“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,” sang John Prine in his ebony-black heroin anthem “Sam Stone.” Today, it might be, less poetically, an app on daddy’s smartphone. In 2021, casino operator Bally’s acquired an interest in several California-based regional sports networks then owned by media conglomerate Sinclair, with plans to enhance viewer engagement through targeted betting advertisements and, eventually, integrated betting. This strategy, however, was contingent on a 2022 ballot initiative to legalize sports betting in the state. However, the initiative failed, leading to the bankruptcy of the newly created Bally Sports division in 2023. The failure of Bally Sports offers a stark example of how intertwined sports content and gambling interests are becoming, as well as the precarious nature of the sports broadcasting business model, which is increasingly gambling its own future on projections of ever-increasing revenues from bettors. Even the New York Times has a dedicated “betting hub” smack dab in the header of its sports content vertical, the Athletic.
Gambling has always been a part of organized athletics, though historically, it was kept at arm’s length. To bet on the game or the match or the race, you’d have to find a bookie or go to one of a few designated seedy spots or sin cities. Lately, though, the integration of the two has seen them closer than ever before and with more explicit and official connections, not only casting a shadow over the joy and excitement of high-level athletic competition but utterly eclipsing it.
Bill Bradley, a former New Jersey senator and before that a star New York Knick, long warned that sports could become subsumed by gambling interests, reducing athletes to mere chips in a numbers game. His legislative efforts to prevent this outcome culminated in the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which aimed to restrict sports betting primarily to Nevada. However, in a landmark 2018 decision, the Supreme Court overturned this federal ban, opening the floodgates for states to legalize sports betting and gambling providers to roll out a host of easy-to-use betting apps.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, billions have been wagered in the United States, generating substantial tax revenue but also raising questions about the impact on sports’ integrity. Sportsbook revenue in the U.S. alone hit a record $7.5 billion in 2022, a 75% increase from the previous year, signaling not just a growing acceptance but an aggressive embrace of sports betting across the country. A marketing colleague at one of the largest domestic sportsbooks privately estimated that this domestic revenue number could grow to $50 billion by 2030 if efforts to fully incorporate one-click betting into sports programming are successful.
These developments have occurred against a backdrop of increasing digital engagement, where spending money is always just a click away. The ease of placing bets has transformed the sports fan’s user experience, making content consumption more interactive but also riskier — they have “skin in the game” that keeps them at least halfway paying attention to these events. Not surprisingly, this change in how people experience sports has been accompanied by the rise of “BetCasts” and other increasingly sophisticated, gambling-centric broadcasts, where the focus is on the betting rather than the game itself.
Consider the recent ban of NBA benchwarmer Jontay Porter for betting-related misconduct. Porter looks like a ritualized scapegoat whose misdeed is mostly in flouting the letter of the law rather than transgressing any actually existing spirit of any taboo against gambling. It’s even ironic when set against NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s longtime advocacy for legalized betting and the development of specialized “BetCast” programming that compresses the actual basketball game into a small window surrounded by hundreds of live betting odds. And it highlights a troubling shift toward gambling-centric sports viewing.
The ethical implications of such a shift are profound. As gambling becomes a dominant force in sports, the original spirit of competition and athletic skill will be overborne by gambling-oriented financial considerations that go far beyond profit and loss derived from attendance, television ratings, and merchandising, which at least have some relationship to on-field performance. The involvement of players in betting scandals, as with Porter or the interpreter who stole millions from baseball megastar Shohei Ohtani to spend on sports betting that remains illegal in California, highlights the risks to sports integrity. Porter’s actions, which included betting on games and manipulating his play to affect outcomes, are a direct consequence of the pressures and temptations players face in a sports world influenced by gamblers who are interested not in wins and losses and great play but in tangential outcomes like field goals attempted, shots on goal, and assists made.
Charges of “public moralizing” aside, regulations such as restrictions on the consumption of alcohol and gambling are meant to curb excess rather than eliminate behaviors. The partial restrictions on gambling sought not to halt its spread but merely moderate its growth, as with Bradley’s legislation, which confined sportsbook activity to Nevada. The idea wasn’t to ban gambling; it was to keep gambling from achieving ubiquity, as it now has.
The way sports betting corrupts sports extends beyond the biggest leagues with the most fans. The proliferation of sports broadcasting, including women’s and international sports, is often hailed as a welcome diversification of athletic entertainment. However, this seemingly inclusive expansion ultimately serves the gambling industry, providing more opportunities for betting by allowing round-the-clock “follow-the-sun” betting for addicts desperate for a fix. Already, many now view sporting events primarily because of their personal financial stakes rather than any appreciation for the games or athletes themselves. This change reflects a broader cultural shift toward a gamification of everyday life in which the excitement and engagement of activities are often derived from their potential for a minuscule and fleeting “win” of some lottery-style parlay or proposition bet from which the sportsbook derives considerable profit.
The philosophical concerns about the impact of wholly commercialized recreation were raised by Paul Goodman in his 1960 book, Growing Up Absurd: “How is it possible,” he asked, “to have a use of leisure that is not a dismaying waste of a hundred million adults?” Today, such fusty, dated concerns regarding commercialization and commodification are magnified in the context of wall-to-wall betting. Not only the integrity but the purpose of sports are in jeopardy, and the consequences to the addicted bettor can prove as devastating as any chemical dependence on heroin or oxycontin.
The hypothetical (and ever-more-likely) scenario in which a network called “ESPNBET” replaces ESPN or “BetMGM” sits squarely atop the New York Times’s masthead represents a future in which content dissemination and consumption is controlled by gambling interests. In such a dystopian world, which would perforce lack any intrinsic meaning or shared community values, incessant wagering will take its place. A game of life played under these appalling conditions may have no objective. But constantly betting on minor outcomes can ensure we maintain enough “skin in the game” to justify our meager existences.
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Oliver Bateman is a journalist, historian, and co-host of the What’s Left? podcast. Visit his website: www.oliverbateman.com.
