In the decades to come, when the Super Bowl is called the Caesars Sportsbook Cup, FanDuel offers odds on fourth-grade T-ball, and activities historically unpopular in betting circles—such as Olympic canoeing, say—are plagued by gambling-related capsizing scandals, it’s going to seem awfully strange that as recently as 2018, wagering money on sports in the United States was mostly illegal and largely taboo.
Even now, the pro-sports landscape has the look and feel of a Casino outtake. LeBron James stars in DraftKings commercials; Fenway Park’s Green Monster, which was once just green, has a beckoning BetMGM logo front and center. Over the last seven years, the most prominent American sports leagues have partnered with betting companies, and teams in those leagues, and players on those teams, are sponsored by sportsbooks as well.
The infection goes deeper. Many sports-media organizations, publications, and personalities, who once might have looked down upon gambling, have become leading boosters for it. It’s not only the leagues, teams, and players that have become interwoven with sports betting: it’s the podcasts, magazines, networks, and even prestige newspapers like The New York Times.
A law repealed in that fateful year of 2018 changed everything. When the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 was instituted, it prevented states that hadn’t already legalized sports betting (all those besides Oregon, Delaware, Montana, and Nevada) from changing their stance. A quarter-century later, politicians who hoped to reap the spoils PASPA had withheld from them convinced the Supreme Court to overturn it.
The results: a booming industry that generated $11 billion in revenue in 2023 (a sum soon to be smashed by last year’s totals, once numbers for November and December are reported) and the explosive growth of online-betting companies like DraftKings and FanDuel (the latter owned by Flutter Entertainment).
Lest we forget the consequences: a Seton Hall University poll found that 37 percent of Americans placed a sports bet last year, and, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling, around 2.5 million Americans have become addicts, while an estimated five to eight million others have mild or moderate gambling problems—an uptick corroborated by clinicians and addiction helplines. Meanwhile, studies in the U.S. and U.K. have found that problem gamblers suffer the highest suicide rate among any addiction-disorder group.
The players themselves are not unaffected. In just the past year, the M.L.B.’s Tucupita Marcano and the N.B.A.’s Jontay Porter were handed lifetime bans for gambling, and many others have been suspended for similar infractions. Just last week, it was reported that the N.B.A.’s Terry Rozier was under investigation by federal prosecutors for his potential role, under the same investigation as Porter, in “a sprawling ring of gamblers and poker players who have allegedly rigged games across the sports landscape.” These scandals call to mind the highly publicized situations that gave sports betting a bad name in the first place, such as the 1978–79 Boston College point-shaving scandal, in which college basketball players were found to have fixed games on behalf of the Mob.
Bearing in mind the nefarious history of sports gambling—and its acknowledged mental-health implications—it’s disconcerting to see sports media’s willingness to hop into bed with it. Take Sports Illustrated, once an incomparable source for intelligent and incisive sports coverage, home to writers such as Frank Deford and William Nack, and as recently as the 1990s a leading crusader against sports gambling.
What would S.I.’s Hall of Fame alumni think about the Betting vertical that’s accessible from the S.I. Web site’s home page, featuring articles predicting good bets for upcoming games? Until last year, amid an ownership change and a shift in business strategy, readers could travel straight from articles pushing a bet to S.I.’s own sportsbook (named SI Sportsbook, and now phased out of the publication’s umbrella under their new operator, according to a spokesperson, although S.I. currently offers promotions for BetMGM on their site). Imagine if The Wall Street Journal aggressively pushed stock-market tips while linking directly to a stock-trading platform the newspaper owned and profited from. It’s hard to conceive of a handbook of journalistic ethics basic enough to address such an obvious conflict of interest.
Craig Neff, a former senior writer and editor at S.I. who began there in the late 1970s, remembered the magazine having a “clear division of church and state.” Articles that might upset an advertiser were defended by top editors. But that was when magazines were flush with cash, and today no one would expect S.I. to feature an article overtly criticizing gambling when betting tips are part of the beat.
The same situation prevails at ESPN. The most recognizable sports network in the world—producer of popular television shows, journalistic articles, and documentaries—entered a licensing agreement with Penn Entertainment to promote and market ESPN Bet, in 2023. As part of the deal, ESPN is allocated exclusive stock options, which increase in value the better the sportsbook performs. “It’s beyond fucked up,” says Jeff Pearlman, another S.I. veteran and author. “I assure you, plenty of ESPN employees are horrified by this.” Unfortunately they “can’t say a thing,” despite the clear conflict of interest, “because gambling pays for their existence.”
Mike Vaccaro, a longtime fixture in the New York Post’s sports pages, concurs. “Look, the ESPN thing makes me very uncomfortable, as do journalists who go to work for FanDuel or DraftKings.” But, he adds, “I’m also not a glass-houses guy. Gambling is a revenue generator for us at the Post, so it helps keep the lights on.” For what it’s worth, according to USA Today, ESPN has given their reporters guidance on avoiding conflicts of interest following the company’s association with gambling.
It’s hard to conceive of a handbook of journalistic ethics basic enough to address such an obvious conflict of interest.
Even The New York Times is not immune. In 2022 the newspaper bought the online journal the Athletic and in a matter of months did away with its in-house sports department (other bids for the Athletic were reportedly from, believe it or not, DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment). The Athletic, too, has a Betting vertical, which reports on odds and offers gambling advice. When it launched, in 2021, an article describing the purpose of the section declared that a central goal was to “help you win a lot of money” and explained that the new vertical would be bolstered by the Athletic’s partnership with BetMGM, the online sportsbook: “Yes, we’ll be linking lines and odds back to [BetMGM] (and most links will carry a generous sign-up offer)—but you have to play somewhere, right?”
Two years after this strategic union a karmic drama ensued: Shams Charania, then a star reporter at the Athletic (and at the same time a “commercial partner” of FanDuel), posted a report on X about the projected order of that night’s N.B.A. draft—“Sources: Scoot Henderson is gaining serious momentum at No. 2 with the Charlotte Hornets … ”—that dramatically shifted betting lines. (Henderson ended up being picked third.) To be clear: a journalist partnered with a gambling company, who was doubling as a reporter for a major media organization, affected betting lines with a Tweet. Oh, and here’s the kicker: as of 2024, BetMGM is the “exclusive sports betting partner” of X.
A spokesperson from the Athletic made clear that their journalists are “walled off from commercial considerations related to the BetMGM deal” and “pursue lines of coverage independently,” before concluding that “partnership arrangements like the one with BetMGM are the norm in sports media.” The given normalcy isn’t lost on everyone: “I actually think the point that’s often missed is the way gambling owns … everyone now,” says Pearlman. Referring to the largest podcasts in sports media, “Bill Simmons’s entities are funded by gambling. The Pivot Podcast, Chris Long’s podcast—all paid for by gambling sponsorships.” Add to this equation Dave Portnoy’s Barstool Sports, which churns out massively popular sports podcasts (like Pardon My Take) and also runs a sportsbook.
“It’s disturbing, but it points to the demise of normal advertising in media,” Pearlman continues. “Open up an old S.I.—car ads, appliance ads, etc. Well, it dried up, and if places want to survive, they need money. And gambling outfits are flush with dough. So we’re fucked. It’s also a sad indictment of our industry. We pretend to be moral, but we’d take a hand job from a one-armed Russian hooker if it put $10 in our pocket.”
What would they do for $1.39 billion? That’s how much the American Gaming Association predicts will be bet legally on this year’s Super Bowl. The Philadelphia Eagles, who are partners with BetRivers, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who are partners with BetMGM, are to face off in New Orleans at Caesars Superdome, which is owned by Caesars Entertainment, which owns—you guessed it—Caesars Sportsbook. Right now, ESPN and many of the Athletic’s writers are saying the Chiefs are going to win. If you’re interested in supporting journalism, they’ll happily take your money at ESPN Bet or BetMGM, respectively.
But you don’t need AIR MAIL to guide you to sportsbooks that’ll accept your bets. Announcers, advertisements, and articles do that well enough. If there’s anything we can offer, it’s a game: drink a shot every time you’re encouraged to gamble after Sunday’s kickoff. See if you’re able to stay upright by Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show.
Jack Sullivan is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL
