):
now that we were in this deeply, how would you
describe that risk reward ratio? Like what do we stand
to gain? And what have we learned about what we
stand to lose.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
It's still unbelievable to me that we as a nation
and the world of sports didn't really stop to process
that question. And give it the time you'd think it
would deserve. I feel like we sort of got cheated
out of that debate, as fundamental as that is. In
reporting the book and talking to so many people in
and around sports, I just got overwhelmed by all that's
(03:36):
at stake.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Beyond money.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
You know, there's so much money that Americans are losing
as they bet one hundred and fifty billion dollars a
year on sports nowadays, but beyond that, when you think
of faith in the integrity of the game, even for
fans that don't gamble and are just increasingly cynical as
they hear about fixing scandals or the threat of those.
(03:58):
The independence of sports media in some respects is there's
just such an jaggering amount of gambling advertising being poured
in and the tough spot that puts some sports journalists
when you think of the health consequences of so much
gambling for gamblers and also for athletes, and I get
(04:18):
into that in my book, how there's just this scourge
of harassment targeting athletes nowadays that's fueled by enraged gamblers
who want to get even all of that is hard
to even process, and then you ask, what do we
stand again, and I think that's a much harder question
to answer.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I mean, we talked about this too, Danny and I
don't even know. You know, first of all, why, you know,
why did it? Why did it become so necessary to
incorporate this legalized version of gambling into our sports world.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Why?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And of course it comes down to money, obviously, but
for me and I think we discussed this also, the
need for perfection in the results of games.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
I think accelerated all this gambling.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Gamblinglerated all that into the games because people are beening
exorbitant amount of money is on different sporting events, not
just baseball obviously, every basketball, football, whatever, And with that,
I think that is really accelerated check in the game
because you need to be right. I mean, gamblers cannot
be losing grand amounts of money on calls by normal
human beings, umpires, referees, whatever, and it's going to get
(05:26):
I thought, you know, probably it would even get worse
if that was not was that, if that was left unchecked,
where you're losing a lot of money without the last
last downs of checks and balances incorporated. So I mean,
regarding all of that, I mean, why why does it
gotten to this point. I just like hear your answer.
I mean, I think it's obviously one here we have
to say. And then, do you think the perfection in
(05:48):
the game is the result of the accelerated level of
gambling in the game where you have to be right
because the gamblers are really going to be upset if
they lose on a bad call.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Yeah, it is interesting the way, like the analytics boom
coincided with so many people taking an interest in gambling,
and maybe it gives you a full sense of confidence
if you think you've run the numbers on a game
versus just having an educated guess, and yet you find
out pretty quickly it's just unbelievably difficult to win money
betting on sports, the house that had just so dominant
(06:19):
in the long run, and yet people kid themselves because
they think I know my team or my you know league,
or what have you better than the bookie, And it
just does not work that way. As for why the
leagues got in bed with this, I was happy to
shed some light on that in the book. I think
baseball and the NBA really led the charge. The NBA
because they wanted to grow their game internationally, and they
(06:42):
looked at European soccer in particular and saw how the
English Premier League had used gambling to attract such a
big global audience, and that was very appealing to Adam Silver, saying,
you know, we're doing everything we can to grow our
game outside of the US, and gambling is a proven
way to do that. And then with baseball, from what
(07:02):
I'm told, league executives were just thinking, our audience is dwindling,
it's getting older, Young people don't want to sit through games.
How can we turn the leisurely place of pay into
an advantage where you know, this pauses between pitches is
a chance for people to be betting constantly on their phones.
That was very appealing to Major League Baseball. And I
(07:25):
did have to stop for a moment when these two
pitchers on the Cleveland Guardians were arrested last year for
allegedly fixing pitches, these so called micro bets, The league
kind of sounded aghast, like, oh boy, whoever thought it
would get to this place where you're betting on balls
and strikes? That was exactly what you know, got them
(07:46):
interested in the first place, was the prospect of that
level of NonStop betting during games. So things like that,
things that you can bet on explicitly through your phone,
which is how something like ninety five percent of bets
are placed nowadays. That was too good to pass up
for major league by small in the NBA, and then
the other leagues got on board and do time.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, Danny, I wanted to follow up on that. You mentioned,
you know, the how easy it is.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Essentially to bet, and you know, going back to Joe's days,
you know that you had to work at it. As
Joe said, right, we've removed a lot of the barriers.
We've were a society of convenience and then especially works
in the world of sports gambling.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And you know, I note that.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You know these these companies, and I think you referred
to this in the book, that they kind of prey
upon people and it's more manipulative. We saw the same
tactics work with Silicon Valley and social media, where you thought, hey,
this is great, we can connect with other people, but
the algorithms are designed to be manipulative and essentially addictive.
(08:51):
Is the same thing happening with sports books and the
way that they can use algorithms to essentially tailor betting
practices and and and just say, strategies to get people
not just to join up, but to stay in No question.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
From the moment you sign up, they're studying you to
profile who they're dealing with. Even how you use a
new customer promotion that's often sort of a honey trap,
as someone put it. So if you leverage that promotion
as strategically as possible, the operator is going to say, hey,
this person knows what they're doing. Let's tread carefully with them.
(09:33):
If you take a short break, they'll send you, you know,
customized appeals. Hey, here's some here's a promotion, come back,
start betting. That's all a total byproduct of online betting,
and i'd say just the user experience, you know, the
idea that you could be betting constantly through a game.
More than half of bets now are placed during the game,
as opposed to pregame That obviously didn't occur with street bookies,
(09:59):
or you know, having to go even if you're in
Las Vegas and you have to step up to the
counter to bet, you know, it's not very practical to
wait in line to tell someone, hey, i'd like to
bet on the runner on first stealing second. That's totally
something that's made possible by online betting. And I remember
speaking with an executive at one of these companies that
(10:19):
generates those sort of micro bets, these things that you're
betting on constantly through the game, and I said, it
would seem logical that if you're betting, if you're comfortable betting,
let's say fifty bucks pregame and back of the day,
you'd bet your fifty bucks and then sit back and watch.
Now you might bet ten dollars ten times or more
than that over the course of the game, so the
(10:41):
money's going to add up. And he said, bingo, that's
exactly what we're going for. The other thing was, you know,
if you're betting every few minutes as opposed to every
few hours, it really starts to resemble playing a slot machine.
And that's an analogy I hear a lot from health experts.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
You know this.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Days you get in as you're just banging away at
your phone or at a slot that you know is
a recipe for compulsive behavior. And I ran that by
this same executive and he said, well, we don't like
to think of it as compulsive. Sticky is how we
think of it, which is obviously just a tech euphemism
for something you can't put down. You know, your glued
(11:22):
to your betting app. So, yes, it's the engineering of gambling,
when you sort of step away from the moral implications
of it, is masterful. It's such a laboratory of psychology
and exploiting human weakness. That's, by the way, the way
Bart Giamatti, the former commissioner, put it, gambling exploits human weakness.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
But he could never have dreamed.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Of how today's apps, you know, take that to such
higher levels.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, it seems like it especially praise upon young people,
you know. Looking at some numbers from seeing a college
poll from last year, twenty two percent of Americans have
an account with than a sports book, and it's forty
eight percent of men between eighteen and forty nine.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
What do the demographics tell you about who is betting?
Speaker 5 (12:14):
Yes, So I mean that those numbers are hard to believe.
I just saw a study recently that a third of
boys between I think it was eleven and eighteen are gambling. Now,
you might say, how on earth are they even doing that? Well,
it's not too hard to get your older sibling or
cousin or neighbor or whatever to place bets for you.
So kids are finding a way to bet. I think
(12:35):
clearly this. You know they're not kids, but young men
are the target demo. You think about who's the spokespeople
for these companies, it's the heroes of people, you know,
my generation and a little younger. You got so many
trusted voices in sports media saying this is the way
to engage with sports. Now, I think that has a
(12:56):
real effect. I remember speaking with a guy who was
at NBC Sports when they struck a five hundred million
dollar deal with an operator called points Bet. It was
one of the first big deals between a broadcaster and
a sports book around twenty twenty one. And you know,
they integrated points bet odds and all their coverage pre
(13:18):
and during the games. And then this guy went to
work more recently for a telehealth provider that provides addiction services,
including especially for gambling. There might be a little bit
of repentance involved in why he's drawn to that work now,
but he told me that he talks to a lot
of colleges and a lot of fraternities in particular, and
(13:38):
just seeing how those guys it's just totally second nature.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Now.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Oh, the game's about to start. Who you got, let's
all rush and get our bets. In the idea that
that is just the default way of preparing to watch sports,
or watching you know, or behaving as you're watching sports.
He couldn't help but feel like that was a consequence
of things that his former company did to just make
(14:03):
this seems so harmless and innocent, and like, you know,
if you're a fan of sports, this is what you're doing.
And he could see kind of the ruboff of that
with these college guys.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, that's gambling. Is attracting new fans is a kind
of a false positive.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I mean, you want to grow the game. For me,
growing the game.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I always thought a very naive perspective. You want to
get youth involvement, you want to get more kids playing
the game on a field in the countryside, with big
city wherever that might be. But the new fan attraction
is a false positive. They say the game is in
a good place. Is it really as it really? I mean,
if the new fans are just there to bet on
(14:42):
the game and an attempt to either satisfy and urge
or whatever the addiction may be, does that really growing
the game?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Again?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
It's a false positive as far as I'm concerned. I mean,
I'm a purist with all of this, and I think
a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Of us are.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And so when you hear those kind of phrases and
the fact that the game was in decline and we
got to get the young guys, young folks back into
the game, men and women.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
You know, okay, great, how are we going to do that?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And and the strategy is anything but in involving youth
more often and growing the game in that regard, even
the world wide stuff. I get it in other sports too,
and even baseball is making that attempt. But it really
comes down to get any more kids wanting to, you know,
smell their glove during the wintertime, throwing the ball into
(15:29):
their glove, eager to get out there when the weather
just turns like into the forties in marsh and Pennsylvania.
I mean, those are the That's what I when I
hear those kind of request or thoughts, are you know
this is this is what we need to get done?
Those those are the kind of moments I think, and
how do you get that done? As opposed to making
this a gambling centric kind of a situation where all
(15:50):
the sports is really not about the purest form of
the game, but an attempt a week attempt to make
a couple of bucks. And when all of a sudden
you become a fan, not a fan of the Mets,
the Yankees, the Cardinals, whatever, but a fan of gambling
within the confines of the game.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
That really is kind of repulsive to me.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Not to mention, if you think the game is rigged,
that's pretty that's a big turn off. And the fact
that more than half of Americans now think some athletes
at least are altering their play to swing the outcomes
of bets. I think that cynicism is a really big
problem long term for fandom. I can't help but admire.
How so, the commissioners of a prior generation said all
(16:31):
this stuff, and they, you know, they clearly were profit motivated,
but they thought it would be so shortsighted for the
very reasons you were describing. You know, yeah, you might
hook people in the short term, but if all they
end up caring about is gambling, that's not a recipe
for generational fandom. And you know, you think about people
nowadays who say I can only watch a game if
(16:53):
I've got skin in it, Like if I'm just watching
for the sake of watching the game.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
That's boring to me.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
That feels bad for the business of sports when you
hear people who develop problems and then they say, I
can't watch sports anymore because it just gives me this
urge to gamble. And the ads certainly don't help either.
The you know, the idea that you have to protect
yourself from your worst instincts by not watching sports. Now,
for some people, that's a problem. And as you were saying,
(17:21):
you know, if what you're caring about is, you know,
will a pitcher meet some prop bet, or you know,
the game within the game, that can be so trivial,
that also is a strange relationship with sports. And not
to sound judging or moralistic about that, but just if
we're thinking about the business, I think if people are
(17:42):
tuning in because they're worried about, you know, an obscure
prop bet, that's not gonna make them, you know, obsessed
with sports the way that we all were, you know,
for much of our lives.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
So I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, great points by both of you, especially when it
comes to the when the buy in as a fan
lacks emotion and is predicated on pure finance. That's when
you see and I see it all the time now,
the anger in the ballparks and the stadiums on me
personal anger. Now, you're not just getting frustrated because your
(18:14):
team is losing. You're getting mad because it's literally costing
you money. And I've talked to players about this. It's
a real thing. I see it getting worse. We're going
to take a quick break. Our guest here is Danny Funt.
He wrote a terrific book, Everybody Loses, The Tumultuous Rise
of American Sports Gambling. We will continue with this right
(18:36):
after this on the Book of Joe.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
This Sunday, they say, while the American Gaming Association says
a record one point seven to six billion dollars will.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Be wagered on the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday.
That's up twenty seven percent just from last year. Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And if you watch even a little bit of television
or go online, you understand why.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Because Joe, you mentioned a great word, ubiquitous.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Gambling is ubiquitous when it comes to these ads, and
why these celebrities feel like they need to shell a
shill for all this.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Is beyond me, but anyway, it's here, it's in our face.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
My question for you, Danny, is is this a growth industry?
Are all these companies sports books making money? Or are
we in a phase now where you mentioned this kind
of get the people to get people hooked in. These
incentives costs these sports books a lot of money. They
try to make it out on the other end of it,
what they're paying these celebrities to endorse, it cost them
(19:48):
a lot of money. Do we still need to shake
out this industry or it is a growth industry for
anybody who wants to get in.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
So the industry as.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
A whole is definitely still growing. There was speculation that
maybe there'd be like an initial craze when a state legalizes,
of oh what's this about, let me seize a new
customer promotion and get a little taste, and then it
would kind of flatline. That hasn't really happened. New York
legalized sports betting about four years ago, and in a
(20:16):
recent week they set a record for the amount of
money wagered over a week, more than half a billion
dollars in the New York state alone. So the graph
is still pointing upward. As a country. But part of
the reason why I name the book Everybody Loses is
because of this unexpected realization that it's not a slam
(20:36):
dunk business for so many of these companies, Something like
sixty sportsbooks flooded the marketplace, initially thinking the house always wins.
If we pay our bills and run our business competently,
we can't lose.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
Not the case.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
A lot of them have gone out of business or
pulled back from certain states just because it's too expensive.
It seems like we're headed toward a duopoly of FanDuel
and DraftKings and maybe one or two other companies dominating
and everyone else fading away. But even them, even the
you know, the one or two companies that are actually
turning a profit, they're under so much investor pressure to
(21:15):
keep growing, partly because they spent billions of dollars to
get profitable in the first place, and also just because
investors are never satisfied, so they're trying to grow their
margins on each bet. That means pushing more parlays on
people bets that lose, you know, sometimes six times more
than the traditional way you'd wager on sports. There's also
(21:38):
a lot of pressure to grow online casino gambling across
the country. Only like half a dozen states have legalized
this now, but there's a lot of pressure for more
states to do that. I know Virginia is considering it
main recently legalize that. You're going to keep hearing about that.
FANDL and DraftKings and all these companies have online casino
(21:59):
versions of their apps. And the appeal is if you
can pull someone through the door betting on sports and
then say, hey, you know what's in between innings or
your game's about to start, why don't you go play
blackjack or roulette or slots or what have you. That
is so much more profitable than sports betting. It's also
so much more bankable just because it has fixed odds.
(22:21):
So I remember seeing in Pennsylvania, where they've had online
casino gambling and sports betting for several years now, that
just the revenue they're getting off of online casino gambling
just blows sports betting out of the water. It's also
the main reason why people are getting help for gambling
addictions in Pennsylvania now, So I think that's where this
(22:43):
is heading, where in some respects, sports betting is a
gateway to get people to be gambling on all sorts
of things on their phones.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I mean, you're talking about my home state right there.
Probably that's the point, probably talking about a lot of
my buddies right there.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, it's that dopamine rush, right, I mean, place a
sports bet, man, you gotta wait till the game is played.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I mean, you're whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I've never played these online casinos, but if you're playing
roulette or pulling a slot, virtually the man, that rush
or the thought of that you're going to hit and
win is immediate, and I'm sure there is again an
addictive element to those.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So I have heard that sports.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Gambling is as big as it is, it's a drop
in the bucket compared to the market for these online casinos.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
And I mean I've heard people just say, like, gosh,
I said, what the heck, I'll play some you know,
blackjack on the bus home from work, and just it
feels like monopoly money. And then you're like, wait, but
you know the bus stopped and then it stopped again.
I lost fifty bucks, Like, how did that happen? It's
so easy to get in over your head. So I
remember one former employee at Fandle said it's their most
(23:52):
ethically problematic product, just because it's so easy to overdo it.
It's so easy for people with any sort of gambling
problem to get hooked. And that I mean, and that
could be if we talk about, you know, the public
health implications of sports betting.
Speaker 6 (24:08):
If that takes off, that's a whole different story.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I would imagine in the cold weather right now becomes
even exaggerated a bit. People can't even go anywhere, so
they're you know, back in the day, like I've always
referenced the barroom. I mean, you'd sit at the bar
and then guys would talk about stuff, and you go
in the back room make your bet. But I would
imagine that under the circumstances of winter storms like this,
it's almost like a baby boom. I mean, you're gonna
have even more people wanting to sit there. Gamble get
(24:32):
some kind of release in a sense, because they're just
so isolated. We're stuck, we can't go anywhere, we can't
do anything, so let's just pick up our phones or
whatever and gamble.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Is that part of the equation too, Oh.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
Yeah, And I mean the fact that a lot of
people nowadays don't leave their homes even when it's sunny.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Outs you know, has a serious a factor.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Like people in the industry you study, you know, customer
behaviors say, this is largely something you do alone, you know,
when you're bored at home, and that's a piece of it.
It's also this like cold weather spell. It's sort of
a micro reminder of what COVID was like. And so
many people took up sports betting and so many states
got on board during COVID because people were itching for
(25:14):
anything to do to relieve their boredom and this was
an easy.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
Way to do that.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
And yeah, I talked to a lot of people who
are just like, you know, thank god sports came back.
But I had nothing else to do, and I was
getting all this free money to sign up for a
sports book, and who could resist?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Danny, you use the phrase there.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I want to follow up on public health, which doesn't
necessarily come immediately to mind when you talk about sports gambling,
but I do see some parallels here with the cigarette industry. Again,
you've got something that people probably know is not really
good for them, but there's this aura of coolness about
it and an ease and convenience about it, and it's
(25:54):
sold that way, And I'm wondering if now we're starting
to see an awakening at all, as much as we've
just talked about how popular it is.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Just referring to one.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Poll done by the Pew Research Center, forty three percent
of adults now say that sports betting is bet for society.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Three years ago that was thirty.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Four percent, So more people are looking at it with
kind of this. I don't know if this is really
good for us kind of way. Is there an awakening
going on here or is this just a thick niche
of society that is really wedded to sports gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Are we waking up to some of the dangers here
or no?
Speaker 5 (26:41):
I think slowly. I think it's going to take more time.
One reason I'm skeptical that that awakening is quite as
broad as you might wish is there's such a problem
of kids now betting, as we were discussing, and I
hear so often that parents are saying, hey, you know,
son or daughter, I'll place your bets, like what you know,
tell me who you want and I'll bet it on
(27:02):
my app, or I'll just hand you my phone. You
can bet through my account. I think they're thinking, is
there's a lot worse that their kids could be doing
betting a little bit on sports, So why not facilitate that.
I think once people get a firmer grasp of the
rates of addiction, how expensive it is to deal with that.
You know, just when we're thinking about money, the costs
(27:22):
that states are going to have to expend to pay
for people getting help who can't afford it could potentially
so outweigh whatever they're bringing in from tax revenue. And
Tom when you brought up cigarettes, I used to be
a little reluctant to make that comparison, just because it's
so inflammatory. People who worked in fighting the tobacco business
(27:44):
and now have set their sights on gambling. The comparison
they make that I think is hard to deny. It
is just how similar the advertising is. Where you had
superstars and TV shows, you know, saying smoking is no
big deal. You know, kids don't worry about it. You
know your heroes are smoking. So seeing you know, Lebron
(28:06):
James and Derek Jeter and these types of people starring
and in advertising, I think has a big effect. It's
it's hard not to relate that to tobacco. You know,
my grandfather had a TV show called Candid Camera, and
I you know, it blows me away now that the
presenting sponsor of the show was Philip Morris for a
(28:30):
long time and on his on the studio table were
two ash trays. He wasn't smoking during the show, but
it was just not so subtle of hey, this is
what someone like the host of Candid Camera would be doing.
And now it is that just feels, you know, insane
and so irresponsible. And I think maybe we'll feel that way,
you know, thinking about letting beloved superstars promote gambling companies,
(28:55):
even a lot of the world is kind of a
guess that that's the norm in the US. Canada doesn't
really allow that. And I even spoke with representatives of
the casino industry in Canada and they're like, what are
what are you Americans thinking to allow celebrities and athletes
to be promoting gambling. That's just not not the right
way to do it.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Alan Front, I'm in Royal, I'm in front of Royalty
right now. My god, to watch it every every Sunday night,
And it was a Sunday night, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Oh my god, Tommy, you watch it all the time too, Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Right show. Absolutely, it was way.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Ahead of its time. My god, the guy pure genius.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yeah, I mean even even greater respect right now, brother,
I didn't even put that together.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Yeah, well, I'm glad the tobacco stuff didn't. You know,
you didn't connect the outs there.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It's it's a week.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
But that was so normal for television.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
You know, every every minor league ballpark had the Marlborough Man.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
When I was coming up and left a lot of
times left field, left center field, the big Marlborough Man
would be on attached to one of the light towers,
and that was a that was a part of the
fabric back then.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You know, smoking was much work on and listen, I'm
not I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Want to get off on that subject, but yeah, that
was that was a big part of the ball It
was like part like a couch in the living room.
The Marlborough Man was in left field. It was it
was so part of part of the landscape. So yeah,
things have changed dramatically with that. I just want to
ask you a question to be just like kind of
digressing to the back last segment. You know, the decisions
(30:24):
made back in the day, Tommy, and the one thing
I used to remember all the time when and this
is a selfish component for me, in a sense, every
time something big would happen, the commission would decide what
was in the best interest of the game.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
You never really like was more, uh, you know.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Dictatorial in a sense which he was elected to be
that this guy would make the final decision which is
in the best interest for the game. So it's easy
to look at a lot of this stuff and it's
hard to imagine. And I'm a big fan of Commissioner Manfred.
But I'm just saying to to why you don't hear
that phrase anymore. I don't hear two phrases that I
really wish I heard more often, what is in the
best interest of the game? Number one and number two
(31:04):
referencing our game as a national pastime.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I never hear that anymore. And I guess they're saying.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
There were conceding defeat to other sports, which I hate.
So those are the two things that and I guess
the genies out of the bottle. I don't know, but
ever could be recaptured again. But part of the purity
of the game for me as a kid growing up
that I loved was that the game was referenced as
a national pastime, and I thought that was really wonderful
to participate in something that grand. And then every decision
(31:30):
was made in the best interest of baseball and not
commerce or economics or wherever you want to label the
best interest of all these different decisions being made. I'd
love to see it kind of revert back to that
at some point, because I think if it did, like
you're just tending to what the Canadians have already spoken about,
this would never been permitted in the first place.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Yeah, you know, I didn't realize that the Commissioner of
Baseball that job was created post Black Sox specifically to
rid the game of gambling. That kind of saw Mountain
Landis and all of his successors that was one of
their chief responsibilities was being a guardian of the sport
and protecting it from the influence of gambling. I remember
when Fay Vincent was testifying before Congress in the early
(32:14):
nineties as they were considering this federal ban on bookmaking
outside of Nevada. He said, they asked him, you know,
would baseball ever do business with gambling companies? And he said,
that would make a mockery of my office and you know,
times have changed. I remember I interviewed I was lucky
enough to interview him and another commissioner who testified than
(32:36):
Paul Tagliabu. They both have since passed away, and fave
Vincent was just so upset by what he was seeing
with how gambling was taking over sports on so many levels.
And I got to say, when you talk about, you know,
protecting the game and the integrity of the game, the
argument that all the commissioners made that this would somehow
(33:00):
protect the integrity because they would be able to monitor
vicious betting and have you know, a window into betting
activity that they didn't when it was done.
Speaker 6 (33:09):
Through the black market.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
I get into this in detail in my book, but
it's it's so disingenuous. I think they knew better even
from the beginning that they were inviting a level of
corruption that never used to exist, and that it would
be borderline impossible to stop it. Even if you're monitoring
betting data, there's still a robust black market that sophisticated
(33:32):
fixers are going to go through, and you're going to
have as difficult a time spotting that as you ever did.
And also you've made it so easy to gamble on
so many different things. You know, forget the black socks
or Pete Rose betting on games. The idea that you
can make a lot of money betting on individual pitches
is just such a huge new threat for them to
(33:54):
have to deal with. And you know, lastly, you top
it off with all these athletes are seeing the same
ads we are, and as foolish as this is in
high inside, a lot of them when they're caught gambling,
say I didn't you know, I saw the league embracing it.
I saw all these ads. I didn't see what the
big deal was if I was betting on on my
off day, on you know, other games. So all of
(34:17):
that stuff, I I you know, disingenuous maybe is a
strong word coming from a reporter, but I think they
knew better. That's what my reporting seems to point to.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, Danny, let me ask you about the way that
they're able to bet in so many different ways. I
can see an athlete saying, well, I'm not throwing a
game here, if I'm just betting, in Baseball's case, say
on a singular pitch that doesn't necessarily affect the outcome
of the game. Easy to rationalize, easy to get your
friends and family involved. So even when you've got multimillion
dollar players under investigation for doing this, I understand that
(34:50):
that kind of pull, if you will, temptation. My question
is now that baseball seems to be putting a governor
a limit on those micro bets. Is that a real
fix or should well just get rid of micro bets?
Speaker 5 (35:06):
I think it does make a difference, Like the idea
that you could win tens of thousands of dollars or
more than that on a single pitch, especially when you
stack these bets together in parlays that pay out exponentially more,
that seemed to be invited, you know, such a temptation,
inviting trouble. I think putting a cap on how much
you can bet on that will make a difference. I
(35:26):
could also see this is just hypothetical, but like if
there was ever you know, fixing isn't always intentionally failing.
It's you know, it's one thing if a Manuel Classe
says I'm going to spike a slider and bet on
me to throw a ball, but he could also you know,
you can bet on whether a pitch is going to
be off speed or not. He could just say you know, hey,
I'm going to throw a breaking ball to start, you know,
(35:49):
as the first pitch against this bat or bet on that.
It's not necessarily doing anything wrong in terms of how
you're trying to win the game, but you could give
someone an inside angle on that, and over time they
could make a lot of money. I think the question
of banning micro bets might be more of a going
back to public health. It might be more of a
(36:10):
something to do in the interest of fans rather than fixing,
because if you do put a cap on it, maybe
it won't be as tempting to gambling syndicates. It's a
lot harder to make money if you're what is it
five hundred bucks that you can bet on them now.
But again, if you were systematically fixing micro bets, that
could add up. I just think, you know, I heard
(36:31):
a psychologist at the University of New Mexico say to
him being able to bet pitch by pitch, He was like,
you know, we don't sell two hundred proof alcohol either, Like, yeah,
it might be fun to get hammered off one sip,
but that's not just whatever's most fun for people isn't
necessarily the best thing to be encouraging from a policy standpoint,
(36:55):
and in the same sense that we put some limits
on how quickly you can get inebriated, maybe we should
chill out with letting you bet on a second by
second basis. So yeah, and he's he had a grant
to study the mentalities of sports better. So I think
he's very insightful about just how people are thinking about this,
and I think I think that recommendation is pretty convincing.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Tommy. One worthing.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Do they still read the rule UH in the in
the clubhouse? Did the gambling grul every spring training? Is
that's still part of the fabric?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, Rule twenty one.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
It's posted in every clubhouse in Spanish Japanese, and.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
So contradictory that that they go ahead and do that.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
And then, of course, like you're whether you turn on
a TV, you look at the outfield. Fantasy's in Saint Louis.
I'd look out to write center and there'd be the
Fantasy UH billboard out there, and then during the course
of the game, you see all these little percentage bets
coming up on the on the board. Who's going to succeed,
who's who's had a good day? And according to you
(37:54):
know that that version of the baseball game, the uh,
the analytical version of the game. And I I used
to bother me just from the dugout watching all that.
But I just I don't know, I just can't see
this ending well at some point, I mean turn to
we turned to kind of a blind eye to steroids
in the eight nineteen, eighties, nineties until they finally came
(38:15):
to a head at some point. Danny's right, I mean,
there's gonna be something severely bad that happens. It's going
to happen, and then you're gonna get all the knee
jerk reactions. So why didn't we do something in advance?
It was so obvious this would occur, And then you
get all these people rushing to the front. You're gonna
get all these articles written. Why wasn't something done sooner?
(38:36):
All this stuff's gonna happen, and so it's it's just
it's just a matter of time before some kind of
real I don't know if tragedy is gonna occur, but
something's gonna happen that's really gonna shed this negative light
on this to the point where it's really gonna have
to take a step back eventually. And I just love
when you have the ability to stay in advance of
(38:56):
a problem and solving, attempting to solve a problem before
it actually becomes crises.
Speaker 4 (39:01):
And I think that's what's going to happen here.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
The two of you. Something.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
I heard some rumblings that the push for you know,
automatic automated ball and strike calling and other technology you know,
to replace umpires was done in part to remove the
risk that they would be fixing games.
Speaker 6 (39:22):
Have you heard anything along those lines.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, I think there is some truth to that.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I think it was mostly driven by technology that just
the technology was advancing so fast you just couldn't turn
a blind eye to it. But yes, trying to control
as much as you can control those things for betting
purposes is I think it's an underlying I don't think
it's a motivator, but I think it's an underlying part
of it.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
It's things have moved so fast.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And Danny, just to follow up on what Joe said,
we'll end this here on I don't know whether this
is optimistic or not, but where we are going right
because we've talked about this and the increase and especially
as you mentioned, it's in the hands of the very young.
So generation now is growing up without obstacles between them
(40:08):
and gambling.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
In fact, it's encouraged. There are no obstacles.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So I mean, you're sort of like, if I can
stretch the analogy a little far, you know what Jeffrey
Wygan was the cigarettes to say, hey, people, the emperor
has no clothes here. But then I see these predictive markets,
the calcies of the world, and I see how it's expanding,
and we're becoming, if not a world, a country of
people who want to gamble on anything and everything, so
(40:37):
that you know, whether Chris Collinsworth says a certain word
during the Super Bowl broadcast, you can bet on that,
and that brings announcers and media into the world of
people who might be influenced. So I guess I'm struggling here, Danny.
I want you to give us a reason to be
optimistic that you know, we're not putting the toothpaste back
(40:59):
in it.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
But do we have hope that we can get control
that we don't have now.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Yeah, there's a lot on the table that could make
customers more protected and remove a little bit of the
thread of the corruption of sports. All that there's so
much room in between just legalizing with no guardrails and prohibition.
You're seeing some momentum toward that, you know, after these
guardians Pitchers were arrested, the governor of Ohio said the
(41:26):
prop betting experiment has failed. He wants props banned. He
also said more recently that legalizing sports betting was his
biggest mistake in office. So you're hearing more politicians talk
that way. I don't think this will make you feel optimistic.
But as far as what could move the needle enough
to actually motivate big change on a national level, I
(41:48):
don't think it'll be a gradual awareness that things are
getting out of hand. I think someone proposed three outcomes
that could I think it'll take a shock to our
systems to say this is overboard. You know, this is
out of control. So I heard three theories of what
could do that. One was a major max match fixing scandal,
(42:10):
you know, not on balls and strikes, but something really bad,
high profile game or star athlete caught fixing that would
upset so many people of you know, this is tainting
sports beyond the payout. The other was a rash of
suicides among people with gambling addictions, which has happened in Europe,
(42:30):
especially in the UK, and when that happens, people are
just so disturbed they say enough is enough sometimes. And
the third is we touched on this briefly, but there's
so much harassment of athletes. Now you've got the manager
of the padres resigning in part, he said because he
was fed up with getting so many death threats from gamblers.
(42:51):
That it's not just threats. There are people getting stocked
at their houses and their team hotels and people texting them, hey,
I know you know who your kids are and where
you live. All that seems to be pointing toward a
deranged gambler trying to kill someone. And if that were
to happen, I think people, you know, lawmakers on down,
would say, we're going to put a stop to this.
(43:13):
This is outrageous. So I don't know that that's a
happy note to end on, but I do think those
things seem in play, and like that would make people say,
you know, this is out of control, because I unfortunately
I don't think just wow, people are losing so much money,
or while addiction rates are inching up, I think this
(43:34):
is too much of a juggernaut for those sorts of
things to put a stop to it.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
I mean you talked to a corruption failed performance equally
that leads the threats. And why wait, already you're talking
about Mike Schilt. I mean, obviously it's already occurred, and
that's just one guy, and I know they have to
be aware of other potential threats are actual threats.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
And the my.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
God, the really awful feeling of even in the ballpark,
getting your car driving home, tail lights following you all
the way back, and so many different ways that communicate
with me just by getting my information somehow just all wrong.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's just all wrong in every kind of level.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
I mean, I don't even know what the follow up
looks like to those kind of moments right now. We've
always were told if we had anything like that, that
would be a clubhouse meeting in spring training to make
sure that the appropriate people knew that we receive threats
or were being followed or whatever. And then it comes
down like you're saying, your wife, your kids, et cetera.
So it's not like it's we're waiting for it to happen.
It's already happened. So I again, it's just you're you're
(44:37):
waiting for this really awful moment to occur, to actually.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Try to fix it. In a sense, it's don't.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I just don't understand the perceived good outcome of all this.
I don't see the good outcome of all of this.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I don't understand it other than people making money and
the false positive of the game becoming more attractive because
you have more people following it, right, And I think
that's a false positive.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
His name is Danny Funt. He's been our guests.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
His new book is Everybody What He Loses, The Tumultuous
Rise of American Sports Gambling, and it includes a blurb
of endorsement from Joe Madden.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
That's good enough for me, jeez, So go out and
read it.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
It's an important book and very well researched and reported.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Danny, great job. It's been fascinating to have you here.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
We could talk all day about this, and thanks again
for your contribution to a very important topic in really
public health.
Speaker 6 (45:30):
Hey, thanks so much, much respect to both of you.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Appreciate it, Danny, Thanks Danny. Great stuff from Danny.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
We appreciate his time, and we'll take a quick break
here on the Book of Joe and be back to
wrap things up right after this.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
Welcome back to the Book of Joe. Man, Joe.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
It's an important topic. We both feel very passionate about this, man.
I could talk to Danny all day about this. There's
so many layers to it. What stood out for you.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yeah, again, how well he presents it, That's what state
stood out to me.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
I mean, the research is so precise, he's got.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
A great way of explaining all of this, the people
that he've spoken with, and again, just the web is
so tangled, man, it is so tangled, and it's to
me to be somebody that could do something about this
and not eventually that's going to come back and invite
a lot of folks, although it might be so big
(46:39):
that it can be glossed over somehow, which is really
unfortunate too. But he's truly passionate about it, Danny is.
His research and his intellect are outstanding. And like you
just mentioned, we talked about it briefly. We could talk
to her for another hour easily about just keep diving
into this a little bit more, just unpeel the onion
a little bit more, and you're going to find even
(47:01):
more interesting detail to be spoken about it.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Stuff.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
It is fascinating, it's interesting, and I really wish that
it would not be part of the baseball discussion where
tech continually takes over everything and now it's our game.
And as tech becomes more involved, the passions leaving the
field and it's now going to be incorporated off the
(47:25):
field for those that.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Do not win.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, I mean a couple of scary parts we touched
on here was the anger that's involved now. The buy
in now is financial and when you're on the losing side,
most people are losing, right the house does win creates
just this ill will And as you mentioned, Joe, he
put this so well. You know, people are not emotionally
attached to the game itself. Is it's attaching to the
(47:50):
financial ramifications of you know, these especially the prop bets.
To me, I don't even know why they exist. Even
if there's a governor on them. They should just get
rid of these micro bets. Agree, there just have to
be more controls. I get it, it is a revenue source.
I don't I think it's polyannis Joe to think that
baseball can't be involved with legal gambling. You know, it's
(48:12):
just too big, it's too ubiquitous at this point. But
there do there has to be a rethinking here of
you know, how deep do we want to go down?
Speaker 2 (48:21):
This rabbit hole?
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Can't get any deeper yet, Maybe you know I never
I never, I always would refrain from using the phrase
it can't get any worse, But somebody on my staff,
somebody on my staff said that after like a six
game losing streak, I say, be quiet, because you're going
to find out that it can. So I really refrain
from using that phrase with anything in my life that
(48:43):
it can't get any worse, because you know what.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
It can.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
This brings us to the end of this episode of
the Book of Joe. So what do you have in
mind after this very interesting conversation.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
Joe about it?
Speaker 2 (48:54):
How to end this talk about sports gambling?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
I just was looking up weirdly different quotes on gambling, right,
and there's so many different things out there. My god,
it's it's incredible. And you know, bertrand Russell to Oscar
Wild to Barack Obama, there's all kinds of different things.
But I chose Oscar Wild. He's always he kind of
(49:17):
always came through he was an Irish writer and a
poet and actually eighteen fifty Ford to nineteen hundred, so
died a young man, but nevertheless said a lot of
really interesting things. And this, really, I guess this is
we're talking about earned money, right, people.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
You earn your money, you work hard, or most.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Everybody does, and then you're gonna just serendipitously lose it
and become addicted to this potential to make or earn
a lot of money where you really know, you should
know that you're going to actually lose all of it.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
And then more one guy talks.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
About, yeah, the gambling brought our family closer together because
I had to buy a smaller house. That was just
one thing that I read. But this is from Oscar Wild.
It's better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
I mean, we talk talk about like your gambling, like
I referenced the romantic part of it, bell hops, guys
going in the back room, sitting at the bar, and
(50:11):
everybody's talking about Celtics, Knicks, Yankees, Mets, Orioles, Phillies whatever.
And I have to admit most of the guys that
were really into the gamble were rather funny entertaining, always
buying you a drink. Patchy, one of my buddies on
my offensive line that with the hazel and high school Mountaineers.
Speaker 4 (50:30):
Not in high school, but right afterwards.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Frankie, Frankie will love love going to Pocono Down's funny guys.
Speaker 4 (50:37):
Mind did they make me laugh?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
So it's better to have a permanent income than to
be fascinating or humorous, because a lot of these guys
can be. And so anyway, I just it's a bad
way to go. Man. You work too hard, you have
a family. Let it go, man, just keep doing the
right things.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, great stuff. Joe is really good conversation. And thanks
to Danny and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
On the Book of Joe.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Thanks Tommy, see it.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
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