The Times points the finger at the Dave Portnoys of the industry, but there’s a simpler explanation.
The Times points the finger at the Dave Portnoys of the industry, but there’s a simpler explanation.
T he New York Times recently ran a series of pieces criticizing the expansion of gambling, specifically sports betting. Given the proliferation of wagering’s presence in popular culture stemming from the 2018 Supreme Court decision that found the “Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act” unconstitutional, leaving regulation to the states, it’s a timely series. The act had pushed gambling offshore and into the black market, its purpose ostensibly to protect sports organizations from the malign influence of that vice of chance. Sports betting’s reintroduction into the realm of acceptability has gone about as well as one might expect a financially destructive but entertaining pastime to go — it’s ugly at times, but ordered liberty does have a disorderly side.
Broadly condemning the gambling sector, the Times picks out lobbyists and public figures such as Barstool Sports CEO Dave Portnoy as the reason for sports gambling’s expansion into our Chrome tabs, malls, and app stores.
Emily Steel summarizes Portnoy’s early gambling endeavors:
Years before he became a controversy-courting media icon, gambling promoter, liquor pitchman and pizza reviewer, David S. Portnoy was drowning in debts.
He owed $59,000 to credit card companies and $18,000 to his father. In one year alone, he had lost $30,000 gambling, court documents show. In January 2004, the 26-year-old filed for bankruptcy protection.
Portnoy is a useful example for two reasons. The first is that he has had severe gambling issues whilst being the face of sports betting — so his current salesmanship could be viewed as a junky selling heroin — and the second is that he’s a clodpate, the archetype of a sixth-year-senior frat bro. The Left disdains him because he’s a populist anti-woke womanizer beloved by young men, and the Right spurns him for his trashy pro-abortion stance and general oafishness.
Like many across the political spectrum, Portnoy is a more prominent voice than he should be because of a few heterodox views and a big mouth; he’s a marketable soundbite generator. But for all that, he has the honesty of a true Swampscott “Masshole” that is genuinely amusing, evidenced here at a pizza party with Tucker Carlson.
A classic take from left-leaning outlets, the Times suggests that a sharp increase in betting is the fault of corporations and compensated individuals pushing for gambling expansion.
Eric Lipton writes:
Many of the states also allowed the gambling industry to give out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tax-free bets to gamblers, essentially marketing the industry. The promotions are intended to entice new customers to form a new habit: placing wagers on games. It is the modern-day equivalent of the free bus ride to Atlantic City casinos with a roll of quarters thrown in for the slots.
The more straightforward answer is that Americans love to gamble, and the legalization of the vice in the world of sports is registering what was already happening between buddies and black-market bookies. The difference now is that people are more honest about reporting sports betting. I have yet to be pinned down by an exec from Penn Entertainment and forced to put ten dollars on the Packers, which is a mercy because they’re terrible this year.
Further, many offers are designed to entice preexisting gamblers from other sportsbooks to join another. Such enticements do nothing for me because I don’t bet anymore. If Google had an introductory offer for YouTube Premium, how many non-YouTube watchers would find that attractive? Not many, I’d wager — only those already hooked on the product who will find the most consumer value in an ad-free experience. While some virgin gamblers may try their hand with the “free money” offered by sportsbooks, the repeat customers will spend the most over time.
I’m three dollars up in a storied gambling career — the result of picking ten ponies to place ($2 per bet) at the Del Mar racetrack in 2015. Having won more on net than most and successfully retaining the title of my 2002 Honda Accord after a day of fiscal hedonism, I retired from games of chance. Given these successes in sports speculation and my libertarian streak, one might think I’d favor gambling, but not so. Culturally, gambling should be safe, legal, and rare. Personally, I dislike the intrusion of the ads and implicit messaging that to enjoy sports there needs to be money on the line. For drudgerous sport-equivalents like soccer, it’s more understandable. Booze and betting make footy’s natural 4 a 7, to use a Portnoy-ian rating scale. But American football need not be cut with anything, given the premier entertainment quality of the sport. That’s just me, though, and if an American citizen wants to put a tenner on the Lakers’ likelihood to hire on even more geriatric former stars, then feel free.
We’re a country full of gamblers, the descendants of gamblers. We abandoned the sclerotic Old World and took our chances in a vast land that promised success and misadventure. The idea that some suit has injected the American public with an interest in odds-defiance is absurd. Gambling exists, and problem gambling exists. The former is morally gray; the second is a tragedy. Better to have both in the light of day.