Five years ago, in a 6-3 split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act’s (PASPA) prohibition on “state authorization of sports gambling schemes” was a violation of the 10th Amendment. Almost instantly, a multi-billion dollar industry was reinvigorated, and gambling — both casual and competitive — became just a few clicks away from being accessible to the masses.
I, however, was unimpacted at the time. I had already been gambling with my Grandpa for years.
***
I was about 6 or 7 when my Grandpa first taught me how to gamble, and I was about 8 or 9 when he first told me about the Woman in Red.
We were eating at a dining table in the den of a racetrack at 2 p.m. on a weekday, cracking pistachios and watching $5,000 maiden claimers races (the lowest classification) when he pulled out a $20 bill and started rambling.
“No I swear, $100,000 every time.”
“There’s no way that’s true. In 1930’s money?”
“I don’t know what to tell you kid, I’m not lying.”
“Wearing red every time? Why? Where’d she get the money?”
“Lord knows, but I always thought she was a front for some big mobster. She’d show up by herself, dressed to the nines in a gorgeous red dress, place a sure-thing bet, collect the winnings and then leave for a few months.”
I was gobsmacked imagining the opulent lifestyle this woman must have lived. Then, I did my best to mimic her by throwing two dollars (the lowest legal amount) on a low-grade, randomly picked horse. There was something so thrilling about the whole process — reading horse backgrounds, comparing furlong times, scouring records on dirt tracks and who beat who at Santa Anita — all to lose two dollars in a room packed with people who, let’s not kid ourselves here, may or may not have had gambling problems.
But I never imagined myself as just a 9 year old betting with my Grandpa’s money — it felt so much more glamorous than that. There was always something that felt so illicit about it, and at the same time, so exhilarating. Every year on Kentucky Derby Saturday, I still call my Grandpa to deliver my picks, and we technically make a bet, but neither of us ever pays the other when we lose.
***
Now, following the Supreme Court’s decision, sports betting is no longer illegal in 35 states, nor is it reserved for fringe sports like horse racing and Jai Alai. It’s a widespread, legal, multi-billion dollar industry and it’s one which is advertised incessantly. If you watch sports, you are inundated by ads encouraging you to gamble. They tell you how to make money, where to make money and how easy it is to make that money — so much so that you start to believe it.
In 2022, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Advisory Services estimated that $1.8 billion would be spent in advertisements by sportsbook companies. In the past year, popular sportsbook FanDuel spent a billion dollars on an advertising blitz, and in week one of the 2022 NFL football season, 4.8% of all ad impressions ($24 million worth) were for some form of gambling.
Saying that the advertisements are prevalent shouldn’t come as a shock, but what should be noted is that the advertisements are working, and they’re working very, very well. According to the Pew Research Center, 19% of Americans have bet money on sports in the past year. According to the American Gaming Association, 18% of Americans planned to bet on the 2022 NFL season alone, a 40% increase from 2020, and according to NPR, the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network saw a 45% increase in calls in 2021 over the year prior.
The constant advertisements on television have at least one redeeming quality: They’re being upfront about what they’re trying to do. They’re telling you to gamble, and they’re not hiding it. But in recent years, in a very subtle and increasingly insidious way, gambling companies have co-opted sports culture so that it has become fully synonymous with betting culture, and they’ve done so without many people even realizing it.
On TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, the algorithms deliver posts about gambling to individuals interested in sports. Some of these posts are light-hearted and funny. Unashamedly, one of my favorite content creators is bookitwithtrent, a TikTok betting guru who shot to fame after publicly betting on every single game in the 2021 World Series and losing each time. Trent’s videos are self-deprecating and centered on the idea that he is more than just slightly degenerate, and somehow even more incompetent.
But most of the accounts that advertise gambling aren’t spearheaded by reckless young gamblers, they’re reputable outlets that, in an engaging and unassuming way, constantly remind you that there’s a gold rush, and you’re missing out on it. Bleacher Report is generally seen as a reputable news outlet, yet even it in many respects has become a shill for gambling companies. In 2021, Bleacher Report announced a partnership with DraftKings, aimed at engaging the 59% of Bleacher Report’s readership that gambled and adding to it. Subsequently, a subsidiary account on TikTok and Instagram with the username “brbetting” has gained over 600,000 and 900,000 followers respectively, solely devoted to advertising betting.
One of my favorite campaigns, and one of the most telling advertisements they ran, was telling the story of the World Cup through Danny, a gambler one leg away from cashing a $26, six-leg parlay for half a million dollars if France won. In the end, Danny cashed out for $280,000 before the final. But to DraftKings, I’m certain it didn’t matter. Because even if he took $280,000 from them, they won. He was the best advertising they could’ve asked for. They posted about Danny more than 50 times, and every time I saw him on the precipice of fortune, I, and millions of other combined followers, imagined ourselves there too.
It isn’t just the sheer quantity or placement of advertisements that I find insidious, it’s also how desperate these companies are to get you to spend. The major companies can’t differentiate themselves with their product. They can, however, differentiate themselves with their incentives.
Today, DraftKings markets a “$5 bet to win $200 in bonus bets” if you sign up. FanDuel will return up to “$1000 back if you’re down after your first day,” and in Michigan, Caesars offers a one-time $1,250 bet credit backup “if you don’t win.” They want you to believe you’ll strike it rich, because, with $1,000 dollars to blow, how couldn’t you?
I know it sounds ridiculous, and I know I should act as some authority above the idea of gambling, but if I’m being honest, I can’t imagine how I would lose. That’s the craziest part about the proliferation of sports betting: Almost everyone knows it’s a losing proposition, but we delight in betting anyway.
Last year on a flight home, I had a four-hour layover in Vegas, and distinctly remember sitting on the tarmac, just waiting to lose money in the airport (I was devastated when I found out I had to be 21). At the Sports desk inside The Michigan Daily’s newsroom, my fellow underage friends and I routinely cooked up 10-leg college football parlays with companies based in Nassau that we knew would never win. My friend John and I always joke as he opens FanDuel, “How on earth could we lose?”
I genuinely think that the day I turn 21, I will start occasionally betting, because it looks fun, and even though I know better, I still imagine that I’ll be the one to beat the odds. That isn’t a rare sentiment though, especially amongst the younger generation. According to Pew, an eye-popping 60-80% of high school students reported “gambling for money” in the past year. High schoolers.
Gambling is in its Wild West phase. Suddenly, the market is open, the rules are vague and there’s an entire country to profit from.
***
I think back to being eight at the horse track with my Grandpa and winning my first bet, imagining myself as the glamorous Woman in Red.
The experience was thrilling, but it was also casual in a way that I don’t think gambling is anymore. Horse racing used to be unique in that it was the only sport that mainly only existed for gambling. Don’t get me wrong — I love the sport, but the thrill doesn’t come from watching a favorite horse — it comes from winning.
Today, you don’t need a horse to win, because you can gamble on anything from your phone: coin tosses, first receptions, first touchdown scorers, whether the final score is odd or even, ping pong and even the color of the Gatorade thrown at the Super Bowl are all fair game. And this changes the way we interact with sports. Many people don’t watch for outcomes anymore, they watch for statistics.
Two weeks ago I put 5,000 in fake currency coins on an app called Fliff on Ezekiel Elliot to get two receptions. I didn’t watch the game. I did, however, watch the statline. It was ridiculous. It was imaginary money being gambled on a game I didn’t want to watch, and I still got mad when I lost.
***
I can talk about the predatory nature of sports betting advertising, and I can condemn the manufactured obsession of sports culture with gambling — but there’s no going back. Gambling is accessible, constantly advertised and here to stay. Now, every sport has turned into a form of horse racing, and every athlete has become a horse in the eyes of many — merely a vessel for a bet.
Everyone gains the capacity — like the bettor, Danny — to be the Woman in Red, and as that happens, gambling companies gain a spokesperson.
Because if the Woman in Red convinced me to gamble with my Grandpa at age eight, there’s no reason why that exact same story in a different format can’t convince millions of people scrolling on TikTok to do the same.
The legalization, and spread of sports betting, has given us all the capacity to become the Woman in Red, but at the same time, we’ve been fooled by her story. Because if I’m being honest, I don’t think she ever really existed, and I think the same goes for the people we’re told are becoming rich on sports betting. They may exist, but no matter what, they exist more in our imagination as a justification for gambling than they do in reality.
Statement Columnist Charlie Pappalardo can be reached at cpappala@umich.edu.