The Tennis Channel has live odds updates during matches so that viewers can place their bets with whatever gambling site is the sponsor that day. Genuinely sickening.
Not just the odds on the screen, there are entire networks with sports books in the name. When Disney bought Fox they were required to sell off Fox Sports and the Fox Sports Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) because they already owned ESPN. Sinclair Broadcasting bought them for way too much money (and formed a joint broadcast venture with Allen Media Group) and sold the naming rights to sports books, first Bally Sports and now Fan Duel Sports. ESPN also has their own gambling service that they heavily promote, often with their own on-air talent.
Meanwhile players and coaches are getting arrested for their gambling activities. College athletes—teenagers—are getting threats on their social media when they underperform or overperform because some random gambler lost a prop bet on the player.
I was not happy when the sports gambling was legalized in my state a year or two ago. A colleague reminded me that historically prohibition has not ended a problem, but it also doesn’t feel like the rampant promotions are something that should be allowed. At its core it’s a business largely built on taking people’s money and giving nothing in return except a slight hope that they might get more back. A slight silver-lining: I read an article a while back about how the explosion of legal sports betting in the U.S. brought a lot of startups and foreign companies in thinking they’d make a bunch of money on American gamblers losing, but the gamblers haven’t really been losing enough and the companies are hurting. Most American casinos have offered sports betting for decades but they don’t put a lot of resources into them and largely haven’t pushed as hard on the online gambling because it turns out that’s a hard business to be profitable in; there’s no inherent advantage for the house. There are professional gamblers who can actually make a living on sports betting. Often they end up getting banned by the casinos or bookies.
It seems like a really immoral business when they build it on people losing money and ban anyone who doesn’t lose money.
The Tennis Channel has live odds updates during matches so that viewers can place their bets with whatever gambling site is the sponsor that day. Genuinely sickening.
Didn’t renew after seeing that crap. Between gambling and PIF, I feel like I’m watching my favorite sport die.
I get it for free and I can barely watch. T2 is way, WAY worse.
Not just the odds on the screen, there are entire networks with sports books in the name. When Disney bought Fox they were required to sell off Fox Sports and the Fox Sports Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) because they already owned ESPN. Sinclair Broadcasting bought them for way too much money (and formed a joint broadcast venture with Allen Media Group) and sold the naming rights to sports books, first Bally Sports and now Fan Duel Sports. ESPN also has their own gambling service that they heavily promote, often with their own on-air talent.
Meanwhile players and coaches are getting arrested for their gambling activities. College athletes—teenagers—are getting threats on their social media when they underperform or overperform because some random gambler lost a prop bet on the player.
I was not happy when the sports gambling was legalized in my state a year or two ago. A colleague reminded me that historically prohibition has not ended a problem, but it also doesn’t feel like the rampant promotions are something that should be allowed. At its core it’s a business largely built on taking people’s money and giving nothing in return except a slight hope that they might get more back. A slight silver-lining: I read an article a while back about how the explosion of legal sports betting in the U.S. brought a lot of startups and foreign companies in thinking they’d make a bunch of money on American gamblers losing, but the gamblers haven’t really been losing enough and the companies are hurting. Most American casinos have offered sports betting for decades but they don’t put a lot of resources into them and largely haven’t pushed as hard on the online gambling because it turns out that’s a hard business to be profitable in; there’s no inherent advantage for the house. There are professional gamblers who can actually make a living on sports betting. Often they end up getting banned by the casinos or bookies.
It seems like a really immoral business when they build it on people losing money and ban anyone who doesn’t lose money.