Where did all the beer ads during pro football games go? They seem to have all been replaced with come-ons for “sportsbooks,” online bookies ready to take your bets on the games.
Once upon a time, professional sports abjured any affiliation with gambling or gamblers. The National Football League, for instance, did its best to block the proliferation of sports betting. But now, football embraces the touts. In part, it’s the result of all that advertising revenue, and other financial pleasures. But if you get people to bet on a game, they’re more likely to watch the game — and all the way to the end, bitter or not. The league even has “Approved Sportsbook Operators,” such as BetMGM, WynnBET, PointsBet, and FOX Bet.
Go to the DraftKings site, and you will find a tutorial on how to lose your children’s college funds: That’s “How to Bet 101: Sports Betting Explained.” Among the “Most Common Football Betting Mistakes” the nice people at DraftKings warn us to avoid is “not watching enough football.” There’s no denying that the NFL and the online bookies share a certain confluence of interests.
Injuries no doubt are an unfortunate part of football, and it makes sense not to bet too much on a team whose star running back, quarterback, kicker, and corner are all on injured reserve. And yet DraftKings also tells us neither to overreact nor to ignore injuries. It still isn’t clear to me whether the sportsbook is talking about injuries to players on the field or advising bettors to be sanguine when the loan sharks inevitably come looking for their vig (though it won’t be long until they will be one and the same).
The NBA is also promoting gambling. Its NBABet has tips on “How to Bet on Basketball.” The league does not recommend getting in touch with former referee Tim Donaghy. But it does have the morbid recommendation that one should know which players have gimpy knees or Larry Bird backs. In practice, that means spending every afternoon during the round-ball season staying “tuned into injury news.” The league encourages us to “bet on games where an injury could have a significant impact.” Am I the only one who finds that just a little bit morbid?
Not being a gambler, the language of the sportsbook sounds to me like the dialog of a Scorsese flick. One doesn’t just bet on whether Team A will beat Team B, there’s the “Point Spread” to account for. Or you can wager on the over/under (which is not, I have been reliably informed, a way one likes one’s eggs).
If that’s confusing, then consider that to walk away with any real money, the newbie gambler needs to learn to parley the language of parlays. If I understand them correctly, parlays are like betting on what three or four rolls of the dice will be instead of wagering on a single throw. Good luck with that.
If you simply can’t wait for the outcome of an athletic event to lose money, there are bets to be made on things that happen in the course of a contest. Will a given running back go for 100 yards? Which team will score the next field goal? This all strikes me as Sky Masterson stuff.
And to this point, I’ve only been talking about the opportunities to diminish one’s bankroll on gridiron action. The sportsbooks have so much more to offer. And I don’t mean just baseball and basketball. There’s boxing and MMA, cricket and rugby, tennis and table tennis. And don’t forget darts. But only if you’re British. The non-Brit who bets on darts is by definition a degenerate gambler.
I’ve been thinking of starting my own book for gamblers with interests outside of sports. Find a symphony orchestra that will be performing Richard Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegel.” Take odds on whether the French horn soloist will navigate the signature phrase without stumbling. Or, when the principal violinist of the Des Moines Symphony retires, how about a wager on who will win the audition for that chair? Or, combine the two bets in a parlay!
Just don’t forget to check the injury reports. The savvy musical handicapper will know the signs that a French hornist’s embouchure suffers from focal dystonia.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
