June 13, 2024 • 43 mins
This week on Risky Business, Nate and Maria discuss whether Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor should retire, the perils of sports betting among professional athletes, and what the return of Roaring Kitty means for traditional market analysis.
Further Reading:
“Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now” from The Atlantic
“Should Sonia Sotomayor Retire?” from Slate
“MLB bans Padres’ Tucupita Marcano permanently for betting on baseball” from the NYT
For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:
“The Leap” from Maria Konnikova
“Silver Bulletin” from Nate Silver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Today we'll be talking about a few different things, starting
with Justice Sonya Sotomayor and whether or not she should retire.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And we'll talk about degenerate sports betting in the world
of professional athletes. A Major League Baseball player were suspended
for life last week for betting on his own team's games.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And talking about a different area of degeneracy, we're going
to be giving you a little taste of the world
of memestocks with the return of Roaring Kitty aka Keith
gill get a little bit into what that means for
the world of trading more broadly, So so Nate. There's
(01:10):
been a lot of talk, and we've talked about the
Supreme Court right now and what's going on with it.
Something that we haven't talked about is the fact that
one of the only liberal justices, Sonya so to Mayor,
is reaching a point where she is getting older. She's
seventy years old. She is not in great health. She
has diabetes. She often travels with a physician, and we're
(01:34):
nearing the end of the Biden administration, and as you
and I have discussed on previous episodes, we don't know
if Biden is going to get reelected. We don't know
if the Democrats are going to stay in power. So
what does this mean for the Supreme Court? What does
this mean for justice? So to Mayor, should she be
considering retiring right now? While Biden can still definitely replace her?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So she is sixty nine, she turns seventy later this month.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sonya. I aged you and
I and I apologize.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's what we call a newspeg in the business. It's
almost her seventieth birth. We're getting ahead of the news
and therefore that's why we're partly why we're doing this now,
but also because we as you said, Maria, it maybe
toward the end of Biden's We are toward the end
of his first term in office, and maybe the end
of any terms in office. If the polls are right,
Donald Trump is ahead right now, although it's close. If
(02:29):
Biden does prevail, Democrats could also lose the Senate. There
are Democratic held seats, for example, up in West Virginia
and Montana. In West Virginia, Joe Manchin has retired, so
that seat's like gone for sure. Montana, to a lesser extent,
Ohio are tough hoolder Democrats, So even if Biden returns
to the presidency, you might have an uncooperative Republican Senate.
(02:54):
So you asked, should she consider retiring, and the answer
she should not just consider. She should retire today. Go
take one of these university president jobs everybody is quitting.
Go be president of Yale or Harvard, or go, you know,
go make lots of money selling a book co under
the World Series of Poker main event. I'm sure she's
a very candy poker player, but she should absolutely retire
(03:16):
if she actually cares about any of the values that
she purports secure about, these kind of liberal, progressive values.
Because she doesn't retire, then she could very easily be
replaced by another conservative justice, leading to a seven to
two conservative majority.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And that is that's going to be difficult to overcome.
I mean, if we have a seven to two conservative majority,
it could be I mean, I don't know how many
presidentss will need before the Supreme Court is more balanced.
Could be a time.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So it's not just that like the Supreme Court would
increase our conerns would increase their majority. It's also that,
like believe it or not, the Supreme Court agrees on
more issues than you might think. But where that middle
point falls is is important.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The fact that it does fall with the Barrett Or
or Kevina or on some issues. Justice Gorsich is a
little bit heterodox on some issues versus like an alito
or something like that. Like that also has a material
impact as far as how far they will go on
certain issues.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I completely agree with you, Yeah, and I think that,
and I think that we should really look at the
past to kind of guide Justice Sotomayor's decision right now,
because I'm gonna I'm just gonna go ahead and say this,
and fellow female liberals are going to get really really
mad at me, But I am so fucking mad at
RBG that like, for me, her entire legacy is tainted,
(04:47):
like the sheer hubris of not retiring when she could
have been replaced and of being like, no, I'm going
to live forever. I'm fucking RBG like, look at my
legacy like I'm invincible, and she, like her legacy is
Roe v. Wade being overturned. That's her legacy, because if
she had retired early, we would have had an entirely
(05:08):
different court. And like I used to be like such
a you know, such an avid RBG fan, and I'm
not anymore because I think that with that one decision,
she's single handedly set woman back much further than she
ever advanced them. I said it. People are going to
get mad at me, but I think that that is
the truth, and I am so pissed at her, like
from beyond the grave, that I just I can rant forever.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
No, I'm glad you said it. I mean, in the
Silver Bulletin post I wrote about sort of mayor said
that her retirement is a political IQ test, and that's
you know, that's a little bit of invective. She's, I'm
sure a very smart woman. I'm not sure how smart
some of the kind of liberal political observers are frankly right,
because the excuses are dumb. Frankly just dumb. They'll say, well,
(05:55):
you can't force a Latina justice to retire, Well, sure
you can. There are lots of qualified Latina associate justices
and things like that could replace her, if you believe
that's an important thing to do, right or if people say, oh,
it's kind of like it ablest to worry about her diabetes. Well,
I'm sorry if you write in the Constitution that you
have a lifetime appointment to something, which, by the way,
(06:16):
I think is a bad idea. I think she'd be
limited toward eighteen years or something like that. But if
it's a lifetime appointment, absolutely it's the public's responsibility almost
to consider, like the health of the justices that it
plays out strategically. But historically justices wait to time their
retirements for partisan reasons, right, they want to be replaced
by the same party that appointed them in the first place.
(06:40):
So that's not new. You know. Justice Kennedy, for example,
who was more moderate, did so under Trump when he
had some time to go. So look, maybe son of
mayor is not a believer in the polls that show
Biden trailing, and again that is close. The issue is
just as much, if not more, about the Senate in
a long term where in the Senate, North Dakota has
(07:03):
as many senators as California despite having what it is,
you know, one fortieth of the population or things like that.
Currently in the Trumpian coalition, the GOP does better among
rural voters, white rural voters in particular, and they are
overrepresented by quite a lot in the Senate. So look,
if the GOP gets attacked together, they would have potentially
(07:23):
a relatively durable advantage to the Senate. I do think
I kind of once you go out more than five
or ten years, it kind of becomes a fuzzy crystal ball.
But the basic math is that, like, you don't know
what's going to happen in terms of medium term political future.
You're about to turn seventy years old, you have diabetes,
and like and like I don't know, Like, by the way,
(07:44):
what is the ego involved here? Like it just kind
of weirdly, it's weirdly stubborn. It makes me think less
of people who seek out power, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. And by the way, an
important point that you're making that you didn't make explicit
is that it matters not just who wins the presidency
but what the majority is in the Senate. Because let's
not forget the Garland disaster where Obama tried to appoint
him and the Senate just literally blocked the hearings and
(08:13):
Garland didn't even get a chance to be considered, and
that's something that can happen.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I mean, it reminds me a little bit of like,
you know, sometimes the failure to make a change is
the biggest risk, right, It's like, well, why would I
disrupt the status quota? Why I have this job? You know,
seventy years old is not that old for a woman
who presumably has good health care, even if she has diabetes.
But like, sometimes the status quo is the riskier is
(08:40):
the riskier path, right? You know? Right now that she
can be replaced by another liberal justice. Democrats in the Senate,
even the Joe Manchins of the world, have been very
loyal to Biden on judicial appointments. You don't know anything
beyond what happens in November. And by the way, in
terms of like pure political tactics, to have a big
fight over the Supreme Court, this is an issue where
(09:01):
Democrats now are more charged up and talk about abortion
rights and things like that. I'm sure whoever is now
many it would be subject to lots of abuse from
Republican commentators. This would also be I think a good
way to rile up democrats generate more enthusiasm, which is
a bit flagging for Biden right now, But I don't know.
People are like, well, you shouldn't think of politics in
(09:22):
terms of expected values. Yes you should, Yes you should.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
By the way, everyone who says it's not a game,
like did you look up? Did you see what the
Senate tried to do?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
They're trying to figure out how do I how do
I game it right? Like they are, This is gamesmanship.
This is exactly what gamesmanship is, to try to figure
out how do I gain an edge, how do I
use the rules to try to do what I want?
Even though the intention is not that right. I understand
what the spirit of the Constitution is and I don't
give a fuck. I'm just going to do like what
I can within the rules so that so that we win.
(09:55):
And I think that it's absolutely a game in that respect.
And it brings out the types of people I've written
before about kind of the difference between sportsmanship and gamesmanship,
And the Republicans are definitely much more in gamesmanship, and
the Democrats are trying to take the higher sportsmanlike road,
and that ain't working out so well when the other
(10:17):
people are are better gamesmen.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, you know. The White House has also not said
anything about this in part because they have a candidate
who is eighty one years old and Aldea, people are
being too old for office is a big no no
topic that they don't want to get into. But also,
like some of it comes down to identity politics. I
think it's fair to say I personally think if you
kind of take progressive politics seriously, the notion that like
(10:43):
having someone who represents the group, I think that's substantively
smaller impact than like six three versus seven to two
or down the line, who knows seven two verses eight one,
or five four versus six three or something like that.
But this is why I don't really find people who
are into politics. I don't really they're not my crowd really, right,
(11:05):
because this is this is such a no brainer. This
is not quote whereas we talked about Biden the other week,
like by retiring, it's kind of really tough either way.
That's really close. This is not close. Now, this is
like absolute no brainer.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Totally agree with you. And by the way, I learned
the hard way. Like when you were saying I think
a really important point is that you know, seeking the
status quo kind of saying like oh, like this is
the this is the safer way to do it is
oftentimes not safer, right. I learned this the hard way
when I started playing poker. That like, if you try
to do nothing, that's also very much in action, right,
That is, that is very much a choice, that is
(11:39):
very much doing something, and it's doing something that's not
optimal and you're not doing it for the right reasons.
And that's what's happening right now. So like, get your
ass in gear, actually look at the incentives, look at
the future, and try to figure out. I think this
is also really important what risks are worth it and
what risks aren't because there is so much uncertainty here.
We don't know what the percentages are because there is
(12:01):
this uncertainty about you know, who's going to win the presidency,
who is going to win the Senate? Is that risk
worth it? And I think in this particular case, it's
just a slam duck. No, it absolutely is not.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We'll be right back. Last week, Major League Baseball suspended
San Diego Padres shortstop Tikipeda Marcano permanently for allegedly having
bet on baseball games while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
(12:40):
It also suspended four other players of who are now
in the minor leagues for a year for betting on
games not involving their teams. So there's been a lot
of gambling scandal news coming out of baseball and other
sports slightly of course, earlier this year, maybe the best
player in the world, Shohe Otane, his former interpreter and BFF.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Potentially a potentially former BFF.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I if I committed seventeen million dollars of wirefrag involving
your account, Maria, would we still be friends?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Absolutely? Nate, I would forgive You're in a heartbeat, because
that would mean that I somehow had seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
There you go, if you you know what's seventeen million?
If you signed a fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Between friends, what's seventeen between what's minus yours'n But as
you were saying, Misahara plaed guilty.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Right, he pled guilty, and Major League Baseball closed the investigation,
which I know. I actually still a couple of questions
about Otani's involvement that will communiately never hear anything about
ever again. But yeah, So this is the first suspension
for gambling at related reasons since Pete Rose, who also
was alleged to have bet on his own team. Now, Marcano,
(13:50):
from what I read, has not planned to appeal, at
least not for right now. In fairness to him, there
is a somewhat mitigating circumstance, which is that when he
was making these bets, he was injured, not actively playing
for the Pirates. But still, the theory of the case
is that even if you're betting on your own team,
you still have inside information that's valuable. Right if you
(14:12):
know that a certain player is healthy and therefore likely
to play, Right if you know that the team was
up all night at the strip club, maybe you'd choose
not to bet that game, for example. So, and this
is like literally a rule posted in every Major League
Baseball clubhouse. You bet on games involving your own team,
you are suspended for life. It is one of the
least ambuist rules in all of Baseball's rule book.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, and I think that it's a rule that makes
complete sense, right, because if you're betting on your own
team or providing information, I mean, that is like, that's
a different kind of inside baseball, right, that is not
the good kind. And I think that when we see
suspensions like this, I think it's really important as the
ubiquity of sports betting goes up, as we have these
(15:00):
apps everywhere, as it's possible to do all these crazy
parlay bets, as it's possible to bet while events are
actually going on, all of these new capabilities that haven't
existed in the past. I think it's incredibly important to
be strict about this. By the way, I also think
it's kind of hilarious in a way. Hilarious might be
the wrong word. But how bad Marcano still was. I mean,
(15:21):
I think he won just over four percent.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well that's a little so this is something that was mislading.
There's spin involved here, okay. I mean, so Pason's winning
four percent of his bets because he's beending multi leg parlays,
right see, but on the pirates to win, and you
bet on five other teams to win, and therefore, you know,
take like two of the fifth power if they're all
fifty to fifty bets, and so he's doing multi team
(15:44):
parlays where you usually lose. But like when you win,
you win a lot. So the four percent is kind
of misleading. That might be the expected value in terms
of how often he's supposed to win. There is one
irony though, which is that like he was apparently using
one of the legal sports books that like tipped off
Major League Baseball. So yeah, these guys will, you know,
(16:08):
squeal on you if you're a major League Baseball player
you decide to bet on games they are. They have
incentives though, to be concerned about about action that could
compromise their deal with the leagues. They have concerns about
game integrity too. In some ways, I've been surprised there
hasn't been even more of a backlash. But look, if
you're a major League Baseball player, my advice to you
(16:29):
is do not use like DraftKings or fan duel or
a partner that's in bed with Major League Baseball. Right,
use some offshore illegal betting website. There's less likelihood of
being detected.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Like Epaimzuhara did for seventeen pillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, at least gave himself a chance, right Epei was
smart enough to know you're not going to fucking bet
on fan duel. Then you're drawing dead.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
By the way it is, I think it's interesting to
note when I was saying that it's it's crucial that
people are being caught that the four players who were
suspended for a year, they all bet just a few
hundred dollars, right like that. That was they didn't make
big bets, they made tiny bets, and they were still suspended.
I think that that's actually a really important hardline to
draw that it doesn't have to be in the millions,
(17:14):
It doesn't have to be in the hundreds of thousands.
This was like one hundred bucks, two hundred bucks, you know,
four hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and you know, Marcano's bets were larger. The totalsme
was low six figures. But you know, I doubt that
he is betting to make a profit, right. I mean,
you take a bunch of competitive young men. In any industry,
there's a lot of DJM, as we would call it,
(17:40):
a lot of degeneracy, and things like poker high six
poker games are often played on the back of team
planes and things like that. These people are around a
lot of money all the time. The rookies are not
making that much, but they're around people who are making
lots and lots and lots of money. You know, the
one case where there really was some kind of expected
(18:02):
value for the person making the bets, was the NBA
player John tay Porter, who was apparently had been dealt
in somehow to individual player parlays where why people were
betting on this obscure player named John tay Porter is
hard to know, but he basically intentionally tanked the games, right.
He would intentionally make up a fake injury allegedly. He
(18:24):
would intentionally like not hustle after rebounds, allegedly so that
his betters would achieve the under on like how many
points that John tay Porter would receive, and that was
very suspicious. I mean, I think the NBA got lucky
that that scandal broke at about the same time as
the Otani scandal broke, because that actually affected directly affected
(18:44):
game integrity, and that's like a kind of deeper level
of hell, I think than what Markana did.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I totally agree with you, and I'm really glad I
was going to bring John tay Porter up because I
think that what is going on there is actually the
bigger issue, because it's amazing that he was caught. And
if you think about the fact that I think the
much bigger issue isn't players like betting themselves because they'll
get caught, right, Like you'll figure it out. But players
(19:11):
giving other betters inside information and then actually affecting outcomes
when they're in the games, that's much more difficult to police,
especially if you're smart about it. Right, all of a sudden,
if you see millions on this obscure player who's then
pulling off some crazy shit that you know that you
are thinking of, like, what in the world that's a
red flag? But imagine you're smarter about it, right, Imagine
(19:33):
you're actually someone who kind of is a better cheater,
who kind of stays under the radar, who manages to
do it a little bit less blatantly, less often fakes
you know, doesn't fake injuries quite as much, doesn't throw
games in quite as obvious a way, but does it anyway.
And that to me is the much bigger and much
scarier issue, because that can really affect game integrity, It
(19:54):
can affect the entire kind of gaming community because it
just goes against the heart of why people play games,
why people watch games, you know what this is all about.
And I think that that's the much bigger thing we
should be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, betting on the visual accomplishments raises this risk a lot,
like you should not be taking that much action on
anything involving John tay Porter, right, Like, who the fuck
is going to bet that unless they have some type
of inside angle. I mean I was at like a
Summer League game in Las Vegas about a year ago.
Now Summer League coincides with the end of the World
(20:29):
Series of Poker and watching in the game and see
like some team executive two rows in front of me
and giant font on his cell phone is talking about
how the New York Nixian a trade for og Ananobi,
which didn't happen then but did actually happen several months later.
If I having not really it's not really inside information,
(20:52):
I mean a public area of a stadium, right, But
like information has a way of slipping out about injuries,
about fatigue, you know, about like I know, you know
some people will hang around tennis tournaments, for example, and
see which player is having like a cheating scandal with
his girlfriend or looks like they're coming in hungover and
things like that. You know, information has a way of
(21:14):
getting out. And to limit your liability by focusing on
more major and more robust wagering categories would be prudent.
But you know, but look it's a money grab. The
long term sustainability of any of this, I think is
not as assumed as some of the big sports betting
companies would would right in their stock market and their
ten k's and things like that. So but you know,
(21:37):
at the very least they are smart enough to partner
with the leagues when they detect activity that undermines gain
and integrity, to at least tip them off to snitch
on their customers.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
No, absolutely, and I think we're not just talking about
US sports betting, US sports book. This is happening in
sports all over the world, and some of the worst
are actually in Europe and in places where there are
lots of athletes who are not paid very well. And
a lot of times they're young, right, they're teenagers. They're
still developing their sense of self, their sense of kind
of right and wrong and kind of gray areas and
(22:11):
long term consequences isn't fully developed. Because, by the way,
if you're like a seventeen year old guy, you're a
prefrontal cortex ain't fully developed yet. Your ability to kind
of think through long term decisions isn't fully developed. And
if someone says, do you want to make you know
a quick ten grand, a quick you know this. You're like, Okay,
you know this might not be a bad idea. All
(22:31):
I have to do is, you know, if I'm a
tennis player, I just serve a little bit off right,
just one time. That's all it takes. I just lose
one point.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
What's one point?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You know? I just do this a few times, and
all of a sudden, I have money. And you don't think, wait,
if I'm caught, there goes my career, and there goes
kind of any chance I have of all these future earnings.
You just don't make that math. You're thinking much more
in the moment. You're thinking much more immediate gratification as
opposed to kind of long term expected value. And I
(23:02):
think that that is something that people just need to
be aware of, need to be aware who the vulnerable
players are. And I think that teams need to guard
against that, need to train against that, need to kind
of talk to them and explicitly say what the long
term consequences are and remind them a bit. I know
you said in baseball, you know it can't be more explicit,
but still like have more reminders, constantly, have these reminders
(23:25):
of like this is what you don't want to do
or else it's going to be bad.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
But in an environment that like encourages gambling, where there's
like draft Kings or FanDuel or Caesars ads on the
outfield wall and poker games in the team plane, you're
and neverly going to have some of this with with
rich young men and not fully formed pre front prefrontal cortexes.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What is it called, yep, prefrontal cortex Okay, yeah, yeah, no,
I think that's I think that's exactly right. And if
we if we want to give kind of a nod
to the next layer, which is the uh musuhara of it,
all right, that you have you have also these situations
where even if someone like Otani isn't cheating directly, isn't
isn't sports betting, there are incentives for people close to
(24:09):
these individuals to try to take advantage.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Major League Baseball seemed pretty excited about being able to
wrap up that investigation. I mean, there's still a question
why didn't Otani notice seventeen million dollars missing from his account?
Like that's a pretty fucking good question.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think, yes it is, and we don't know, right,
and but I think that it's important to just throw
those questions out there because it is. Even though as
someone who has seen a lot of victims of con artists,
I'm very sympathetic to Otani if we look at it
as a typical con situation that he was potentially conned
my Musahara, you know, charmed by him, That Musuhara is
(24:51):
the one who had access to his bank accounts, got
all the alerts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like
you can make excuses up to a point, but as
you say, seventeen million dollars is a big number for anyone,
and so you have to then ask Clake, was he
knowingly looking the other way? Was he involved? Like what
(25:11):
was going on? And I think these are questions that
should be asked, but that won't be asked because the
incentives are completely misaligned here because nobody wants Otani to
be involved because he's the star, and we want the
star to keep being an untarnished star, and we want
this other guy to take the fall. And I do
agree with you though that there are still some question marks,
(25:32):
and unfortunately I think that all we can do is speculate.
We're never going to know, But I want to be
careful and not to just say, oh, like this is
a problem of modern sports books, because like, let's not
forget you know, the Chicago Black Sox, like shit like
this has been going on in sports for a very
very long time before fan dual or DraftKings or any
(25:53):
of these things. And so these are kind of these
are problems and deep kind of issues of humanity that
I think are never going to quite go away no
matter what the regulations say.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, look, there are two categories. One is there may
be cases where it is in your financial interest to
throw a game, right, one preventative measure is just paying
everybody really well, including the umpires, by the way, where
it's kind of on the surface irrational for you to
gamble at that point, although sometimes people gamble for irrational reasons.
For me, one thing you always remind me of is
(26:25):
that like most con artists are not motivated strictly by.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Money, Yes, absolutely true. Something I also remind you of, Nate,
is that even though most con artists are not motivated
by money, most people are not con artists. And so
I think that that's a more hopeful way to end
this segment. That most athletes are also, you know, not
degenerate gamblers, not con artists, and going to be in
(26:48):
the sport for the right reason. They want to excel,
they want to do well. They don't want to throw
the game. We'll be back in a minute. So recently
(27:14):
we've seen a resurgence of a stock that we haven't
heard talked about for a few years now, game Stop,
because Roaring Kitty aka Keith Gill is back. And for
those of you who followed the Game Stop short squeeze
several years ago, Roaring Kitty was kind of the big
(27:35):
force that had game Stop just go on an unprecedented
run and put some very famous hedge funds out of
business and ended up, you know, having this just insane
impact on the markets. And then Keith Gill Roaring Kitty
went silent, and a few weeks ago, all of a sudden,
(27:56):
for the first time, this dormant account started posting memes
and what happened. Game Stop is back, baby. The stock
just went through the roof once again, and Roaring Kitty
has since made more posts and shown his own holdings,
including over one hundred million in game Stop stock, and
(28:19):
the markets are reacting and game Stop is reacting. The
sec is reacting. Lots of players are reacting to this
and trying to figure out what's going on. Is it legal?
Kind of what are the repercussions of this, Nate? Is
this something that you've been following?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I wrote about game stop a little bit in my
book from the standpoint of game theory. Actually, so, Maria,
maybe we should actually talk about some of the game
theory behind shit coins and meme stocks.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah. I think that's a great idea, Nate, because I
do think that that's central to this conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And the meming part of it. Eme is actually very
central to how the game theory works, believe it or not.
Like to simplify a bit, typically, what you have is,
let's say you have like an overvalued asset. In principle,
people who own that asset could sort of literally conspire
(29:13):
or collude to keep the asset at an artificial value.
As long as nobody sells, right, then it maintains at
least nominally its value, or maybe it keeps going up
if everyone's being like hotal hold on for dear life
and wants to kind of boost the asset further. So
the problem with that is that, like you have in
game theory terms a prisoner's dilemma where every party has
(29:34):
a strong incentive to defect. Right if Game Stop is
priced that fifty dollars when the fundamentals price should be
two dollars or something like that. A share you really
have a strong incentive to get out while you can
and take your profits. That could trigger a collapse in
(29:56):
the share price. However, due to the power of means,
a sort of coordination is possible in the prisoner's dilemma.
This is what happens when Maria. Let's say you and
I commit a and we're in separate jail, says, I
don't know what's the most likely crime we were to commit.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I don't want to speculate on this night. You and
I are complete. Maybe we're not going to get any crimes. Ever,
so let's say.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
We kidnapped Justice Sonya sot of mayor. Okay, okay, that
would be a pretty serious crime, very serious. But let's
say the government is having trouble proving it, and therefore
we are in separate prison cells, and the government says, well,
you can confess to the crime and get a lower sentence,
or you can remain silent and we'll see what happens
(30:43):
right now. If neither of us were to confess the
way this works, we would kind of get like a
slap on the risk because the government can't really prove
its case. But the game theory is such that not
being able to coordinate on our strategy, we both wind
up stitching on one another and wind up getting a
worse sentence as a result. It's kind of the very simplified,
(31:03):
podcast friendly version of the prisoner's dilemma. If we could coordinate, though,
I went to a prediction markets conference this weekend in
California where a guy had a T shirt on saying
I cooperate in the prisoner's dilema, meaning that if we
can single to one another that we are cooperating and
this is great. Sure, yeah, this is what happens in
(31:23):
situations like the Internet.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
If you're like, we're all of this together against a
stupid hedge fund, against Wall Street and inherently a stock
like AMC Theaters or game Stop is like, it's kind
of a joke, right, These are like kind of Blockbuster
video dinosaur companies. It's kind of funny. And the fact
that like that through Matt Levine, the economics writer for
Bloomberg calls it the meme theory of value. You are
(31:47):
kind of literally creating something out of nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah. So I think that we have some bigger questions
here though, that are like much bigger than Roaring Kitty
and is more about like the roaring kitties of the world. Right,
So this, you know, what happened in twenty twenty one,
totally unprecedented. What's happening right now shows that this is
a thing that might actually not be so one off, right,
it might actually be repeating, and we might be in
(32:13):
a position where kind of memes, stocks, shit coins, these
types of things really do have an impact on the
broader financial markets that we see these degrees of irrationality
or is it irrational that are playing out in the
broader stock market, where people in kind of the traditional
market analysis are going to have to look at this
(32:33):
differently and try to figure out has the world changed.
Do we need to change how we think about this?
You know, do we need to change where we think
the dumb money is or how it operates, or whether
it's actually dumb? And I think that these are really
important questions, especially as crypto becomes a much bigger world
and memes are the universal language. In some ways, these
(32:56):
are things that just did not exist in the stock
market or in the financial markets in the past. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Look, it's a little bit of a blow to kind
of efficient market hypothesis. Clearly, stocks like AMC or GameStop
are unmoored from any notion of kind of the fundamental values.
Although with that said, like a lot of things are
kind of in the eye of a beholder, you know
why everyone thinks that like a Picasso or a or
(33:21):
a Keith Herring or whatever else. You know, why are
those works of art valuable? I mean often I think
they do have esthetic value, but it's inherently kind of subjective.
It speaks to, I think the kind of maybe inherent
unpredictability of the modern world. It speaks a little bit
to like the way that these kind of faceless, leaderless
internet mobs, because Arren Kenny is not like giving explicit instructions,
(33:45):
He's just kind of communicating through through memes and vibes,
and people kind of infer what he's saying, and it
kind of starts to chain a momentum that kind of
can sustain itself for some period of time, and can
you time it well enough that you kind of get
out before the bubble inevitably bursts.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, And is this something that is going to be replicable? Right?
I think that I think that that's another question because
I think other people have tried to be roaring kitty
and have failed. But I do think that, you know,
there is irrationality in the stock markets in general, and
always has been one of my favorite quotes from Daniel Konneman,
(34:21):
who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work
on kind of biases and irrationality. He consulted for a
bunch of hedge funds and he came to the conclusion
that basically traders were gambling. They were not playing poker.
And he said that poker players are you know, much
more much more rational, and can actually, you know, you
(34:42):
can figure out who the winning players are, where the
edge is, et cetera. Gambling. If you're just gambling in
a casino, you can't. And he said, what you guys
are doing is gambling. And no one listened to him,
and they thought that he was, you know, just full
of it, and so they didn't take any of his
recommendations to heart. And but I think that that's a
really kind of important insight that this is not necessarily
(35:04):
counter to how a lot of decision making in the
stock markets has worked in the past. It's just a
new element, a new world, and kind of putting some
of the stuff on steroids, right, blowing it up in
a way that it hasn't been blown up before, and
potentially kind of making that exponentially more powerful.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Maria, I'm not I'm not one to like dispute too
much the late Daniel Connoman, right.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, that's why that's why I consulted my Okay, that's
why I couched my views with Danny Connoman, right because
I know that you can disagree with me, but he's
he's harder to disagree with. Please continue.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I don't know, like I when you have like the
practice of like actual traders betting millions of dollars versus academics,
even academics as smart as Daniel Conneman, I'm not sure
I take the academic side. I think it's really easy
to like come to some theorical conclusion when you don't
(36:02):
have skin in the game that might not be robust necessarily.
I talk to a guy named John Coates for my book,
who is a former trader turned neuroscientists, and he actually
thought when he was working on desks at Wall Street
that the traders didn't take enough risk. It's hard to
get people to be properly, properly risk adjusted until they
kind of had a winning streak. Then they got all
(36:23):
this testosterone and other chemicals running around the brain and
that coome like faeral animals and go kind of crazy, right,
And that's kind of what can cause bubbles. But yeah, look,
I mean because there's kind of two forms of efficient
market hypothesis, right. There's kind of like the hard form that, yes,
stocks actually do represent a probabilistic discounted projection of future
(36:47):
corporate earnings, Like that's clearly not true when it comes
to something like game Stop. The softer form is just that, Okay,
you think you can meet the market, go ahead and
try it. You might understand that like yes, GameStop is
O were valued, but good luck in trying to time
exactly kind of win that bubble bursts.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, and I think that the bigger point here when
you said that anyone can try, And something that I
think Conoman was trying to get at is that, of
course there are traders and there are certain investors who
can beat the markets. Right, there are people who are
very good at this, who kind of understand, who analyze well,
who have the right data, right approach, whatever it is.
(37:28):
But that's not true for the majority. But if you
talk to anyone individual, they always think that they're the
ones are who are actually more rational and can beat
the markets and are making better decisions. And I think
that that's just an overall human flaw. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Look, if ten percent of people in the world are
the truly rational ones, there's no guarantee that you're in
the ten percent. The correlation, like self perception and reality
is probably fairly discordant sometimes.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, And I think that that's just something that's very
important to remember, whether you're a roaring kitty, whether you're
one of the portfolio managers who is on the other
side and short game stop, or whether you're someone who's
just an outside observer thinking how do I get in
on this in the future and make a killing. You
(38:24):
and I have totally switched positions this week, Knate, because
last week when we were recording, I was in New
Haven about to go to Ireland and you were deep
in the World Series. And now I am finally back
in Vegas and you are back in New York City,
so we have swapped, and unfortunately I'm not making a
(38:44):
deep run. I've played exactly one event since I've been
back and I busted. So that didn't that didn't go
according to plan, and I'll play again today. But you
managed to go deep in a second event that was
not the event that we were talking about. So congratulations,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Although it ended in a very disappointing way. This was
that five thousand dollars in a limit hold them event
number sixteen.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That's a big deal name.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I finished eighteen place out of eight hundred and something runners.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
However, congratulations, thank.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You, Maria. I still am mildly heartbroken about it, because.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
You want dolences, congratulate.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Dolence is like the most common poker emotion basically, So
I kind of lost on a bad beat, which I'm
not gonna dwell on. I saw your new substack post,
Maria about like players complaining about bad beats. But basically
I had pocket fives against jack ten offsuit on a
board of jack ten five, So I had a set.
(39:42):
My opponent have the kind of next best time that
isn't a set. Which is jack ten for two pair.
Unfortunately a jacket on the turn. And so this dude,
by the way, won the fucking event. I think I
deserved like half his prize pool. Basically would be.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
An awesome nate by the way, if it worked that way,
that would be a great role.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
You like tag the chips that you have equity in.
I'm not complaining about this past year.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yes, you are just just acknowledged that you're complaining about
the bat beat and move on.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We cover important news that the worlds there is a
poker and part of the news is that a player
who had a lot of chips was eliminated in eighteenth place,
you know, conveying the news, all right. However, the news
my reporting suggests this player got very lucky at several
earlier points in this tournament. For example, this player had
pocket queens all against all against aces and the queen's won.
(40:34):
This player had pocket ten's almost all all in against
pocket kings and the tens one, for example.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So player mister Nathaniel Silver got got ridiculously lucky to
even get to the point where his set could be cracked.
All right, So let's reframe that as god beats are
good now, but you did you did bust in unfortunate circumstances.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Uh, Maria, what about what about Europe? How's the series
gone for you so far?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
My update sucks?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Oh no, are you? Are you over?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I well no, my first event I won the ten
k bounties, so.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Oh it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, so other together but otherwise zero cashes.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
It's the line between success and failure is soaked in
in poker, by the way, because like the first week
into it, I had like one mini cash out of
been Like now it's like, oh, I'm having a really
great World series. You know, it's all pretty fucking arbitrary,
and it all it all. I mean, it doesn't necessarily
even out. It's like the Gambler's fallacy. But like over
long rning.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thanks for reading my substack.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Natee read maria subsection. She needs revenue now to make
up for her poker losses, folks.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yes, because the my update sucks is because the one
event I played was a twenty five thousand dollars by
an event and I did not cash in it. So
I went from being flat for the World Series to
being down twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Maybe if you concentrated more on the poker and not
your newsletter. Maria, you wouldn't have busted.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Out, but I feel like I owe it to my fans.
And my newsletter is about all the things I did
wrong or other people did wrong, so that I played better.
And today is the day we change all of that
so that next week, when we're recording, we can talk
about my deep run. How's that for optimism.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
It's a deal.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, let's do it. That's it for today. We
have already been getting some listener questions, which is amazing.
Please keep them coming. We want to hear from you,
and we will be addressing some of the questions in
(42:47):
segments on our podcast going forward. We even have an
email address for you to use. Now, it's just Risky Business.
One word at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And don't forget to rate and review the show. We
will not tell you which day to give, but you
can probably infer which ones we like more.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kondakova knee Mate Silver.
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter chang Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And if you want to listen to an AD free version,
sign up for Pushkin Plus. For six pinninety nine a month,
you get access to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Today we'll be talking about a few different things, starting
with Justice Sonya Sotomayor and whether or not she should retire.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And we'll talk about degenerate sports betting in the world
of professional athletes. A Major League Baseball player were suspended
for life last week for betting on his own team's games.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
And talking about a different area of degeneracy, we're going
to be giving you a little taste of the world
of memestocks with the return of Roaring Kitty aka Keith
gill get a little bit into what that means for
the world of trading more broadly, So so Nate. There's
(01:10):
been a lot of talk, and we've talked about the
Supreme Court right now and what's going on with it.
Something that we haven't talked about is the fact that
one of the only liberal justices, Sonya so to Mayor,
is reaching a point where she is getting older. She's
seventy years old. She is not in great health. She
has diabetes. She often travels with a physician, and we're
(01:34):
nearing the end of the Biden administration, and as you
and I have discussed on previous episodes, we don't know
if Biden is going to get reelected. We don't know
if the Democrats are going to stay in power. So
what does this mean for the Supreme Court? What does
this mean for justice? So to Mayor, should she be
considering retiring right now? While Biden can still definitely replace her?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So she is sixty nine, she turns seventy later this month.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sonya. I aged you and
I and I apologize.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's what we call a newspeg in the business. It's
almost her seventieth birth. We're getting ahead of the news
and therefore that's why we're partly why we're doing this now,
but also because we as you said, Maria, it maybe
toward the end of Biden's We are toward the end
of his first term in office, and maybe the end
of any terms in office. If the polls are right,
Donald Trump is ahead right now, although it's close. If
(02:29):
Biden does prevail, Democrats could also lose the Senate. There
are Democratic held seats, for example, up in West Virginia
and Montana. In West Virginia, Joe Manchin has retired, so
that seat's like gone for sure. Montana, to a lesser extent,
Ohio are tough hoolder Democrats, So even if Biden returns
to the presidency, you might have an uncooperative Republican Senate.
(02:54):
So you asked, should she consider retiring, and the answer
she should not just consider. She should retire today. Go
take one of these university president jobs everybody is quitting.
Go be president of Yale or Harvard, or go, you know,
go make lots of money selling a book co under
the World Series of Poker main event. I'm sure she's
a very candy poker player, but she should absolutely retire
(03:16):
if she actually cares about any of the values that
she purports secure about, these kind of liberal, progressive values.
Because she doesn't retire, then she could very easily be
replaced by another conservative justice, leading to a seven to
two conservative majority.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And that is that's going to be difficult to overcome.
I mean, if we have a seven to two conservative majority,
it could be I mean, I don't know how many
presidentss will need before the Supreme Court is more balanced.
Could be a time.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
So it's not just that like the Supreme Court would
increase our conerns would increase their majority. It's also that,
like believe it or not, the Supreme Court agrees on
more issues than you might think. But where that middle
point falls is is important.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The fact that it does fall with the Barrett Or
or Kevina or on some issues. Justice Gorsich is a
little bit heterodox on some issues versus like an alito
or something like that. Like that also has a material
impact as far as how far they will go on
certain issues.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I completely agree with you, Yeah, and I think that,
and I think that we should really look at the
past to kind of guide Justice Sotomayor's decision right now,
because I'm gonna I'm just gonna go ahead and say this,
and fellow female liberals are going to get really really
mad at me, But I am so fucking mad at
RBG that like, for me, her entire legacy is tainted,
(04:47):
like the sheer hubris of not retiring when she could
have been replaced and of being like, no, I'm going
to live forever. I'm fucking RBG like, look at my
legacy like I'm invincible, and she, like her legacy is
Roe v. Wade being overturned. That's her legacy, because if
she had retired early, we would have had an entirely
(05:08):
different court. And like I used to be like such
a you know, such an avid RBG fan, and I'm
not anymore because I think that with that one decision,
she's single handedly set woman back much further than she
ever advanced them. I said it. People are going to
get mad at me, but I think that that is
the truth, and I am so pissed at her, like
from beyond the grave, that I just I can rant forever.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
No, I'm glad you said it. I mean, in the
Silver Bulletin post I wrote about sort of mayor said
that her retirement is a political IQ test, and that's
you know, that's a little bit of invective. She's, I'm
sure a very smart woman. I'm not sure how smart
some of the kind of liberal political observers are frankly right,
because the excuses are dumb. Frankly just dumb. They'll say, well,
(05:55):
you can't force a Latina justice to retire, Well, sure
you can. There are lots of qualified Latina associate justices
and things like that could replace her, if you believe
that's an important thing to do, right or if people say, oh,
it's kind of like it ablest to worry about her diabetes. Well,
I'm sorry if you write in the Constitution that you
have a lifetime appointment to something, which, by the way,
(06:16):
I think is a bad idea. I think she'd be
limited toward eighteen years or something like that. But if
it's a lifetime appointment, absolutely it's the public's responsibility almost
to consider, like the health of the justices that it
plays out strategically. But historically justices wait to time their
retirements for partisan reasons, right, they want to be replaced
by the same party that appointed them in the first place.
(06:40):
So that's not new. You know. Justice Kennedy, for example,
who was more moderate, did so under Trump when he
had some time to go. So look, maybe son of
mayor is not a believer in the polls that show
Biden trailing, and again that is close. The issue is
just as much, if not more, about the Senate in
a long term where in the Senate, North Dakota has
(07:03):
as many senators as California despite having what it is,
you know, one fortieth of the population or things like that.
Currently in the Trumpian coalition, the GOP does better among
rural voters, white rural voters in particular, and they are
overrepresented by quite a lot in the Senate. So look,
if the GOP gets attacked together, they would have potentially
(07:23):
a relatively durable advantage to the Senate. I do think
I kind of once you go out more than five
or ten years, it kind of becomes a fuzzy crystal ball.
But the basic math is that, like, you don't know
what's going to happen in terms of medium term political future.
You're about to turn seventy years old, you have diabetes,
and like and like I don't know, Like, by the way,
(07:44):
what is the ego involved here? Like it just kind
of weirdly, it's weirdly stubborn. It makes me think less
of people who seek out power, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. And by the way, an
important point that you're making that you didn't make explicit
is that it matters not just who wins the presidency
but what the majority is in the Senate. Because let's
not forget the Garland disaster where Obama tried to appoint
him and the Senate just literally blocked the hearings and
(08:13):
Garland didn't even get a chance to be considered, and
that's something that can happen.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I mean, it reminds me a little bit of like,
you know, sometimes the failure to make a change is
the biggest risk, right, It's like, well, why would I
disrupt the status quota? Why I have this job? You know,
seventy years old is not that old for a woman
who presumably has good health care, even if she has diabetes.
But like, sometimes the status quo is the riskier is
(08:40):
the riskier path, right? You know? Right now that she
can be replaced by another liberal justice. Democrats in the Senate,
even the Joe Manchins of the world, have been very
loyal to Biden on judicial appointments. You don't know anything
beyond what happens in November. And by the way, in
terms of like pure political tactics, to have a big
fight over the Supreme Court, this is an issue where
(09:01):
Democrats now are more charged up and talk about abortion
rights and things like that. I'm sure whoever is now
many it would be subject to lots of abuse from
Republican commentators. This would also be I think a good
way to rile up democrats generate more enthusiasm, which is
a bit flagging for Biden right now, But I don't know.
People are like, well, you shouldn't think of politics in
(09:22):
terms of expected values. Yes you should, Yes you should.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
By the way, everyone who says it's not a game,
like did you look up? Did you see what the
Senate tried to do?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
They're trying to figure out how do I how do
I game it right? Like they are, This is gamesmanship.
This is exactly what gamesmanship is, to try to figure
out how do I gain an edge, how do I
use the rules to try to do what I want?
Even though the intention is not that right. I understand
what the spirit of the Constitution is and I don't
give a fuck. I'm just going to do like what
I can within the rules so that so that we win.
(09:55):
And I think that it's absolutely a game in that respect.
And it brings out the types of people I've written
before about kind of the difference between sportsmanship and gamesmanship,
And the Republicans are definitely much more in gamesmanship, and
the Democrats are trying to take the higher sportsmanlike road,
and that ain't working out so well when the other
(10:17):
people are are better gamesmen.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, you know. The White House has also not said
anything about this in part because they have a candidate
who is eighty one years old and Aldea, people are
being too old for office is a big no no
topic that they don't want to get into. But also,
like some of it comes down to identity politics. I
think it's fair to say I personally think if you
kind of take progressive politics seriously, the notion that like
(10:43):
having someone who represents the group, I think that's substantively
smaller impact than like six three versus seven to two
or down the line, who knows seven two verses eight one,
or five four versus six three or something like that.
But this is why I don't really find people who
are into politics. I don't really they're not my crowd really, right,
(11:05):
because this is this is such a no brainer. This
is not quote whereas we talked about Biden the other week,
like by retiring, it's kind of really tough either way.
That's really close. This is not close. Now, this is
like absolute no brainer.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Totally agree with you. And by the way, I learned
the hard way. Like when you were saying I think
a really important point is that you know, seeking the
status quo kind of saying like oh, like this is
the this is the safer way to do it is
oftentimes not safer, right. I learned this the hard way
when I started playing poker. That like, if you try
to do nothing, that's also very much in action, right,
That is, that is very much a choice, that is
(11:39):
very much doing something, and it's doing something that's not
optimal and you're not doing it for the right reasons.
And that's what's happening right now. So like, get your
ass in gear, actually look at the incentives, look at
the future, and try to figure out. I think this
is also really important what risks are worth it and
what risks aren't because there is so much uncertainty here.
We don't know what the percentages are because there is
(12:01):
this uncertainty about you know, who's going to win the presidency,
who is going to win the Senate? Is that risk
worth it? And I think in this particular case, it's
just a slam duck. No, it absolutely is not.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We'll be right back. Last week, Major League Baseball suspended
San Diego Padres shortstop Tikipeda Marcano permanently for allegedly having
bet on baseball games while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
(12:40):
It also suspended four other players of who are now
in the minor leagues for a year for betting on
games not involving their teams. So there's been a lot
of gambling scandal news coming out of baseball and other
sports slightly of course, earlier this year, maybe the best
player in the world, Shohe Otane, his former interpreter and BFF.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Potentially a potentially former BFF.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I if I committed seventeen million dollars of wirefrag involving
your account, Maria, would we still be friends?
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Absolutely? Nate, I would forgive You're in a heartbeat, because
that would mean that I somehow had seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
There you go, if you you know what's seventeen million?
If you signed a fifty.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Between friends, what's seventeen between what's minus yours'n But as
you were saying, Misahara plaed guilty.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Right, he pled guilty, and Major League Baseball closed the investigation,
which I know. I actually still a couple of questions
about Otani's involvement that will communiately never hear anything about
ever again. But yeah, So this is the first suspension
for gambling at related reasons since Pete Rose, who also
was alleged to have bet on his own team. Now, Marcano,
(13:50):
from what I read, has not planned to appeal, at
least not for right now. In fairness to him, there
is a somewhat mitigating circumstance, which is that when he
was making these bets, he was injured, not actively playing
for the Pirates. But still, the theory of the case
is that even if you're betting on your own team,
you still have inside information that's valuable. Right if you
(14:12):
know that a certain player is healthy and therefore likely
to play, Right if you know that the team was
up all night at the strip club, maybe you'd choose
not to bet that game, for example. So, and this
is like literally a rule posted in every Major League
Baseball clubhouse. You bet on games involving your own team,
you are suspended for life. It is one of the
least ambuist rules in all of Baseball's rule book.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, and I think that it's a rule that makes
complete sense, right, because if you're betting on your own
team or providing information, I mean, that is like, that's
a different kind of inside baseball, right, that is not
the good kind. And I think that when we see
suspensions like this, I think it's really important as the
ubiquity of sports betting goes up, as we have these
(15:00):
apps everywhere, as it's possible to do all these crazy
parlay bets, as it's possible to bet while events are
actually going on, all of these new capabilities that haven't
existed in the past. I think it's incredibly important to
be strict about this. By the way, I also think
it's kind of hilarious in a way. Hilarious might be
the wrong word. But how bad Marcano still was. I mean,
(15:21):
I think he won just over four percent.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Well that's a little so this is something that was mislading.
There's spin involved here, okay. I mean, so Pason's winning
four percent of his bets because he's beending multi leg parlays,
right see, but on the pirates to win, and you
bet on five other teams to win, and therefore, you know,
take like two of the fifth power if they're all
fifty to fifty bets, and so he's doing multi team
(15:44):
parlays where you usually lose. But like when you win,
you win a lot. So the four percent is kind
of misleading. That might be the expected value in terms
of how often he's supposed to win. There is one
irony though, which is that like he was apparently using
one of the legal sports books that like tipped off
Major League Baseball. So yeah, these guys will, you know,
(16:08):
squeal on you if you're a major League Baseball player
you decide to bet on games they are. They have
incentives though, to be concerned about about action that could
compromise their deal with the leagues. They have concerns about
game integrity too. In some ways, I've been surprised there
hasn't been even more of a backlash. But look, if
you're a major League Baseball player, my advice to you
(16:29):
is do not use like DraftKings or fan duel or
a partner that's in bed with Major League Baseball. Right,
use some offshore illegal betting website. There's less likelihood of
being detected.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Like Epaimzuhara did for seventeen pillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, at least gave himself a chance, right Epei was
smart enough to know you're not going to fucking bet
on fan duel. Then you're drawing dead.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
By the way it is, I think it's interesting to
note when I was saying that it's it's crucial that
people are being caught that the four players who were
suspended for a year, they all bet just a few
hundred dollars, right like that. That was they didn't make
big bets, they made tiny bets, and they were still suspended.
I think that that's actually a really important hardline to
draw that it doesn't have to be in the millions,
(17:14):
It doesn't have to be in the hundreds of thousands.
This was like one hundred bucks, two hundred bucks, you know,
four hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and you know, Marcano's bets were larger. The totalsme
was low six figures. But you know, I doubt that
he is betting to make a profit, right. I mean,
you take a bunch of competitive young men. In any industry,
there's a lot of DJM, as we would call it,
(17:40):
a lot of degeneracy, and things like poker high six
poker games are often played on the back of team
planes and things like that. These people are around a
lot of money all the time. The rookies are not
making that much, but they're around people who are making
lots and lots and lots of money. You know, the
one case where there really was some kind of expected
(18:02):
value for the person making the bets, was the NBA
player John tay Porter, who was apparently had been dealt
in somehow to individual player parlays where why people were
betting on this obscure player named John tay Porter is
hard to know, but he basically intentionally tanked the games, right.
He would intentionally make up a fake injury allegedly. He
(18:24):
would intentionally like not hustle after rebounds, allegedly so that
his betters would achieve the under on like how many
points that John tay Porter would receive, and that was
very suspicious. I mean, I think the NBA got lucky
that that scandal broke at about the same time as
the Otani scandal broke, because that actually affected directly affected
(18:44):
game integrity, and that's like a kind of deeper level
of hell, I think than what Markana did.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
I totally agree with you, and I'm really glad I
was going to bring John tay Porter up because I
think that what is going on there is actually the
bigger issue, because it's amazing that he was caught. And
if you think about the fact that I think the
much bigger issue isn't players like betting themselves because they'll
get caught, right, Like you'll figure it out. But players
(19:11):
giving other betters inside information and then actually affecting outcomes
when they're in the games, that's much more difficult to police,
especially if you're smart about it. Right, all of a sudden,
if you see millions on this obscure player who's then
pulling off some crazy shit that you know that you
are thinking of, like, what in the world that's a
red flag? But imagine you're smarter about it, right, Imagine
(19:33):
you're actually someone who kind of is a better cheater,
who kind of stays under the radar, who manages to
do it a little bit less blatantly, less often fakes
you know, doesn't fake injuries quite as much, doesn't throw
games in quite as obvious a way, but does it anyway.
And that to me is the much bigger and much
scarier issue, because that can really affect game integrity, It
(19:54):
can affect the entire kind of gaming community because it
just goes against the heart of why people play games,
why people watch games, you know what this is all about.
And I think that that's the much bigger thing we
should be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, betting on the visual accomplishments raises this risk a lot,
like you should not be taking that much action on
anything involving John tay Porter, right, Like, who the fuck
is going to bet that unless they have some type
of inside angle. I mean I was at like a
Summer League game in Las Vegas about a year ago.
Now Summer League coincides with the end of the World
(20:29):
Series of Poker and watching in the game and see
like some team executive two rows in front of me
and giant font on his cell phone is talking about
how the New York Nixian a trade for og Ananobi,
which didn't happen then but did actually happen several months later.
If I having not really it's not really inside information,
(20:52):
I mean a public area of a stadium, right, But
like information has a way of slipping out about injuries,
about fatigue, you know, about like I know, you know
some people will hang around tennis tournaments, for example, and
see which player is having like a cheating scandal with
his girlfriend or looks like they're coming in hungover and
things like that. You know, information has a way of
(21:14):
getting out. And to limit your liability by focusing on
more major and more robust wagering categories would be prudent.
But you know, but look it's a money grab. The
long term sustainability of any of this, I think is
not as assumed as some of the big sports betting
companies would would right in their stock market and their
ten k's and things like that. So but you know,
(21:37):
at the very least they are smart enough to partner
with the leagues when they detect activity that undermines gain
and integrity, to at least tip them off to snitch
on their customers.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
No, absolutely, and I think we're not just talking about
US sports betting, US sports book. This is happening in
sports all over the world, and some of the worst
are actually in Europe and in places where there are
lots of athletes who are not paid very well. And
a lot of times they're young, right, they're teenagers. They're
still developing their sense of self, their sense of kind
of right and wrong and kind of gray areas and
(22:11):
long term consequences isn't fully developed. Because, by the way,
if you're like a seventeen year old guy, you're a
prefrontal cortex ain't fully developed yet. Your ability to kind
of think through long term decisions isn't fully developed. And
if someone says, do you want to make you know
a quick ten grand, a quick you know this. You're like, Okay,
you know this might not be a bad idea. All
(22:31):
I have to do is, you know, if I'm a
tennis player, I just serve a little bit off right,
just one time. That's all it takes. I just lose
one point.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
What's one point?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
You know? I just do this a few times, and
all of a sudden, I have money. And you don't think, wait,
if I'm caught, there goes my career, and there goes
kind of any chance I have of all these future earnings.
You just don't make that math. You're thinking much more
in the moment. You're thinking much more immediate gratification as
opposed to kind of long term expected value. And I
(23:02):
think that that is something that people just need to
be aware of, need to be aware who the vulnerable
players are. And I think that teams need to guard
against that, need to train against that, need to kind
of talk to them and explicitly say what the long
term consequences are and remind them a bit. I know
you said in baseball, you know it can't be more explicit,
but still like have more reminders, constantly, have these reminders
(23:25):
of like this is what you don't want to do
or else it's going to be bad.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
But in an environment that like encourages gambling, where there's
like draft Kings or FanDuel or Caesars ads on the
outfield wall and poker games in the team plane, you're
and neverly going to have some of this with with
rich young men and not fully formed pre front prefrontal cortexes.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What is it called, yep, prefrontal cortex Okay, yeah, yeah, no,
I think that's I think that's exactly right. And if
we if we want to give kind of a nod
to the next layer, which is the uh musuhara of it,
all right, that you have you have also these situations
where even if someone like Otani isn't cheating directly, isn't
isn't sports betting, there are incentives for people close to
(24:09):
these individuals to try to take advantage.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Major League Baseball seemed pretty excited about being able to
wrap up that investigation. I mean, there's still a question
why didn't Otani notice seventeen million dollars missing from his account?
Like that's a pretty fucking good question.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think, yes it is, and we don't know, right,
and but I think that it's important to just throw
those questions out there because it is. Even though as
someone who has seen a lot of victims of con artists,
I'm very sympathetic to Otani if we look at it
as a typical con situation that he was potentially conned
my Musahara, you know, charmed by him, That Musuhara is
(24:51):
the one who had access to his bank accounts, got
all the alerts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like
you can make excuses up to a point, but as
you say, seventeen million dollars is a big number for anyone,
and so you have to then ask Clake, was he
knowingly looking the other way? Was he involved? Like what
(25:11):
was going on? And I think these are questions that
should be asked, but that won't be asked because the
incentives are completely misaligned here because nobody wants Otani to
be involved because he's the star, and we want the
star to keep being an untarnished star, and we want
this other guy to take the fall. And I do
agree with you though that there are still some question marks,
(25:32):
and unfortunately I think that all we can do is speculate.
We're never going to know, But I want to be
careful and not to just say, oh, like this is
a problem of modern sports books, because like, let's not
forget you know, the Chicago Black Sox, like shit like
this has been going on in sports for a very
very long time before fan dual or DraftKings or any
(25:53):
of these things. And so these are kind of these
are problems and deep kind of issues of humanity that
I think are never going to quite go away no
matter what the regulations say.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, look, there are two categories. One is there may
be cases where it is in your financial interest to
throw a game, right, one preventative measure is just paying
everybody really well, including the umpires, by the way, where
it's kind of on the surface irrational for you to
gamble at that point, although sometimes people gamble for irrational reasons.
For me, one thing you always remind me of is
(26:25):
that like most con artists are not motivated strictly by.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Money, Yes, absolutely true. Something I also remind you of, Nate,
is that even though most con artists are not motivated
by money, most people are not con artists. And so
I think that that's a more hopeful way to end
this segment. That most athletes are also, you know, not
degenerate gamblers, not con artists, and going to be in
(26:48):
the sport for the right reason. They want to excel,
they want to do well. They don't want to throw
the game. We'll be back in a minute. So recently
(27:14):
we've seen a resurgence of a stock that we haven't
heard talked about for a few years now, game Stop,
because Roaring Kitty aka Keith Gill is back. And for
those of you who followed the Game Stop short squeeze
several years ago, Roaring Kitty was kind of the big
(27:35):
force that had game Stop just go on an unprecedented
run and put some very famous hedge funds out of
business and ended up, you know, having this just insane
impact on the markets. And then Keith Gill Roaring Kitty
went silent, and a few weeks ago, all of a sudden,
(27:56):
for the first time, this dormant account started posting memes
and what happened. Game Stop is back, baby. The stock
just went through the roof once again, and Roaring Kitty
has since made more posts and shown his own holdings,
including over one hundred million in game Stop stock, and
(28:19):
the markets are reacting and game Stop is reacting. The
sec is reacting. Lots of players are reacting to this
and trying to figure out what's going on. Is it legal?
Kind of what are the repercussions of this, Nate? Is
this something that you've been following?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I wrote about game stop a little bit in my
book from the standpoint of game theory. Actually, so, Maria,
maybe we should actually talk about some of the game
theory behind shit coins and meme stocks.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah. I think that's a great idea, Nate, because I
do think that that's central to this conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
And the meming part of it. Eme is actually very
central to how the game theory works, believe it or not.
Like to simplify a bit, typically, what you have is,
let's say you have like an overvalued asset. In principle,
people who own that asset could sort of literally conspire
(29:13):
or collude to keep the asset at an artificial value.
As long as nobody sells, right, then it maintains at
least nominally its value, or maybe it keeps going up
if everyone's being like hotal hold on for dear life
and wants to kind of boost the asset further. So
the problem with that is that, like you have in
game theory terms a prisoner's dilemma where every party has
(29:34):
a strong incentive to defect. Right if Game Stop is
priced that fifty dollars when the fundamentals price should be
two dollars or something like that. A share you really
have a strong incentive to get out while you can
and take your profits. That could trigger a collapse in
(29:56):
the share price. However, due to the power of means,
a sort of coordination is possible in the prisoner's dilemma.
This is what happens when Maria. Let's say you and
I commit a and we're in separate jail, says, I
don't know what's the most likely crime we were to commit.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I don't want to speculate on this night. You and
I are complete. Maybe we're not going to get any crimes. Ever,
so let's say.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
We kidnapped Justice Sonya sot of mayor. Okay, okay, that
would be a pretty serious crime, very serious. But let's
say the government is having trouble proving it, and therefore
we are in separate prison cells, and the government says, well,
you can confess to the crime and get a lower sentence,
or you can remain silent and we'll see what happens
(30:43):
right now. If neither of us were to confess the
way this works, we would kind of get like a
slap on the risk because the government can't really prove
its case. But the game theory is such that not
being able to coordinate on our strategy, we both wind
up stitching on one another and wind up getting a
worse sentence as a result. It's kind of the very simplified,
(31:03):
podcast friendly version of the prisoner's dilemma. If we could coordinate, though,
I went to a prediction markets conference this weekend in
California where a guy had a T shirt on saying
I cooperate in the prisoner's dilema, meaning that if we
can single to one another that we are cooperating and
this is great. Sure, yeah, this is what happens in
(31:23):
situations like the Internet.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
If you're like, we're all of this together against a
stupid hedge fund, against Wall Street and inherently a stock
like AMC Theaters or game Stop is like, it's kind
of a joke, right, These are like kind of Blockbuster
video dinosaur companies. It's kind of funny. And the fact
that like that through Matt Levine, the economics writer for
Bloomberg calls it the meme theory of value. You are
(31:47):
kind of literally creating something out of nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah. So I think that we have some bigger questions
here though, that are like much bigger than Roaring Kitty
and is more about like the roaring kitties of the world. Right,
So this, you know, what happened in twenty twenty one,
totally unprecedented. What's happening right now shows that this is
a thing that might actually not be so one off, right,
it might actually be repeating, and we might be in
(32:13):
a position where kind of memes, stocks, shit coins, these
types of things really do have an impact on the
broader financial markets that we see these degrees of irrationality
or is it irrational that are playing out in the
broader stock market, where people in kind of the traditional
market analysis are going to have to look at this
(32:33):
differently and try to figure out has the world changed.
Do we need to change how we think about this?
You know, do we need to change where we think
the dumb money is or how it operates, or whether
it's actually dumb? And I think that these are really
important questions, especially as crypto becomes a much bigger world
and memes are the universal language. In some ways, these
(32:56):
are things that just did not exist in the stock
market or in the financial markets in the past. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Look, it's a little bit of a blow to kind
of efficient market hypothesis. Clearly, stocks like AMC or GameStop
are unmoored from any notion of kind of the fundamental values.
Although with that said, like a lot of things are
kind of in the eye of a beholder, you know
why everyone thinks that like a Picasso or a or
(33:21):
a Keith Herring or whatever else. You know, why are
those works of art valuable? I mean often I think
they do have esthetic value, but it's inherently kind of subjective.
It speaks to, I think the kind of maybe inherent
unpredictability of the modern world. It speaks a little bit
to like the way that these kind of faceless, leaderless
internet mobs, because Arren Kenny is not like giving explicit instructions,
(33:45):
He's just kind of communicating through through memes and vibes,
and people kind of infer what he's saying, and it
kind of starts to chain a momentum that kind of
can sustain itself for some period of time, and can
you time it well enough that you kind of get
out before the bubble inevitably bursts.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, And is this something that is going to be replicable? Right?
I think that I think that that's another question because
I think other people have tried to be roaring kitty
and have failed. But I do think that, you know,
there is irrationality in the stock markets in general, and
always has been one of my favorite quotes from Daniel Konneman,
(34:21):
who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work
on kind of biases and irrationality. He consulted for a
bunch of hedge funds and he came to the conclusion
that basically traders were gambling. They were not playing poker.
And he said that poker players are you know, much
more much more rational, and can actually, you know, you
(34:42):
can figure out who the winning players are, where the
edge is, et cetera. Gambling. If you're just gambling in
a casino, you can't. And he said, what you guys
are doing is gambling. And no one listened to him,
and they thought that he was, you know, just full
of it, and so they didn't take any of his
recommendations to heart. And but I think that that's a
really kind of important insight that this is not necessarily
(35:04):
counter to how a lot of decision making in the
stock markets has worked in the past. It's just a
new element, a new world, and kind of putting some
of the stuff on steroids, right, blowing it up in
a way that it hasn't been blown up before, and
potentially kind of making that exponentially more powerful.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Maria, I'm not I'm not one to like dispute too
much the late Daniel Connoman, right.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, that's why that's why I consulted my Okay, that's
why I couched my views with Danny Connoman, right because
I know that you can disagree with me, but he's
he's harder to disagree with. Please continue.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I don't know, like I when you have like the
practice of like actual traders betting millions of dollars versus academics,
even academics as smart as Daniel Conneman, I'm not sure
I take the academic side. I think it's really easy
to like come to some theorical conclusion when you don't
(36:02):
have skin in the game that might not be robust necessarily.
I talk to a guy named John Coates for my book,
who is a former trader turned neuroscientists, and he actually
thought when he was working on desks at Wall Street
that the traders didn't take enough risk. It's hard to
get people to be properly, properly risk adjusted until they
kind of had a winning streak. Then they got all
(36:23):
this testosterone and other chemicals running around the brain and
that coome like faeral animals and go kind of crazy, right,
And that's kind of what can cause bubbles. But yeah, look,
I mean because there's kind of two forms of efficient
market hypothesis, right. There's kind of like the hard form that, yes,
stocks actually do represent a probabilistic discounted projection of future
(36:47):
corporate earnings, Like that's clearly not true when it comes
to something like game Stop. The softer form is just that, Okay,
you think you can meet the market, go ahead and
try it. You might understand that like yes, GameStop is
O were valued, but good luck in trying to time
exactly kind of win that bubble bursts.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, and I think that the bigger point here when
you said that anyone can try, And something that I
think Conoman was trying to get at is that, of
course there are traders and there are certain investors who
can beat the markets. Right, there are people who are
very good at this, who kind of understand, who analyze well,
who have the right data, right approach, whatever it is.
(37:28):
But that's not true for the majority. But if you
talk to anyone individual, they always think that they're the
ones are who are actually more rational and can beat
the markets and are making better decisions. And I think
that that's just an overall human flaw. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Look, if ten percent of people in the world are
the truly rational ones, there's no guarantee that you're in
the ten percent. The correlation, like self perception and reality
is probably fairly discordant sometimes.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, And I think that that's just something that's very
important to remember, whether you're a roaring kitty, whether you're
one of the portfolio managers who is on the other
side and short game stop, or whether you're someone who's
just an outside observer thinking how do I get in
on this in the future and make a killing. You
(38:24):
and I have totally switched positions this week, Knate, because
last week when we were recording, I was in New
Haven about to go to Ireland and you were deep
in the World Series. And now I am finally back
in Vegas and you are back in New York City,
so we have swapped, and unfortunately I'm not making a
(38:44):
deep run. I've played exactly one event since I've been
back and I busted. So that didn't that didn't go
according to plan, and I'll play again today. But you
managed to go deep in a second event that was
not the event that we were talking about. So congratulations,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Although it ended in a very disappointing way. This was
that five thousand dollars in a limit hold them event
number sixteen.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That's a big deal name.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
I finished eighteen place out of eight hundred and something runners.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
However, congratulations, thank.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
You, Maria. I still am mildly heartbroken about it, because.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
You want dolences, congratulate.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Dolence is like the most common poker emotion basically, So
I kind of lost on a bad beat, which I'm
not gonna dwell on. I saw your new substack post,
Maria about like players complaining about bad beats. But basically
I had pocket fives against jack ten offsuit on a
board of jack ten five, So I had a set.
(39:42):
My opponent have the kind of next best time that
isn't a set. Which is jack ten for two pair.
Unfortunately a jacket on the turn. And so this dude,
by the way, won the fucking event. I think I
deserved like half his prize pool. Basically would be.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
An awesome nate by the way, if it worked that way,
that would be a great role.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
You like tag the chips that you have equity in.
I'm not complaining about this past year.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yes, you are just just acknowledged that you're complaining about
the bat beat and move on.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
We cover important news that the worlds there is a
poker and part of the news is that a player
who had a lot of chips was eliminated in eighteenth place,
you know, conveying the news, all right. However, the news
my reporting suggests this player got very lucky at several
earlier points in this tournament. For example, this player had
pocket queens all against all against aces and the queen's won.
(40:34):
This player had pocket ten's almost all all in against
pocket kings and the tens one, for example.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So player mister Nathaniel Silver got got ridiculously lucky to
even get to the point where his set could be cracked.
All right, So let's reframe that as god beats are
good now, but you did you did bust in unfortunate circumstances.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Uh, Maria, what about what about Europe? How's the series
gone for you so far?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
My update sucks?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Oh no, are you? Are you over?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I well no, my first event I won the ten
k bounties, so.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Oh it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, so other together but otherwise zero cashes.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
It's the line between success and failure is soaked in
in poker, by the way, because like the first week
into it, I had like one mini cash out of
been Like now it's like, oh, I'm having a really
great World series. You know, it's all pretty fucking arbitrary,
and it all it all. I mean, it doesn't necessarily
even out. It's like the Gambler's fallacy. But like over
long rning.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Thanks for reading my substack.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Natee read maria subsection. She needs revenue now to make
up for her poker losses, folks.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Yes, because the my update sucks is because the one
event I played was a twenty five thousand dollars by
an event and I did not cash in it. So
I went from being flat for the World Series to
being down twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Maybe if you concentrated more on the poker and not
your newsletter. Maria, you wouldn't have busted.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Out, but I feel like I owe it to my fans.
And my newsletter is about all the things I did
wrong or other people did wrong, so that I played better.
And today is the day we change all of that
so that next week, when we're recording, we can talk
about my deep run. How's that for optimism.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
It's a deal.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, let's do it. That's it for today. We
have already been getting some listener questions, which is amazing.
Please keep them coming. We want to hear from you,
and we will be addressing some of the questions in
(42:47):
segments on our podcast going forward. We even have an
email address for you to use. Now, it's just Risky Business.
One word at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And don't forget to rate and review the show. We
will not tell you which day to give, but you
can probably infer which ones we like more.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kondakova knee Mate Silver.
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter chang Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And if you want to listen to an AD free version,
sign up for Pushkin Plus. For six pinninety nine a month,
you get access to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in.
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