I was listening to the Bill Simmons podcast last week and he mentioned cigarettes in the 40s and 50s along with the classic “they didn’t know how bad they were at the time!“.

The obvious continuation to that story is that some actually did know how bad cigarettes were for people. The negative effects were actively covered up by tobacco companies because the money was too significant. They had research institutes putting out studies that only painted tobacco in a positive light. It was an objectively bad-for-society move motivated by money.

This makes for fascinating documentaries that look back at the topic, the people involved, the money, the lies, the coverups, and a lot of people saying “we didn’t know how bad they were at the time!“.

Which brings us to sports betting!

I will start by saying that I don’t believe the cumulative negative impact of sports betting is anywhere near that of cigarettes. More that there are a lot of similarities in their promotion and behind-the-scenes schemey nature.

Sports betting ads are horrible. It feels like Fanduel, DraftKings, ESPNBet, etc. have crept into every corner of life. Ironically, I connected these dots when I heard Simmons talking about cigarettes because his company, The Ringer, which I like a lot, is inundated with FanDuel promos.

There’s not a lot of data right now on the effects of sports betting; a few things if you check Google, but nothing concrete. Here are some things I want to know.

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The Betting Data

The ads paint gambling as ‘everyone’s a winner!‘, but obviously FanDuel wouldn’t be profitable if everyone was good at gambling! Let’s see the data, examples being:

• Number of users annually who cash out for profit – is it… 20%? 10%? 1%? I genuinely think it may be 1%. It’s one to thing be profitable through periods, but no one cashes out. They lose it back. Rinse. Repeat. This doesn’t even count the taxes you’re supposed to pay if you win more than a certain amount.
• Bets Collected vs. Paid Out Ratio – Is it 5:1? 10:1? Steeper than that? Probably not, honestly, because a monkey throwing darts could win 40%, but that may give the average user too much credit.

This data may not make a difference, but I think if every ad was forced to lead with “95% of users lose money“, it might help contextualize what people getting into.

The Personal Effect

I write this as a very mild sports bettor. If I bet $500 a year randomly when I’m with friends, that is money I can afford to lose. Even Tom who bets pretty much every week (day?) is not really gambling any life changing amount of money.

However, there are certainly cases of college kids losing thousands they don’t have. I don’t know what the data would show. Maybe it’s not as bad as I think, and people are simply losing the money they can afford to lose, but gambling addiction has been a known thing for decades and data shows its rising. With gambling as easy and ubiquitous as ever, I would imagine these apps are causing serious harm in certain people’s lives, specifically lower income people.

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Should any of that Matter?

Everyone has a choice. No one is forcing anyone to gamble. But if the data came out that 5% of users win and gambling addiction centers / hotlines are being flooded, then I feel like yes, that kind of matters.

It brings me to my original point about cigarettes. I picture someone like Bill Simmons appearing on a documentary 20 years from now saying “Of course I was taking their ad money, no one knew how bad it was at the time!“. But everyone kind of does know. And that data, like the cigarette data, will never voluntarily come out because there’s too much money at stake.

The worst part is that companies like the Ringer can’t even criticize it. No one on a podcast would dare say “FanDuel is brutal, everyone loses because everyone’s so fucking stupid but they just keep reeling ’em in and no one realizes they don’t have a chance.“. They have so much money and pay a lot for ads so you have to go along with the charade. Hell, I heard Tim fucking Dillon giving out parlay picks on his podcast for players names he couldn’t even pronounce.

Is there a Solution?

I’ll start this section by saying maybe there is no problem and I’m just annoyed at all the ads. Maybe some people win, some people lose, and it’s not an existential threat to society like cigarettes were. Hell, for me personally, gambling used to be fun. It adds context to a lot of sports conversation and when you’re out watching a game, it’s a good way to make it interesting.

But if we find over time that this is causing harm, the most obvious first step is BAN ADVERTISING.

It’s out of control and designed to make people think there’s no risk and / or that it’s easy – $5 deposit and we give you a $100 free bet! – but once you get your bank account linked to the app, all it takes is one click to deposit after you lose.

A second solution, which is much less realistic, is to limit sports betting to in-person-only like it used to be. I imagine this will never happen. It’s impractical and probably a step too far, but I wouldn’t be opposed!

Until then, I like the Phillies at +205 to win the NLDS against the Mets.