Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver, thank you for joining us. It has been a busy week.
Chuck Schumer and 10 Democrats
caved on a resolution to fund the federal government,
Dr. Oz had his confirmation hearing
and the White House essentially staged a Tesla promotional event,
complete with Trump carrying around handwritten notes
about pricing like a car salesman on his first day.
Meanwhile, federal workers continued to be fired for no clear reason.
Though, in the case of one pardon attorney,
there seemed to be a pretty specific one.
Tonight, Liz Oyer says she lost her job because she refused
to recommend that Mel Gibson be allowed to buy a gun again.
The actor and a backer of the president's lost that gun right
after he pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge in 2011.
When I came into work on Friday morning, I said to a colleague,
"I really think that Mel Gibson might be my downfall."
And within hours of saying that, I was being escorted out of my office.
It is frankly incredible she got fired because she didn't think Mel Gibson,
best known for his work in screaming, should have guns.
If you've forgotten the specifics of his various scandals,
I recommend you check out his Wikipedia page,
and while you're there, check out his dad's,
because the opening paragraph alone is spectacular.
Hutton Peter Gibson was an American conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier,
writer on sedevacantism, which is a belief
that there hasn't been a valid pope since 1958,
a World War II veteran, 'Jeopardy!' grand champion for 1968
and the father of 11 children,
one of whom is the actor and director Mel Gibson.
That is a fascinating man. And imagine having so many terrible views
that producing Mel Gibson is not the worst thing about you.
But we're gonna focus on another bold move
the Trump administration made this week.
Tonight, anger spilling onto New York City sidewalks
after federal immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil,
who his lawyer says is a legal permanent resident with a green card.
Khalil recently finished a master's at Columbia and helped
lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
His lawyer adding he was detained on Saturday in front of his wife,
a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant.
President Trump has vowed
to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses.
Today he called Khalil's detainment "the first arrest of many to come."
Okay, so there's a lot there.
First, Trump wanting to crack down on antisemitism is pretty rich,
given a top DOD press secretary was recently found to have
a history of racist and antisemitic tweets,
Musk and JD Vance both recently supported Germany's AFD,
a party with ties to neo-Nazis, and of course there was this shit,
and that is all before you get to their efforts this week
to make sure that this fucking guy, whose views on the Jews
are, let's say, a matter of public record, got his guns back.
Set all of that aside.
Clearly, you shouldn't be deporting green card holders for their views.
And for what it's worth, regardless of what others
may have said or done during those protests,
Khalil explicitly said, "Antisemitism and any other form of racism"
"has no place on this campus and in this movement."
It's also notable some Jewish students at Columbia rallied
in support of Khalil this week.
And while the word bitch in me wants to point out
that's not how you spell the word "fascism",
I don't want to draw attention from the excellent "pigs aren't kosher" sign
just a few feet behind it.
That's the kind of pithy slogan that would turn Don Draper's head.
He wouldn't hire a Jewish copywriter until pretty late in the show,
but still, put that in your book, kid.
Amid all the justified outrage,
it is notable how little rationale for this arrest has been offered.
When Mike Johnson was asked
what specific crime Khalil committed, this was his response.
If you are on a student visa and you're in America
and you're an aspiring young terrorist
who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you're going home.
We're gonna arrest yourŧ tail and send you home where you belong.
Okay. First, he's not on a student visa anymore,
he has a green card.
Second, "aspiring young terrorist" would be a great band name,
but it's an awful thing to call someone who engaged in protected protest.
And finally, if you're gonna do something this offensive,
don't get cute about it.
Just say "we're gonna arrest your ass" like a fucking adult.
And it's not just Johnson
making big claims about Khalil without support.
The Department of Homeland Security, for instance, claimed
he "led activities aligned to Hamas",
but when a DHS official was asked to back up that assertion by NPR,
he had shockingly little in response.
How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?
I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that
we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country
and he put himself in the middle of the process
of basically pro-Palestinian activity.
First, when the question is about providing support for Hamas
and the answer is "pro-Palestinian activity",
you are already telling on yourself.
And it is not great when your best evidence is,
"I think you can see it on TV, right?"
That's the same level of detail my parents would give to the question,
"What does John do for work?" You can see it on TV, right?
He says it's comedy, but we don't tend to laugh.
Because when the accusation is terrorism,
you should need a bit more than "the vibes are off".
Protesting, in and of itself, is not a crime,
even if it makes people uncomfortable.
Kind of like that DHS guy's official portrait.
Not a crime, but uncomfortable, right?
I don't like it, but it's not illegal.
Now, to her credit, that host repeatedly tried
to get more specifics from him, but without much success.
So, what is the standard?
Is any criticism of the Israeli government a deportable offense?
Like I said, I think that at this point,
when he entered into the country on a student visa,
at any point, we can go through and evaluate what his status is
and the secretary of state…
Is any criticism of the US government a deportable offense?
Is protesting a deportable offense?
Like I said, you're focused on protesting.
I'm focused on it's a visa process. He went through a legal process…
Are you saying he lied on his application?
He is a lawful permanent resident married to an American citizen.
I think if he would have declared he was a terrorist,
we would have never have let him in.
I know that "if he'd just told us he was a terrorist"
might sound like a joke,
but anyone who's actually been through the U.S. visa process can tell you,
"Are you a member of a terrorist organization?"
is genuinely one of the questions they asked.
I've ticked that box so many times. "No," by the way.
I've ticked it "no". I cannot be clear enough about that.
But maybe the most chilling statement this week
came from a White House official who said,
"The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law."
That's a pretty alarming thing to say about someone you've just arrested
at his home in front of his pregnant wife.
It seems that we've gone from "innocent until proven guilty"
to "innocent but, you know what? Get in the van anyway."
The administration's since pivoted to arguing they're deporting him
under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act
that gives the secretary of state the power to deport
any "alien whose presence or activities would have potentially serious"
"adverse foreign policy consequences."
That clause is incredibly vaguely worded.
While there is no clear precedent
for using it the way the Trump administration is trying to,
as we are learning, they seem unafraid to test out new precedents.
And Trump has already said, this is the first arrest of many to come.
And look, maybe you feel differently
about the Israel-Palestine conflict than Khalil does.
Maybe you don't agree with things that I've said about it.
But if someone can be deported, as a green card holder,
for speech in support of Palestine,
or anything else this administration objects to,
that should chill you to the bone.
And I'll be honest, anyone who's been through the U.S. immigration process
has probably had a lot of anxious feelings stirred up this week.
I came here to start working at "The Daily Show" on a visa.
When we started this show, I had a green card,
and five years ago, I became a citizen,
but I know what it's like to live in constant fear
of being kicked out of somewhere you see as your home.
That is what deep relief looks like.
And look, this clearly isn't gonna be the last assault on immigrants
or the right to protest from this administration.
There is still a lot of uncertainty
about how this particular case will play out in the courts.
But the public response to this should be unequivocal.
Because this arrest was a fucking disgrace.
Thankfully, there've already been protests
and I hope that they get bigger and louder in the coming weeks.
Because rights like freedom of speech
are a fundamental part of living in this country
and if we do not protect them, then unfortunately,
like the Teslas inexplicably for sale on the White House lawn this week,
they could be going, going, gone! And now, this.
And Now: People in People's Ears.
One thing going really well for them during the pandemic…
Kelly, unfortunately, I have to interrupt you,
because there's a director in my ear, so I can't hear you at all,
now you are! All right, okay, go ahead.
This was a lovely chat, Tom, and then someone jumped in my ear
and shouted "guest!" really abruptly…
Just ruined the mood of the morning.
Cassandra's in the control room.
Thank you for saving me just now.
I lost my words because I had someone in my ear,
and I didn't hear the introduction to this topic.
Our work at the ports has brought down the dwell time,
the amount of time con…
…the amount of time containers dwell on the ports…
I'm sorry, somebody's talking in my ear.
Do you know…
These guys in my ear, Diana, and it's not God.
It actually is a person. But they think they're God.
Again, they're wrapping me. They'd love to say that in my ear.
I'm getting a wrap. Stop yelling in my ear!
Stop screaming in my ear!
I'm gonna send it back to you. I've been told in my ear, wrap it up.
Somebody's saying something in my ear, like, "stop".
I have two sets of producers in my ear.
I have five different people speaking in my ear.
I'm not sure anything that you just said
and I think I need to wrap this up.
We should bring David in.
What do you want to bring me in about?
I don't know. Someone in my ear said, "Bring David in."
Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns sports:
the greatest activity you can do with balls,
after my favorite activity: reading.
That's right, reading with my eye balls, the balls of the eye.
Reading. I love to read pornography.
Specifically, we're gonna talk about sports betting.
Picking winners and losers. Even animals can do it,
like in this video from the Audubon Zoo,
featuring Super Bowl picks from a penguin, an aardvark,
and even this giraffe, who correctly picked the Eagles to win.
And that wasn't just random, by the way. Immediately afterwards,
it used its hoof to write in the dirt, "Chiefs are playing a guard"
"at left tackle and are relying way too heavily on the blitz."
So, it knew what it was doing.
But sports betting is clearly not just for animals anymore,
as you've no doubt been reminded by approximately 10 million ads.
You want to make every game interesting?
Step one, open the BetMGM sportsbook.
I'm loving the live betting on DraftKings.
Guys, ESPN Bet is here,
finally a sportsbook from your favorite sports brand.
We are all Caesars!
Only from FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.
Yeah, those ads are everywhere, they feature every imaginable scenario,
from Jamie Foxx in what in any other circumstance would be
a pretty great R&B video, to America's whitest little brother
talking to himself in a mirror.
And you're not crazy for thinking those ads are inescapable.
Sports betting companies spent over 430 million dollars
on national TV ads last year.
And they can do that because this is now a massive industry.
We talked a bit about sports betting back in 2015,
and at the time, we focused on fantasy sports websites,
and their efforts to circumvent anti-gambling laws.
But since then, 38 states have legalized sports gambling
and 30 states and D.C. allow some form of online betting accessibility.
In fact, between 2018 and 2023, nearly 300 billion dollars
has been wagered on sports gambling markets.
And look, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you gambling is bad.
It kind of is, but I'm not gonna tell you that.
Gambling is also fun,
especially if you're good at it, which no one is. But it is fun.
Playing poker with your friends,
taking part in an office March Madness bracket,
even taking a weekend trip to Vegas, for most people,
these can be fun, generally harmless things.
But they also tend to be time or location-dependent.
The thing is, with modern betting apps,
you can gamble all the time, on just about anything.
And people do, as this local news story from Oregon shows.
Last year, Oregonians wagered 57 million dollars on table tennis,
making it the fourth-largest draw for sports gamblers
behind professional basketball, football and baseball.
To give you an idea of how prevalent this is,
right now in Poland, which is, I believe, 10 hours ahead of us,
there are three different live matches going on.
Unlike other sports, there's always action,
matches don't last long, and in-game betting lines change fast.
One of the biggest bets, February of last year,
in the wee hours of the morning, a sports bettor in Oregon
put down 35,000 dollars on this match in Poland
between two relatively unknown players in an empty gym.
This is like the crack cocaine of sports gambling.
Well, that is never a great sign!
No one ever uses "crack cocaine" to describe something positively.
What more can you say about Diane?
First teacher in the doors every morning and the last to leave at night.
She genuinely cares about her students,
she's basically the crack cocaine of the science department,
and that is why she's our teacher of the year.
Get up here, Diane!
Our students would do literally anything for you.
Now, unsurprisingly, the rise of online sports betting
has been found to correlate with a rise in gambling harms,
with one study showing that, in states that allowed it,
there was a 28% increase in bankruptcies,
translating to "about 100.000 extra bankruptcies a year."
And given we're about to enter March Madness,
one of the single biggest gambling events of the year,
when over 3 billion dollars is expected to be wagered,
we thought, tonight, it might be a good time to look at sports betting,
and ask a few things: how it became so ubiquitous,
why it can be so damaging, and what fixes might be possible?
And let's start with the fact that, until fairly recently,
sports leagues took great pains to distance themselves from gambling,
even forbidding Las Vegas from having its own sports team.
In fact, in 2003, Vegas simply tried to buy a tourism ad
during the Super Bowl, but the NFL rejected it
on the grounds that "the NFL has a long-standing policy"
"that prohibits the acceptance of any message that makes reference to"
"or mention of, sports betting,"
successfully solving the one problematic thing about the NFL.
The shift from that point to where we are now
happened both gradually, and then all at once.
First, there were the rise of those fantasy sports sites
like DraftKings and FanDuel. And then, in 2018, this happened.
Now, sports betting won't stay in Vegas.
The Supreme Court today
struck down a federal law that required most states to ban it.
The six-to-three ruling declared the federal law unconstitutional,
a violation of states' rights.
The ruling opens the door to an explosion in betting
on pro and college games of all kinds.
Okay, first, from now on,
all Supreme Court rulings should be announced like that.
Like a detective spreading out the blurry headshots of suspects
on his desk.
And while most of those faces in the concurrence make sense,
Elena Kagan is a bit of a surprise.
Although, and I'm not saying this has anything to do with it,
she apparently plays basketball on a court in the Supreme Court building
and has, and I quote, "a devastating layup and jump shot."
Cases come and go but ball is life.
The point is, that ruling left it up to each state
whether to legalize sports betting.
And those fantasy sports companies were suddenly well positioned
to mount lobbying efforts to get it passed.
And they weren't alone in that: some team owners were on board too.
Here's the owner of the Washington Capitals and Wizards,
making the case for sports betting being legalized.
Let's bring these dollars into the sunlight. Let's let it be regulated.
Let's let it be taxed. Let's use it for the good
instead of calling it gambling and gaming and giving it a bad name.
Wait, what?
I get the "let's do it legally and tax it and everything,"
but for the record, people call it "gambling and gaming"
because that is what it is.
You want to rename sports betting? To what, exactly?
"Fun with numbers and screens?" "Banks and balls?"
"Max?" That last one is kind of taken,
but I know a guy who's probably willing to sell it to you.
Now, in that owner's particular case,
his interest may have had something to do with the fact
that the Wizards are an absolutely terrible basketball team.
And a good way to get people to keep watching teams, even bad ones,
is by letting them put money on games,
as the commissioner of the NBA openly admitted.
The data is clear that if somebody has a bet on a game, even a small bet,
they're much more likely to engage in that match.
They're much more likely to watch it.
They're more likely to watch it for more minutes.
They're more likely to be interested in the participants,
and to follow the sport.
So, there's no doubt there's a business component to this.
He's right. Patrick Stewart's tether is completely right.
People will always be more engaged if they have a vested,
personal connection in what they're watching,
whether that's someone who studies a game more carefully
because they've got money on the line,
or a person who is more invested in a school play
because their child is in it,
all the way up to the most involved spectator:
a parent who somehow has money on the outcome of their kid's school play.
You put 20 dollars on the Shrek musical?
You put it on Shrek to lose? Buddy, seek help.
Allowing gambling was a big win for sports leagues,
who not only benefited from increased fan engagement,
they also got to enter into lucrative licensing deals.
NFL alone made 132 million last year from gambling-related sponsorships.
That is the equivalent of adding two to three NFL teams
and their sponsorship revenues to the league.
And it doesn't even count the additional 120 million a year
the NFL gets from licensing their data to sportsbooks to help set odds.
The influence of these companies on sports now is just unmistakable
and it is not just the ads.
Logos of the companies are on the field or on the floor,
on the uniforms,
and even on whatever the fuck those ice scrapers are called at hockey games.
There are also sportsbooks now built on the premises of Wrigley Field
and other venues, and if you go to an Eagles game,
gambling QR codes are displayed on scoreboards,
allowing you to make instant bets on the next play
without leaving your seats.
Which, let me be clear,
I don't think is a good idea in sports arenas,
but I would welcome it in restaurants, so I can scan a QR code on the menu
and place a bet on "daughter or girlfriend"
when an old, rich guy comes in with a much younger woman.
Okay, let me see. Same hair color, she's wearing sensible flats
and cutting his steak for him. I'm gonna go all in on daughter.
Fuck! Oh, fuck!
And it doesn't stop there.
Broadcasters have got comfortable
with folding betting content directly into their programming.
A look at our FanDuel live lines. The spread at 13 and a half.
The over-under for the Dodgers at 103.5.
Here's a look at the pregame odds for first period.
Total goals, and tonight that line was set at one and a half.
It is time for the big game playbook, brought to you by ESPN Bet Sportsbook.
Our betting expert Erin Dolan is here.
So, Erin, we are gonna pick wagers, you'll have one, I'll have one,
Rex'll have one. That'll be our parlay.
Come on! I don't want to hear from the betting expert before a game.
I want the integrity of the broadcast to be maintained,
right up until the moment we get to see a breakfast pastry
descending into a giant toaster and accepting its own death,
before emerging from it,
only to be horrifyingly devoured by the victorious team.
That is what I want from serious sports broadcasts,
and to its credit, the Pop-Tart Bowl gave it to me.
The predictions of the most optimistic team owners clearly came true.
Instead of gambling happening in the shadows,
it is now firmly above ground, and they're getting to profit massively.
But crucially, the fact it's now available through apps on your phone
has fundamentally changed the nature of betting, in some very key ways.
For decades, sports betting was limited to betting on just the games:
who would win, how many points the team would score,
who will cover the spread.
In-game betting allows the user to bet throughout the game.
This is advertised at you the whole game long.
It keeps you thinking about betting
and involved in betting throughout the game.
And if your bet loses mid-game,
then you're pitched another bet to try to recoup your losses.
It's true. You can be constantly nudged to bet, on everything
from who'll score the next point,
to what color the Gatorade they pour on the coach will be.
And look, insofar as any gambling requires skill,
picking Gatorade colors really doesn't.
You're not a brilliant strategist,
you just got lucky and chose orange.
It's the skill of a giraffe picking a Super Bowl winner,
without the sexual tension.
Respectfully, that's a lotta neck, what goes on there?
Disrespectfully, what those little horns do?
Apps also heavily push more complicated types of bets to customers,
like parlays, where multiple different things have to happen
for a bet to pay off.
For instance, you might bet that the Warriors will win,
Steph Curry will score 30, Draymond will get at least one three
and GPII will be dressed like the basketball Hamburglar.
If all four of those things happen, you win big,
but if only three hit, you lose your whole bet.
People love parlays because there's a chance they might pay off huge.
Companies love parlays because they generally don't.
Experienced gamblers actually call parlays "sucker bets",
because of just how seldom they pay off.
In fact, one study of three states with legalized gambling found that,
while parlays made up just over a quarter of all money wagered,
they make up over half these companies' revenues.
And what that means is,
ordinary people are getting exposed to extreme levels of gambling
they might never have otherwise encountered.
And it's now especially popular among young men like this guy.
Chance Bolmer is in his last year at the University of North Carolina
studying business.
And today's the first day of March Madness.
How many bets did you have today?
A lot. Dude, I used all the promos today,
so, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 parlays.
How important is it that you can do this through a phone
as opposed to going to a sportsbook?
It definitely makes me a lot more inclined
if I do it from, like, my phone or laptop
than, like, physically going somewhere to place the bet.
How many times have you gone and placed a sports bet somewhere?
Maybe never.
Right. Chance Bolmer was never going to physically go somewhere
and bet in person.
How would he, when he'd have to first find his keys?
Just based on Chance's general vibe, he has no idea where his keys are.
Did he leave them at Brian F.'s dorm?
Or Mike P.'s apartment? Or while chilling at Brian M.'s house?
There's no way of Chance knowing where those keys are.
But the promos he mentioned there can be appealing,
a lot of these sites offer free money if you sign up.
Although, you should know, they have tons of fine print.
A lawsuit in Massachusetts alleges that a DraftKings offer
of a 1,000 dollars bonus was only redeemable
if a customer were to "deposit five times that amount"
"and then, within 90 days, place 25,000 dollars in bets."
And that's not the only way young gamblers can get reeled in.
'Cause while some states don't allow people
to sign up for sportsbooks until they're 21,
there are apps specifically designed to get around that.
I'm very excited about March Madness.
19-year-old Chase Levasseur loves sports.
He's too young legally to gamble in his home state of Massachusetts,
but he gets a fix with his friends on Fliff.
You're using a fake currency
that you turn back into cash if you win, hopefully.
Fliff advertises as free-to-play, though there's an opportunity
to buy Fliff Coins and potentially win cash.
It's a sweepstakes model that skirts most states' gambling regulations.
Age limit? 18 and older.
Yeah, it's not "gambling", it's a social free-to-play sweepstakes
with micro-transactions that pay out real cash if you win,
available to teens when their brains are the most impressionable.
What could possibly go wrong there?
Also, for what it's worth,
"Fliff" might be one of the most upsetting words I have ever heard.
It sounds like either one of the most innocent things imaginable,
like a helpful cartoon chipmunk,
or that little bit of flour that's on top of freshly baked bread,
or something so disgusting, it has its own PornHub page
with videos like "stepmom Gressica Shyne gets fliffed"
"by personal trainer and his college advisor, Rod Steel."
But whether you're wagering money or Fliffbucks that can become money,
betting can change your relationship to the sport that you are watching.
And that is something that's not lost on professional athletes,
who can get a lot of gambling-related abuse online,
as NBA player Tyrese Haliburton points out.
If I were to look at my mentions right now,
I'm sure the majority of them are about me fucking up somebody's parlay.
More than likely, you know, if I have a good game,
it's just like, yeah, you're supposed to.
Bad game's like, why'd you fucked up my parlay? It's like, I'm sorry, John.
Right, I can see why that'd be annoying.
Even when you do your job right people just jump into your mentions
with aggressive complaints,
whether it's fans yelling nonsense at Tyrese over their stupid parlays
or viewers in my mentions saying ridiculous things like
"talk slower" or "for God's sake take a breath"
or "Hi, John, no idea if you'll read this but I'm a speech psychologist"
"and what you're displaying is something called 'pressured speech,'
"and it might be nothing but it's also something linked to hypomania,
ADHD, and bipolar disorder."
"Please consider seeing a specialist I'm begging you."
"Not a fan of the show just concerned."
Just annoying nonsense bullshit
that superstars like Tyrese and me have to put up with.
And all this gets especially grim
when you realize it's possible to bet on college players, too.
That's about to happen a lot over the next month,
especially because universities are now partnering with betting companies
in exchange for millions of dollars.
And while superstars like Tyrese and me can see random,
negative comments about our performance
and shrug them off with our athletic builds and toned shoulders,
it is harder for student athletes to deal with harassment
that may be coming from their own classmates.
In Ohio, there've been reports of athletes "getting Venmo requests"
"from their peers when they lost a game or didn't make a free throw"
and others have received horrible messages like
"you deserve to get unalive for blowing my bet"
and "I hope your dog gets cancer".
And look, I don't care who you are or what the circumstances,
you should never, ever hope a dog gets cancer.
Every dog is a good dog who should not have cancer.
Now, a cat?
Also no, right? Of course. Mostly no.
It sort of depends on the cat, doesn't it? For example, this one?
Obviously not, that cat shouldn't get cancer,
that's clearly a good kitty, no cancer for you. Absolutely not.
Who could think such a thing?
Hard no again. Absolutely not.
In no world should that cat have cancer.
Listen…
The point is, that message is clearly awful.
But it's not just young athletes
who are having their lives turned upside-down by these apps,
it's the people who use them, too. So, let's talk about the damage here.
Because even studies funded by the gaming industry
show that about 1% of U.S. adults have a severe gambling problem,
and two to 3% have a mild or moderate problem.
Those might feel like small percentages to you,
but it's worth remembering that amounts to somewhere
between seven and a half million and 10 and a half million people.
Basically, a population less than Michigan but more than Tennessee.
And that's not a tragic side effect of this industry,
it is baked into the business model here.
The people who lose the most money gambling
are the lifeblood of these apps, as this expert explains.
86% of online gambling profits come from 5% of the gamblers.
The gambling industry business model, whether it's state lotteries,
regional casinos, online gambling operators,
it's based on the addicted gambler.
The purpose of the industry is to get you to play to extinction.
And that means until all your money is gone.
Look, getting you to play 'til extinction is clearly awful,
but I would be remiss if I didn't mention…
You're not seeing double there.
That is a different bald guy in tiny little glasses.
This story is essentially populated with dudes named Chase or Chance
and guys who look like they should develop a machine to locate the X-Men.
I'm just saying, if you had the over
on "this episode will feature an interview"
"with more than one bespectacled Bezos clone",
congratulations, you've won 10,000 Jizzlecoins.
They're like Fliffbucks, but even more sexual.
And betting until all your money's gone can be scarily easy to do
when the casino is literally inside your pocket.
As one expert put it,
"You put the most addictive behavior on the most addictive device."
"What could go wrong?"
Just listen to this man, who started gambling in college.
Every deadline I set for myself, you know, I'll stop betting when I turn 21.
I mean, that was a joke. Stop betting when I graduate college.
Stop betting when I start working.
Stop betting when I turn 22. I blew through every deadline.
How did it affect your relationships?
I would be visiting my girlfriend, and I would just go in on my phone,
sit on the toilet, rattle off 10 bets.
All of a sudden, my girlfriend doesn't know it,
I have 2,000 dollars in betting risk.
Those moments, I would think to myself in the corner of my brain,
like, am I a sociopath?
Yeah, that is rough. The only thing any guy should be doing
on their phone in the bathroom at their girlfriend's house
is frantically Googling "what is Summer House Bravo,"
"help, how do I talk to her best friends and seem cool, Reddit."
But unfortunately,
that behavior is exactly what makes someone like him a valued customer.
And apps even have ways to turbocharge that behavior,
they'll throw perks at big spenders, or even match them up with a "VIP host",
a contact who'll track their habits, interests, and spending in real time
and reach out with action they just can't miss.
They'll also give out tickets to sporting events, and send gifts.
One lawyer that we talked to told us about a man
who was addicted to gambling, and at one point,
DraftKings sent him this box, which when it opened,
glowed with a green light and revealed a crown,
with the message, "The crown is yours."
And it is wild to be sent something essentially saying,
"Congratulations, you just lost a bunch of money, here is a hat about it."
And it's not just bejeweled headwear. One woman sued DraftKings,
alleging its VIP tactics led her to lose about 153,000 dollars in four months.
Even as she was realizing how deep in trouble she was getting,
DraftKings was sending her perks like tickets to a Steelers game.
She actually took her son along to that game,
leading to a pretty awkward conversation.
At the game, her son noticed that something wasn't right.
And I told him, "It's from work."
And he said, "I didn't see any of your coworkers here,"
"and I heard a lot of people talking about gambling and DraftKings."
He's like, "Did you get this 'cause you use the DraftKings app, Mom?"
Like, this is coming from… At the time, he was 12. Yeah.
So, what'd you tell him?
I was completely honest with him, and I said,
"Yes, and Mommy's gonna stop using that app."
Yeah, that's not ideal, is it?
Kids at a football game should not be questioning if they are only there
because of their parent's gambling addiction.
They should be doing what any kid does there:
trying to get on the jumbotron by waving their arms around
like an inflatable flappy guy at a car dealership. Let kids be a lot!
And it gets worse, though, because despite her best efforts,
she didn't manage to stop using that app.
According to her lawsuit, at one point, she realized
she was about to miss a mortgage payment and emailed her VIP host
to ask if DraftKings gave out loans for that sort of thing, saying,
"Probably means I need to quit gambling soon."
He initially wrote back, saying, "I want to check in with you,"
"are you still playing within your means/budget?"
But when she didn't reply over the next week,
DraftKings allegedly sent six emails with enticements to gamble.
And she says when she finally sent her host a one-sentence reply reading,
"I am playing within my means,"
he sent her 250 dollars in credit to, quote, "get you back in action."
The thing is, it's not like these sites can't stop someone from gambling,
or slow them down, if they want to.
It is widely known "many U.S. sportsbook operators"
"boost profits by weeding out winning customers."
And sometimes, they'll even try and claw back winnings.
Take this man. He placed 3,000 dollars worth of bets
on a Women's World Cup game that BetMGM was offering at 66 to one
and I'll let him take it from there.
I ended up winning over 200,000 dollars.
Here is 6:45 in the morning where my bets won
and the money was paid out into my account.
He began the process to first withdraw
the maximum amount of 100,000 dollars the next morning.
But when he checked the app a few hours later…
I looked at my account again and I saw that my balance was zero.
They had canceled my withdrawal.
They had rescinded all of the winnings.
After a couple of calls to BetMGM, Benton received this email
from the company's online gaming operations team,
saying it sincerely apologized for the inconvenience,
calling what happened an "obvious error",
meaning they voided the wagers 'cause the odds were "clearly incorrect".
That is obviously infuriating, but the most insulting part
might be the company apologizing for "the inconvenience".
Stubbing your toe is an inconvenience. Stuck in traffic is an inconvenience.
Having 200,000 dollars grabbed back from you feels fucking criminal.
And while BetMGM did end up paying that man,
they only did that after he went to the media.
The point is,
the data collection that lets companies weed out successful customers
could, presumably, help them identify those with addiction problems
and direct them to help.
This man, a recovering addict,
took advantage of the U.K.'s public information laws
to access the data that Flutter, the parent company of FanDuel,
kept on one gambler there, and he was startled by how much it revealed.
On this particular one, he played slots for three to four days straight.
They knew the customer life stage he was at. So, "win back,"
they described it, so people that have given up gambling for a while,
and they're trying to get them to come back.
There's also, like, 2,514 deposits in a year, which is about seven a day.
So, these gambling companies that know when we're most impetuous,
that has reams and reams of data on us,
what kind of match is that for the adolescent male?
It's not a fair wager.
Do they have enough data to pinpoint potential problem gamblers?
Without a doubt. Yeah. They know the people that are addicted.
Yeah, it should be pretty obvious
someone doing seven deposits a day is addicted.
Anyone doing anything on an app seven times a day
deserves a check-in.
If you post more than seven Instagram stories a day
and you're not in Barbados or at the "Cowboy Carter" tour,
Instagram should hold an intervention.
And that is the thing, every part of this system
is set up to reel gamblers in and then keep them playing.
And the whole sports ecosystem is now suffused with it,
from the ads, to the games themselves, to even that journalist,
who, in a good piece about the problems of sports gambling,
at one point had to make this disclaimer.
Full disclosure, when I work at The Tennis Channel, I sit here.
The DraftKings fun, download the app…
That has got to be a demoralizing thing to do.
It'd be like if I told you after all these years
that I'd been sitting behind a desk sponsored by the Sackler family.
It would make you question some things.
The point here is, it seems everyone in the sports world
has now become compromised by an industry that's able to prey
on its most vulnerable customers with incredible precision.
When you know all of this, you start to understand where this woman,
a member of a Gamblers Anonymous group, is coming from
when she talks about feeling like a target.
When you don't go to your drug dealer,
he doesn't usually show up and knock on the door and say,
"Do you need something?" And that's what they do.
Where is the concern for that person? I understand it's a business, right?
But with drugs,
they hold doctors accountable for prescriptions of opioids.
With bars, they've held bartenders and restaurant owners accountable
for overserving a patron.
I'm accountable 100% for being an addict
and falling into the path and losing my way.
I'm responsible for that. But I'm not the only one that's responsible.
Exactly. And I've got to say, it's notable that you've seen people
in this story take accountability for their gambling habits,
but I'm yet to see a single team owner, TV exec,
or gambling app CEO say, "You know what?"
"This might actually be our bad, too." So, what do we do here?
I am not saying sports betting should be banned completely.
It was around before it was legal and even if you criminalize it,
it'll just keep going.
But it shouldn't be this easy to lose this much.
And the thing is, some states have laws in place,
they just don't enforce them.
In Iowa and Tennessee, sports betting companies allowed
gamblers to put money into their accounts with credit cards
even though the state had outlawed that.
And in Indiana, dozens of people who had enrolled
in a state program to block themselves from betting
were nonetheless able to wager hundreds of thousands of dollars.
States merely enforcing the laws they have would be a good start,
but we clearly need new ones too.
For instance, we could eliminate in-game prop betting on college sports,
so that student athletes are less likely to be sent
wishes for their dog's death just because they missed a free throw.
We could also restrict things like VIP programs.
The U.K. actually did that in 2020,
requiring companies to do things like check on whether gamblers
could afford the amounts they were betting,
and regulators have since reported a 90% reduction
in the number of customers in VIP programs,
suggesting these programs are preying on people
who cannot afford to be a part of them.
Honestly, it feels like, years from now,
we're gonna look back on this era and say,
"What were we doing?"
I mean, about a lot of things generally,
but in this case in particular.
And we can change the trajectory here.
We did it with cigarette advertising.
Anchors used to smoke and advertise cigarettes on TV.
But once we saw the harm they did,
we put limits on what the tobacco industry was allowed to do,
and we made people more aware of the risks.
And I would argue we should, at the very least,
have some of the same advertising restrictions on these apps
that we've put on cigarettes.
And until that time, those ads should have to be
much more reflective of what these companies actually do to people.
You want to make every game interesting?
Step one: open the GriftKings sportsbook app.
Step two: throw some skin in the game.
Then, step three: showtime, baby!
With GriftKings, I can bet on all my favorite sports:
football, basketball, Polish ping-pong.
Literally, any waking second that I am physically able to,
I can gamble on something somewhere in the world
that calls itself a sport.
With GriftKings, every month can be madness.
You can bet on Swedish basketball, marble racing, Twister, yeah.
The game Twister.
I just bet on some sport in Serbia that I don't even understand.
Apparently, it involves two men
who slap the shit out of each other with cold, uncooked salmon.
The whole thing lasts 19 rounds.
And you see that guy right there? He's got a gun. And it's loaded.
And that's part of it.
And you're not just betting the final score.
You can bet on everything. I'm talking touchdowns, TKOs,
RBIs, rebounds, balks, bullseyes, submissions, king me's.
It's all part of the action, baby.
All I needed was for the Knicks to beat the Sixers
by no less than three points, but no more than seven,
for six specific players to get more than 10 rebounds,
for Karl-Anthony Towns to break his ankle,
for the stadium to run out of pretzels in the third quarter,
six total kisses on the kiss cam, and for one of the refs to be Asian.
- What? - That's the thing!
You can bet on everything!
Look, if it had all happened, I would have made 14 million.
- Did you? - No.
And what did not making 14 million cost us?
Can you really put a price on hope?
I can put a price on our mortgage. Was the number close to that?
It was. It was two of that number.
You'll get 'em next time!
Because with GriftKings, anyone can be a winner.
I was a winner.
You see?
I won over 200K on one game.
I mean, it was a glitch and I never got it,
but hey, in the meantime, GriftKings says I can get
15 dollars in non-refundable tokens
as long as I spend 15,000 more dollars in the next 10 business days.
When you're betting on your favorite sports, it just makes it mean more.
Yeah it does! I'm a massive Philadelphia Eagles fan,
so the fact that they won the Super Bowl is huge for me.
Did the wrong player score the touchdowns
and did they not cover the spread?
And was my car repo'd as a result of such actions?
Yes, but, you know, fucking go birds.
When they send me some of these bets,
it's like they know exactly which one I'm gonna take.
We do. We know everything about you.
Your favorite sports, what time you sleep,
when your direct deposit hits.
- Hang on, what? - But don't think about that.
Okay.
I'm a VIP. They roll out the red carpet for me.
That is bad. That is a decidedly bad thing.
They treat me like a winner.
Yeah, only because you lose so much. You're a loser.
Would a loser have been sent this crown?
Yeah. Absolutely, a loser would have that child-size crown.
This is cool. VIP shit. King shit.
Bet everything with GriftKings. Think you'd be able to stop at any time?
We'll take that bet.
I don't know why it's so funny, I'm drowning in debt.
That's our show, thanks so much for watching,
we're off next week, back March 30th. Good night!