it is impossible these days to engage with professional sports in america without being bombarded with gambling advertisements. sports podcasts are bookended with ads for online sportsbooks with 2 minute long disclaimers. stadiums and arenas are covered in billboards for fanduel, betmgm, draftkings, etc. commentators openly discuss prop bet lines in the middle of the game. it is inescapable and exhausting.
I could go on and on about how much I hate this seemingly unregulated advertising blitz and how much I think it sucks for sports and also just sucks in general, but I actually want to talk about the nature of sports betting and what I think makes it so much more tempting and insidious than other forms of gambling.
the trick that sports betting plays is that it gives you the illusion of skill. it tries to make you think that it's like playing poker, that it's possible to be good at it. it tells you that if you spend time analyzing statistics and making "smart" bets, then you're practically guaranteed to win.
the problem, of course, is that sports betting isn't like playing poker. it isn't even like playing roulette, because in roulette the odds are fixed: the ball has exactly the same chance of landing on red every spin. sports outcomes are impossible to quantify in this way. statistics in sports are simply a record of what has happened before, they have no actual predictive power. a batter with a .333 average does not actually have a 1/3 chance of getting a hit every time he steps up to the plate. a 40% 3pt shooter does not actually have a 40% chance of making a given shot. sometimes a bad hitter like steve jeltz hits two homers in a single game. sometimes one of the greatest shooters of all time like steph curry misses two free throws in a single trip to the foul line. sports are unpredictable. that's what makes them great to watch.
and that's what makes betting on them so risky. they aren't poker. they're horse racing. all the statistical analysis in the world can't erase the possibility that the horse you bet on breaks its leg on turn one, or that the star player of the team you bet on pulls his hamstring in the first five minutes and misses the rest of the game. the guy who bats .175 gets a meatball over the middle of the plate and smashes it into the upper deck. the guy who averages 25 points a game has a tummy ache and only scores 10. you can't quantify these possibilities.
but sports betting companies try very hard to convince you that you can. "you watch all the games," they say. "you listen to all the podcasts. you're a smart guy. you can win big!" maybe you can win big. but it more likely that you'll lose, because it's gambling. the house always wins.
but the house at least tells you the odds.
Is the quantity of bets you can make in a single game. Over/Under, Spread, and God Almighty prop betting, and that's without concerning yourself with who wins! You are presented with so many things to bet on that even with exceptional preparation and research, you get overwhelmed with some of the most ridiculous things to put money on. "Who will turn the first double play?" "Will Draymond foul out?" "Will there be an empty net goal?" and so on. And these constantly change so you're compelled to keep coming back to the book and making more bets. I have been known to place a bet or two in my time, but the professional books are professionals for a reason. They know it's a scam and they know how to run their racket. It's not like an office March Madness pool, these are people who explicitly want to take your money and will use any trick they know to convince you that giving it to them is a good idea.
