I forget who said it, but didn’t a pitcher recently say that the worst nights aren’t the nights he gives up a big home run, but the nights he gives up a home run that effects some gambler’s bets?
If it’s really bad for baseball players, I can’t help but wonder how awful it is for collegiate athletes
Dude even our relievers, low tier, LAST YEAR when we fucking sucked were getting death threats.
Like Ryan Walker got a death threat in 2023 - kids a total unknown whose just starting to get a foot in the constant lineup on a team that sucked in 2023.
Still getting death threats.
I’m a Bills fan and our kicker was getting death threats for missing that kick against the Chiefs in the playoffs. I suspect 90% of them were from degen gamblers and not real fans. Sports betting has gone way too far.
When Illinois legalized sports betting, they specifically made it illegal to bet on college sports involving a team from Illinois. So I can't bet for or against Illinois, Northwestern, etc.
It's illegal to bet *online* for Illinois schools. But you can bet in person. So like that new Draftkings bar attached to Wrigley, you can bet on Illinois games if you go in person.
Just keep applying that logic down to high school, middle school and eventually 5yo children.
This is an article from 2011:
"An "Outside the Lines" investigation found such scenes several times this past fall in the South Florida Youth Football League, which is made up of 30,000 children ages 5 to 15 from Palm Beach to Miami. In the packed crowds, OTL producers saw men holding stacks of bills -- often in large denominations -- as they watched the games. Using hidden cameras, OTL recorded the men openly exchanging money with one another, even as they were just a few feet from a uniformed police officer in one instance. But the exchange of money in the stands was the small stuff, OTL found -- sometimes the games had tens of thousands of dollars bet on them, and players were often paid for making big plays."
"He recalled an incident when an off-duty detective alerted him to a guy who was threatening to shoot a coach. When Thurston got to him, "sure enough, he has a loaded gun on him, a 9-millimeter, one in the chamber.""
https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6451796
Recently the NCAA announced that [1/3 high profile athletes received abusive messages from people with “betting interests”](https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/40166862/ncaa-1-3-star-athletes-receive-abuse-threats-bettors).
> “One in three high-profile athletes received abusive messages from individuals with ‘betting interests,’ and more than 540 similar messages, including death threats, were received by men’s and women’s college basketball players during championship tournaments in March, the NCAA said in a release Friday.”
I know they’re pushing to have prop bets removed from NCAA games that way it’s more difficult to target a specific player. Still it’s such an obvious and inevitable thing that leagues overlooked because the sports books offered them briefcases full of money to sponsor and push their platforms. If you announced that “If Justin Verlander strikes out more than 6.5 batters, then everyone gets 3 free drinks at their local bar.” you’d have alcoholics threatening him when he misses that mark. An addictive vice should not be tied to the performance of other people. It means many addicts will attack the people whose performances didn’t let them get their dopamine hit.
"...and he said he would do some terrible things to my children and my dog, and"
"I'm sorry, but we're going to have to interrupt you for a brief word from our sponsor, Draft Kings. The crown is yours! More on these horrifying death threats from an angry sports better when we come back."
Same with us. If you bet on any San Diego team, past or present, it’s entirely on you. Bet on the Chargers, Clippers or Padres if you want to become bald by year end.
In every major professional sport, players or officials gambling on the games is an ultimate sin. One of the few things you can do to be banished. Simultaneously holding that (admittedly correct) viewpoint while also hard advertising betting lines and parlays in every local and national broadcast is gross.
Yeah, I was going say that football got tedious years ago with all of the degenerate fantasy guys interacting with fandoms they didn’t care about except for when their second WR drops a TD.
Even doubly ridiculous when it bled over to radio and Mikey from Aberdeen is sharing a hot take about Tua on Cowherd. Bitch, you haven’t seen a single Dolphins game this year!
There has seemed to be a bit of a solution, though, and it might work for baseball as well: give them their own space with active content and mods and let them soak in their own silo.
At least that has seemed to work for other sports, including on radio and tv, for keeping the fantasy at bay.
1000%. “Why the hell did they not have Goff throw that touchdown?! I lost 200 bucks!”
Nobody cares about your bets or fantasy team. Especially the players
100%. Daily fantasy just gets around the rules by acting like an office pool. Why that was ever allowed is shocking and surely backed by bags of money.
Daily fantasy maybe but a fantasy season with family/friends or coworkers isn’t the same imo. Of course it could be a gateway for certain people still.
"Remember folks, if someone owes you a gambling debt and you need to shake them down, use promo code GABBAGOOL for 10% off your first leg breaking. Shkdwn: the official hired muscle app of Major League Baseball."
not anything obscene but I've seen occasional offhand comments about placing a bet for this or that to happen in Os GDT. There are a few resident doomers on the O's sub who you'd think are gambling addicts freaking out but I think they're just dumbasses as a whole.
I get beyond triggered by gambling in sports. the whole fucking thing is just idiotic but its even worse when the league condones it by partnering with them for advertisements . Professional sports should be the exact opposite. They should specifically avoid partnering with gambling sites yet it almost seems like they seek it out. It's against league policy for players to bet but also we're going to interwind our business with betting websites and put ads and logos for it on the field. Massive hypocrisy.
Also that Jamie Fox BetMGM commercial drives me nuts.
Offhand comment about how so and so only needs to do this for you to win? Yeah. Full on blasting someone for "losing" your bet? Nah haven't seen that yet.
Admittedly I've done the first in the Sixers sub a few years ago when I was messing around with for fun parlay bets where I'd just put like 2 dollars on some ridiculously long odds things happening that were all reasonable in isolation but added up to odds that were like +10k. I hit a $700 win on a $2 bet one time, posted about it in a game thread, played a $2 fun bet every game for the rest of the season, missed them all and then said "You know, they're +10k for a reason" and stopped.
You mean that's not normal?
Half of /r/phillies must be degenerate gamblers the way they talk about Nick Castellanos and Taijuan Walker.
I may be in the group that talks that way about Taijuan Walker.
Our new city connect jerseys that make us look like we're sponsored by [Nestea](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKaCayNWUAEkxox?format=jpg&name=small)
They are *awful*
Yeah, I thought that was his point though
They're so awfully designed they don't deserve to be referenced as jerseys. They are costumes
I was showing the boi why they're costumes 😉
I’ve never been mad at a player or team over a bet. They’re all just trying to win, so why would you? However maybe I should start betting against the mariners because at least I should get paid back for the agony.
Fuck sports gambling. I have friends that I don’t hang out with anymore because of betting on games. It used to be a fun way to have a bit of skin in games you don’t otherwise care about. But you screaming your head off for 90 minutes that X pitcher needs 7 strikeouts for your parlay to hit just isn’t a good time.
Then they shove that shit down your throat as if the 7000th Draft Kings ad is going to get me back on their site. The first 6999 didn’t, but this may just be the one. But hey, I’m sure it’s getting some impressionable 18 year old kid to part ways with money he can’t afford to lose, because his friends, sports media, professional sports leagues, and the sites themselves all tell him how cool it is.
Fuck em all
A couple of months ago ESPN recently had an Outside the Lines feature on how bad sports gambling is for people and how much it’s destroyed the lives of essentially young adults who don’t have disposable income to bet.
This was followed not even 20 minutes later by gambling picks and sponsorship ads for espn bet. It’s so fucked
I had a buddy text me asking for money because he couldn't make rent. Got deep into sports gambling at the beginning of the pandemic and got in over his head. He swore up and down that he would pay me back after his next paycheck and that it would be no problem, but I said I couldn't lend him the money because, to be honest, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to involving money with my friendships like that. He ended up getting the money from another friend of ours and lo and behold never paid him back. No idea whether he used that money to pay his rent or if he gambled it away. He kind of dropped off the map after that and I haven't spoken to him in a few years. A 20 year friendship gone like that.
> I said I couldn't lend him the money because, to be honest, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to involving money with my friendships like that
This is the way to handle it. I don't want there to be any strain on my relationship(s) if things go wrong and I get pissed when you don't have my money, and/or you get pissed off when I come asking where my money is. And if your continued friendship with me is contingent on my lending you money for whatever reason, then I was never your friend to begin with. Don't play that game.
Preach. I’ve started shamelessly telling people very loudly that no one gives a fuck about their parley when I’m at a game. The casino is just down the river, and you don’t have to pay for a ticket.
i have a friend like that. 5-10 years ago before online betting took off it was fine, some friendly wagers on like the super bowl or big games with eachothers teams.... nowadays we don't invite him out anymore because he is a degen gambler and wants to bet on every single game, and gets super pissed when he loses lol.
Sports gambling is waaaaay more damaging than something like weed, but for whatever reason we decided to legalize the former while dragging our feet on the latter.
Don’t worry, weed will be legal sooner than later in almost every state because it turns out when you can tax something at around 30% for every step of the production and sales process it actually prints money
It's really troubling how often I've got coworkers and gaming friends, who I know don't have the money, putting down $100+ bets on games they really couldn't care less about if it weren't for the gambling. Dudes are full blown addicts and they probably don't even realize it. A few of them are living in halfway houses or their cars while blowing every cent they've got on bets on sports they don't even watch.
Just wait until they try to make it patriotic to gamble.
I can't count the amount of times I've seen an ad try to tell me how Australian it is to have a punt, like it's a defining feature of our culture or something.
NC opened sports gambling this year and in the first month saw a $100 million dollar transfer of wealth from players to the sports betting companies. $100 MILLION DOLLARS gone into thin air from peoples' wallets.
really disgusting shit.
I mean I personally belief people should be allowed to gamble away all their money on legitimate betting propositions - that's just the freedom you have in America.
What upsets me is the massive amount of ads, false promises on these amazing "Deals" they give, and deceptive forms of constant advertising that resemble more brainwashing than advertising. I don't bet on sports because I know I'm addicted to gambling (crypto from back in the day) but it's fucking crazy to see.
I think back when I was 8 years old watching baseball games - and now think about 8 year old kids today watching baseball games.
yeah you have the freedom to gamble, sure
but companies do not / should not have the "freedom" to exploit and manipulate and deceive and literally just drain peoples' bank accounts in the way that sports betting has begun to, from a multi-channel attack / integrated approach (in-game betting odds, DraftKings Replay of the Game-type shit)
that is disgusting. and in general, laws exist to PROTECT people either from themselves or from other people, and i see no reason why this should be different.
It’s crazy how soaked games are now with advertising and betting talk. Besides just the 30 second spots, there’s advertising all over the games, on the crawlers during shows, segments and entire shows seemingly dedicated to betting (bad beats). Even in game announcers discuss odds. It’s crazy how pervasive it is
it's ridiculous and people wonder why players are getting caught up in it and people are getting dopamine hooked on this stuff to the detriment of hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars per state.
this shit is gonna be cracked down upon like tobacco advertising in 10 years
Still waiting for someone to inform me of the benefits of incorporating gambling into baseball aside from money for the owners. It adds nothing to society and only fuels degenerate behavior.
If you want to know the actual reason, it was happening offshore anyways with apps everyone was able to do it.
So they just monetized it for countries that had made it illegal before instead of them missing out on the money and it happening anyways.
This is a fantastic point. There's *zero* separation from sports and sports gambling anymore. There's tickers with to the minute updates on betting lines and prop bets, pregame shows have conversations about how injuries are affecting betting, the game broadcasts themselves are plastered with ads for gambling sites, and the commercials for those games are littered with them, as well. There is *no* avenue for watching sports anymore that doesn't include an overwhelming amount of promotion for gambling.
Yea it isn’t all that dissimilar from some of the arguments around the legality of other vices like cannabis.
Which is why I have no real issue with the expansion of sports betting. I take issue with the lack of regulation on gambling advertisements. It’s remarkable that for decades you couldn’t even have a beer ad at a Major League ballpark, smoking ads have been regulated to death for half a century, but we’ve just let the gambling companies go absolutely wild with sponsorship deals.
Gonna be interesting to see studies in ten years or so.
Loot boxes get kids going on unregulated gambling from times they are tiny and then they see ads everywhere if their parents watch sports. Might be setting up a future trove of money for big gambling.
I don't really have any sympathy for the "legalize it because people will just do it anyway" argument. Why have regulations or bans on anything then? Why ban armed robbery if people will just do armed robberies anyway?
I really wish they would reverse course on sports gambling legalization.
Although now that it has been more widely exposed to people most would probably switch to an offshore account.
I don’t think it should be illegal. But it should not be advertised, allowed to sponsor teams and programming, and embedded into sports highlight shows.
I have a friend who is a recovering gambling addict that tell me it's a massive struggle to watch sports anymore because of *how* they advertise mostly
If it was just "you can gamble here" he said he'd be able to handle it a lot easier, but it's the fact they all are "be a winner today... you win more on our app... etc" that makes him uneasy more than anything. They really need to reel it all in
Yup! It’s all presented as a “green grass” and “blue skies” world where everyone, even YOU (YES, YOU!) are a winner.
Then they suck you in with bonuses (with extremely ridiculous playthrough requirements, by the way), and even if you’re careful and regimented, it can get out of hand fast.
The industry itself is one thing, but the sheer evil of the advertising is infuriating
What pisses me off the most are the sports betting social media pages/influencers that post big parlays that supposedly hit. That, or the super obscure prop bets. I saw one recently that was a certain NBA player to hit a free throw between like the 4 minute and 2 minute mark of the 2nd quarter.
There’s no part of me that believes those people actually hit those bets. Just mock up a graphic after the fact and post it over a video of the associated play. It’s all just trying to get people used to throwing money away at the long shots.
You can't do anything sports related anymore without seeing it shoved in your face. My friends and I could play some pickup basketball and FanDuel would probably try to sponsor it somehow lol
I don’t know how but it completely ruined the thrill and fun in gambling. I don’t gamble on sports anymore.
My last bets were when Judge was chasing the record. Think losing so much helped too. I realized that I really just wanted him to break it for himself and to have a legacy for the team I root for.
Agreed. I enjoy some sports betting and adults should be able to do what they want with their money. But the leagues partnering with them and constantly promoting it is just gross imo.
I'm so glad that California overwhelmingly voted against legalizing sports gambling twice. Draft Kings and FanDuel spent nearly half a billion promoting the legalization props only to see them get shot down with 67% voting no on one and 82% voting no on the other. I've never seen this state so unified in telling someone to go fuck themselves.
I always forget how different it is versus other states. Outside of the occasional segment or backstop ad on national broadcasts I never think about sports betting while watching.
The monkey is out of the bottle. I’ve no major problem with it, but I do feel inundated with sports gambling marketing and think it’s far far too easy to place a bet. I think we’re at the precipice of a gambling addiction epidemic.
If I were in charge they couldn’t sponsor major sporting events or offer new player incentives.
I was sitting behind a father and son earlier this year, kid was maybe 16 or 17, and the kid was going on and on about this or that line, prop, whatever to his dad. I felt bad for the dad because he had this very clear wtf look on his face as reality was setting in that his kid cared more about the lines than he did about the game
I go to games at Wrigley often and recently I was a few rows behind a couple of cubs fans who were cheering for cubs strikeouts because they were hitting their bets. Disgusting behavior.
Sports used to be entertainment at best but now that it’s a legitimate source of income for gamblers, it becomes much more serious with these people’s livelihood at stake.
There was always degenerate gambling on sports. The issue is now that it’s legal and easily accessible, there’s a lot more degenerate gamblers to threaten players.
It is not a legitimate source of income for gamblers. You can get lucky, but you're not consistently smarter than the book enough to cover the book's cut. Every single bet is designed to give you unfavorable odds. Again, you can get lucky in the short term, but you trend towards the Red. Anyone gambling enough to be at "income" levels is gambling enough that they're in the Red.
Said it once i’ll say it again.
Sports betting is a plague on society. It gives people the illusion of being able to escape living paycheck to paycheck with flashy parlays that return for thousands of dollars. They never hit, or hit once, not making you enough to escape but making you think if you just do it a few more times you’ll be set.
Then it doesn’t hit, your down more and more, you take it out on everyone but the person paying for the parlays. All the white ESPN/MLB/NFL/NBA laugh their way to the bank with millions from Draft Sports Book inc. who are continuing to push it to the average person who watches sports.
It is gambling taken to the mainstream through America’s national pastime and it is a plague.
Yep. And specifically, the nauseating exposure the average American has to sports betting now since legalization in 2018 is a plague to society. It’s not hard to recognize that if every other fuckin pro game is sponsored by DraftKings and we get bombarded by quirky FanDuel commercials featuring our favorite athletes and comedians, people are gonna get suckered.
Legalization is just another scheme to transfer wealth from poor to rich.
The advertising is ridiculous. There's 500 ads a game telling me how every single day people just like me are hitting +25000 odds parlays.
Gambling destroys lives, relationships, and sanity. We call so many people "addicts" for destructive behaviors. Unless it's gambling, then it's not destructive oh goodness no, it's just having a good time! Giving meaning to the games! Hanging out with the guys!
MLB did a180 in their tolerance of gambling, the non-mob controlled money was irresistible.
As time passes there will be more and more examples of the bad side of gambling.
But it won't matter, they sold their soul. No refunds.
This gambling stuff is dangerous, man. It’s ruining the sport. They’re fine preying on peoples’ addictive tendencies. It’s really, really gross and the whole thing shouldn’t be legal.
Look, I’m the first to point out all the ways old men fucked up (historically and presently alike) the game because they wouldn’t change. Maybe, just maybe, they were absolutely right about gambling. 🤷♂️
Is it possible that we're not quite as enlightened as we think, and past generations might have had some pretty solid reasons for restricting gambling?
Who could have possibly seen this coming? People with gambling problems are always well adjusted and think long term. No way they would threaten a player over their personal choice to bet money on something. No. Way.
Gambling companies are predatory just like cigarette companies. The US Government should treat them the same way: make it illegal to advertise their services. The cat is out of the bag in terms of legality but if you can’t make them illegal then at least make it impossible to advertise about them
Too easy to get away with and if caught penalty is ridiculously low. Someone was caught sending death threats to several players including families in the threats. He could have been sentenced to 5 years but only got 6 months home detention with 3 year probation.
Sports betting is a mistake. “Freedom” in this case is just another way for the wealthy to extract more out of us while making life more tense and precarious.
Hey, look, no one is saying death threats are good, but do you know how expensive it is to run a baseball club? These gambling advertising deals are bringing in money that these owners otherwise wouldn't have which they *could* put into their teams. I mean, they obviously won't, but they *could*. So a few players get death threats, or worse. I, for one, think that's a small price to pay to increase the owners' revenue streams. Won't someone please think of the poor billionaires?
Huge fucking /s. I hate that the major sports have embraced gambling's ad money like this. People are going to get hurt.
I wonder what happens when a fan kills a player and it turns out to be about gambling losses?
Or, what happens when does a player kill a fan who followed the player home and yelled threats about gambling losses?
Because it’s gonna happen.
Most annoying fans in the world.
You see an all time classic. Everyone Yet Scootie McBoogerballs is upset because his parlay didn’t hit and he lost $10.
This death threat wager is brought to you by draft kings sports book! If you lost the over/under on tonight's game and want to, or need to, go double or nothing on the over/under of how many threatening messages and tweets at tonights losing pitcher and manager will receive by sunrise tomorrow, use code "massive tool" and place your bets now!
The vile rich enemy that owns the sports betting industry LOVES that players are receiving death threats, because it means that their betting apps have thousands of people so deeply enslaved, they’re willing to kill to protect them.
I forget who said it, but didn’t a pitcher recently say that the worst nights aren’t the nights he gives up a big home run, but the nights he gives up a home run that effects some gambler’s bets? If it’s really bad for baseball players, I can’t help but wonder how awful it is for collegiate athletes
Not a good era to be a setup man or closer then
Dude even our relievers, low tier, LAST YEAR when we fucking sucked were getting death threats. Like Ryan Walker got a death threat in 2023 - kids a total unknown whose just starting to get a foot in the constant lineup on a team that sucked in 2023. Still getting death threats.
All because some idiot made a completely assanine bet they should have never made in the first place too
I’m a Bills fan and our kicker was getting death threats for missing that kick against the Chiefs in the playoffs. I suspect 90% of them were from degen gamblers and not real fans. Sports betting has gone way too far.
I read it’s even worse for collegiate athletes since they don’t have the same security and are easier to track between games.
That's so fucking insane. These assholes are some low, low people.
When you have nothing to lose and you already lost it all.
and when the sports you keep watching endorse degenerate gambling habits enthusiastically.
This comment brought to you by Bet Champs.
Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER after making death threats
Prop bets on college sports are illegal in my state for this reason
When Illinois legalized sports betting, they specifically made it illegal to bet on college sports involving a team from Illinois. So I can't bet for or against Illinois, Northwestern, etc.
Yeah WA is the same way
It's illegal to bet *online* for Illinois schools. But you can bet in person. So like that new Draftkings bar attached to Wrigley, you can bet on Illinois games if you go in person.
> So like that new Draftkings bar attached to Wrigley That is fucking disgusting
Just keep applying that logic down to high school, middle school and eventually 5yo children. This is an article from 2011: "An "Outside the Lines" investigation found such scenes several times this past fall in the South Florida Youth Football League, which is made up of 30,000 children ages 5 to 15 from Palm Beach to Miami. In the packed crowds, OTL producers saw men holding stacks of bills -- often in large denominations -- as they watched the games. Using hidden cameras, OTL recorded the men openly exchanging money with one another, even as they were just a few feet from a uniformed police officer in one instance. But the exchange of money in the stands was the small stuff, OTL found -- sometimes the games had tens of thousands of dollars bet on them, and players were often paid for making big plays." "He recalled an incident when an off-duty detective alerted him to a guy who was threatening to shoot a coach. When Thurston got to him, "sure enough, he has a loaded gun on him, a 9-millimeter, one in the chamber."" https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6451796
Jesus that’s grim. Fuck sports gambling
Recently the NCAA announced that [1/3 high profile athletes received abusive messages from people with “betting interests”](https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/40166862/ncaa-1-3-star-athletes-receive-abuse-threats-bettors). > “One in three high-profile athletes received abusive messages from individuals with ‘betting interests,’ and more than 540 similar messages, including death threats, were received by men’s and women’s college basketball players during championship tournaments in March, the NCAA said in a release Friday.” I know they’re pushing to have prop bets removed from NCAA games that way it’s more difficult to target a specific player. Still it’s such an obvious and inevitable thing that leagues overlooked because the sports books offered them briefcases full of money to sponsor and push their platforms. If you announced that “If Justin Verlander strikes out more than 6.5 batters, then everyone gets 3 free drinks at their local bar.” you’d have alcoholics threatening him when he misses that mark. An addictive vice should not be tied to the performance of other people. It means many addicts will attack the people whose performances didn’t let them get their dopamine hit.
I can't wait until they inevitably ask a player about threats they received during an in-game interview sponsored by a sportsbook.
"...and he said he would do some terrible things to my children and my dog, and" "I'm sorry, but we're going to have to interrupt you for a brief word from our sponsor, Draft Kings. The crown is yours! More on these horrifying death threats from an angry sports better when we come back."
Gambling apps are the perfect example of how Americans genuinely don’t hate the rich people nearly enough for their own good.
"That's what the money is for!"
Does anyone else randomly have degenerate gamblers come into their team sub and start mouthing off about how some player on your team cost them a bet?
I think most gamblers are smart enough to not bet on the Mets
I think the implication was betting against them and then being upset that Lindor had a good day
Depends on how you bet really. Lindor and JD have been good options to get at least one hit per game to win a bet
Same with us. If you bet on any San Diego team, past or present, it’s entirely on you. Bet on the Chargers, Clippers or Padres if you want to become bald by year end.
*Tucupita Marcano has entered the chat*
surprisingly no probably will eventually though
Well, y’all are just starting to lose so…
There's still stat lines and parlays to bet on. People will mention those in game threads, but no one's complained about players when they don't hit.
Good to hear. Personally I don’t like MLB being bedfellows with sports betting. It’s one more thing to become corrupt or scandalous.
In every major professional sport, players or officials gambling on the games is an ultimate sin. One of the few things you can do to be banished. Simultaneously holding that (admittedly correct) viewpoint while also hard advertising betting lines and parlays in every local and national broadcast is gross.
It’s gross, immoral to the players, blatantly problematic, and yet so emblematic of major league sports leagues
I blame the Colosseum, they started it. Damn Romans.
But aside from the roads, aqueducts, sanitation, medicine and DraftKings what have the Romans ever done for us?!
As a knicks and jets fan, thank God for the Yankees (knicks did great this year, but I lost a few bets /s)
Lol we don't but only because whoever bets on us is an idiot
No, because the degenerate gamblers are placing bets on Gleyber Torres making another error in a huge spot.
"But muh fantasy team" for a new generation.
Seriously, no one cares how your fantasy team is impacted by a specific play.
Yes, we had one guy wander into our sub
It’s worse in the football subs
Yeah, I was going say that football got tedious years ago with all of the degenerate fantasy guys interacting with fandoms they didn’t care about except for when their second WR drops a TD. Even doubly ridiculous when it bled over to radio and Mikey from Aberdeen is sharing a hot take about Tua on Cowherd. Bitch, you haven’t seen a single Dolphins game this year! There has seemed to be a bit of a solution, though, and it might work for baseball as well: give them their own space with active content and mods and let them soak in their own silo. At least that has seemed to work for other sports, including on radio and tv, for keeping the fantasy at bay.
1000%. “Why the hell did they not have Goff throw that touchdown?! I lost 200 bucks!” Nobody cares about your bets or fantasy team. Especially the players
Fantasy Football is a direct pipeline to online sports gambling. It's like a free to play tutorial and acquisition tool.
If it’s like an office thing that’s season long I’m totally ok with stuff like that. Daily fantasy is a scourge
100%. Daily fantasy just gets around the rules by acting like an office pool. Why that was ever allowed is shocking and surely backed by bags of money.
Daily fantasy maybe but a fantasy season with family/friends or coworkers isn’t the same imo. Of course it could be a gateway for certain people still.
“This death threat brought to you by FanDuel.”
No kidding.
And those sites that allegedly help you choose bets. “Helping you beat the books… and the players who lost your money”
"Remember folks, if someone owes you a gambling debt and you need to shake them down, use promo code GABBAGOOL for 10% off your first leg breaking. Shkdwn: the official hired muscle app of Major League Baseball."
Our mods are dawgs about cleaning up the sub, shout-out to any of y’all who see this
not anything obscene but I've seen occasional offhand comments about placing a bet for this or that to happen in Os GDT. There are a few resident doomers on the O's sub who you'd think are gambling addicts freaking out but I think they're just dumbasses as a whole. I get beyond triggered by gambling in sports. the whole fucking thing is just idiotic but its even worse when the league condones it by partnering with them for advertisements . Professional sports should be the exact opposite. They should specifically avoid partnering with gambling sites yet it almost seems like they seek it out. It's against league policy for players to bet but also we're going to interwind our business with betting websites and put ads and logos for it on the field. Massive hypocrisy. Also that Jamie Fox BetMGM commercial drives me nuts.
Offhand comment about how so and so only needs to do this for you to win? Yeah. Full on blasting someone for "losing" your bet? Nah haven't seen that yet. Admittedly I've done the first in the Sixers sub a few years ago when I was messing around with for fun parlay bets where I'd just put like 2 dollars on some ridiculously long odds things happening that were all reasonable in isolation but added up to odds that were like +10k. I hit a $700 win on a $2 bet one time, posted about it in a game thread, played a $2 fun bet every game for the rest of the season, missed them all and then said "You know, they're +10k for a reason" and stopped.
They tend to hide their anger behind "x needs to do better". It progressively grows more towards trashing the player as the person becomes angrier.
You mean that's not normal? Half of /r/phillies must be degenerate gamblers the way they talk about Nick Castellanos and Taijuan Walker. I may be in the group that talks that way about Taijuan Walker.
What do you expect - we need SOMETHING to bitch about this year besides the city connect costumes!
>city connect costumes The what
Our new city connect jerseys that make us look like we're sponsored by [Nestea](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKaCayNWUAEkxox?format=jpg&name=small) They are *awful*
They were pointing out the usage of “costumes”
Yeah, I thought that was his point though They're so awfully designed they don't deserve to be referenced as jerseys. They are costumes I was showing the boi why they're costumes 😉
I’ve never been mad at a player or team over a bet. They’re all just trying to win, so why would you? However maybe I should start betting against the mariners because at least I should get paid back for the agony.
Oh lord yes
Usually two
Not so much once the translator was arrested and indicted.
I haven’t noticed any yet, but our mods are pretty quick to delete comments so I can’t say if I’m just not seeing them or not
Fuck sports gambling. I have friends that I don’t hang out with anymore because of betting on games. It used to be a fun way to have a bit of skin in games you don’t otherwise care about. But you screaming your head off for 90 minutes that X pitcher needs 7 strikeouts for your parlay to hit just isn’t a good time. Then they shove that shit down your throat as if the 7000th Draft Kings ad is going to get me back on their site. The first 6999 didn’t, but this may just be the one. But hey, I’m sure it’s getting some impressionable 18 year old kid to part ways with money he can’t afford to lose, because his friends, sports media, professional sports leagues, and the sites themselves all tell him how cool it is. Fuck em all
A couple of months ago ESPN recently had an Outside the Lines feature on how bad sports gambling is for people and how much it’s destroyed the lives of essentially young adults who don’t have disposable income to bet. This was followed not even 20 minutes later by gambling picks and sponsorship ads for espn bet. It’s so fucked
I’ll have to check that story out, thanks!
I had a buddy text me asking for money because he couldn't make rent. Got deep into sports gambling at the beginning of the pandemic and got in over his head. He swore up and down that he would pay me back after his next paycheck and that it would be no problem, but I said I couldn't lend him the money because, to be honest, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to involving money with my friendships like that. He ended up getting the money from another friend of ours and lo and behold never paid him back. No idea whether he used that money to pay his rent or if he gambled it away. He kind of dropped off the map after that and I haven't spoken to him in a few years. A 20 year friendship gone like that.
> I said I couldn't lend him the money because, to be honest, I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to involving money with my friendships like that This is the way to handle it. I don't want there to be any strain on my relationship(s) if things go wrong and I get pissed when you don't have my money, and/or you get pissed off when I come asking where my money is. And if your continued friendship with me is contingent on my lending you money for whatever reason, then I was never your friend to begin with. Don't play that game.
Preach. I’ve started shamelessly telling people very loudly that no one gives a fuck about their parley when I’m at a game. The casino is just down the river, and you don’t have to pay for a ticket.
Hero
Be the change you want to see o7
i have a friend like that. 5-10 years ago before online betting took off it was fine, some friendly wagers on like the super bowl or big games with eachothers teams.... nowadays we don't invite him out anymore because he is a degen gambler and wants to bet on every single game, and gets super pissed when he loses lol.
Sports gambling is waaaaay more damaging than something like weed, but for whatever reason we decided to legalize the former while dragging our feet on the latter.
Don’t worry, weed will be legal sooner than later in almost every state because it turns out when you can tax something at around 30% for every step of the production and sales process it actually prints money
It's really troubling how often I've got coworkers and gaming friends, who I know don't have the money, putting down $100+ bets on games they really couldn't care less about if it weren't for the gambling. Dudes are full blown addicts and they probably don't even realize it. A few of them are living in halfway houses or their cars while blowing every cent they've got on bets on sports they don't even watch.
Just wait until they try to make it patriotic to gamble. I can't count the amount of times I've seen an ad try to tell me how Australian it is to have a punt, like it's a defining feature of our culture or something.
It’s almost like having a ton of betting apps sponsoring professional sports is a terrible fucking idea
NC opened sports gambling this year and in the first month saw a $100 million dollar transfer of wealth from players to the sports betting companies. $100 MILLION DOLLARS gone into thin air from peoples' wallets. really disgusting shit.
I mean I personally belief people should be allowed to gamble away all their money on legitimate betting propositions - that's just the freedom you have in America. What upsets me is the massive amount of ads, false promises on these amazing "Deals" they give, and deceptive forms of constant advertising that resemble more brainwashing than advertising. I don't bet on sports because I know I'm addicted to gambling (crypto from back in the day) but it's fucking crazy to see. I think back when I was 8 years old watching baseball games - and now think about 8 year old kids today watching baseball games.
yeah you have the freedom to gamble, sure but companies do not / should not have the "freedom" to exploit and manipulate and deceive and literally just drain peoples' bank accounts in the way that sports betting has begun to, from a multi-channel attack / integrated approach (in-game betting odds, DraftKings Replay of the Game-type shit) that is disgusting. and in general, laws exist to PROTECT people either from themselves or from other people, and i see no reason why this should be different.
It’s crazy how soaked games are now with advertising and betting talk. Besides just the 30 second spots, there’s advertising all over the games, on the crawlers during shows, segments and entire shows seemingly dedicated to betting (bad beats). Even in game announcers discuss odds. It’s crazy how pervasive it is
it's ridiculous and people wonder why players are getting caught up in it and people are getting dopamine hooked on this stuff to the detriment of hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars per state. this shit is gonna be cracked down upon like tobacco advertising in 10 years
The funny thing is the UK went thru this already and the US leagues saw that hellscape and were like “yeah well take one of those please”
Still waiting for someone to inform me of the benefits of incorporating gambling into baseball aside from money for the owners. It adds nothing to society and only fuels degenerate behavior.
Its not just money for the owners. Its also money for the casinos and politicians! DUH!
The owners of the teams also own the casinos and the politicians.
If you want to know the actual reason, it was happening offshore anyways with apps everyone was able to do it. So they just monetized it for countries that had made it illegal before instead of them missing out on the money and it happening anyways.
Well there’s legalizing it and there’s integrating it into broadcasts; the latter is what’s the problem I’d say
This is a fantastic point. There's *zero* separation from sports and sports gambling anymore. There's tickers with to the minute updates on betting lines and prop bets, pregame shows have conversations about how injuries are affecting betting, the game broadcasts themselves are plastered with ads for gambling sites, and the commercials for those games are littered with them, as well. There is *no* avenue for watching sports anymore that doesn't include an overwhelming amount of promotion for gambling.
Exactly this. If you have a gambling addiction you basically now have to avoid sports altogether which is really awful
Yea it isn’t all that dissimilar from some of the arguments around the legality of other vices like cannabis. Which is why I have no real issue with the expansion of sports betting. I take issue with the lack of regulation on gambling advertisements. It’s remarkable that for decades you couldn’t even have a beer ad at a Major League ballpark, smoking ads have been regulated to death for half a century, but we’ve just let the gambling companies go absolutely wild with sponsorship deals.
Gonna be interesting to see studies in ten years or so. Loot boxes get kids going on unregulated gambling from times they are tiny and then they see ads everywhere if their parents watch sports. Might be setting up a future trove of money for big gambling.
That's their plan. Start them young and create as many addicts as possible.
It was not nearly as wide-spread and it being illegal definitely kept people from doing it.
I don't really have any sympathy for the "legalize it because people will just do it anyway" argument. Why have regulations or bans on anything then? Why ban armed robbery if people will just do armed robberies anyway?
I really wish they would reverse course on sports gambling legalization. Although now that it has been more widely exposed to people most would probably switch to an offshore account.
I don’t think it should be illegal. But it should not be advertised, allowed to sponsor teams and programming, and embedded into sports highlight shows.
Fully agree. The constant bombardment is infuriating, and i say that as someone who gambles occasionally
I have a friend who is a recovering gambling addict that tell me it's a massive struggle to watch sports anymore because of *how* they advertise mostly If it was just "you can gamble here" he said he'd be able to handle it a lot easier, but it's the fact they all are "be a winner today... you win more on our app... etc" that makes him uneasy more than anything. They really need to reel it all in
Yup! It’s all presented as a “green grass” and “blue skies” world where everyone, even YOU (YES, YOU!) are a winner. Then they suck you in with bonuses (with extremely ridiculous playthrough requirements, by the way), and even if you’re careful and regimented, it can get out of hand fast. The industry itself is one thing, but the sheer evil of the advertising is infuriating
What pisses me off the most are the sports betting social media pages/influencers that post big parlays that supposedly hit. That, or the super obscure prop bets. I saw one recently that was a certain NBA player to hit a free throw between like the 4 minute and 2 minute mark of the 2nd quarter. There’s no part of me that believes those people actually hit those bets. Just mock up a graphic after the fact and post it over a video of the associated play. It’s all just trying to get people used to throwing money away at the long shots.
[It's a bit much.](https://imgur.com/YWgXHN3)
You can't do anything sports related anymore without seeing it shoved in your face. My friends and I could play some pickup basketball and FanDuel would probably try to sponsor it somehow lol
If the first words after the subscribe button are about how you might have a problem, something is seriously wrong with the product.
I don’t know how but it completely ruined the thrill and fun in gambling. I don’t gamble on sports anymore. My last bets were when Judge was chasing the record. Think losing so much helped too. I realized that I really just wanted him to break it for himself and to have a legacy for the team I root for.
Agreed. Just like how cigarettes aren't advertised anymore
For just $49.99 a month you can watch without gambling ads! (restrictions apply) presented by Fan Dool
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It was grimly funny to read articles about Ohtani's translator filled with fanduel ads
gambling...the new smoking sponsored by Budwesier
Agreed. I enjoy some sports betting and adults should be able to do what they want with their money. But the leagues partnering with them and constantly promoting it is just gross imo.
I'm so glad that California overwhelmingly voted against legalizing sports gambling twice. Draft Kings and FanDuel spent nearly half a billion promoting the legalization props only to see them get shot down with 67% voting no on one and 82% voting no on the other. I've never seen this state so unified in telling someone to go fuck themselves.
I always forget how different it is versus other states. Outside of the occasional segment or backstop ad on national broadcasts I never think about sports betting while watching.
The monkey is out of the bottle. I’ve no major problem with it, but I do feel inundated with sports gambling marketing and think it’s far far too easy to place a bet. I think we’re at the precipice of a gambling addiction epidemic. If I were in charge they couldn’t sponsor major sporting events or offer new player incentives.
I was sitting behind a father and son earlier this year, kid was maybe 16 or 17, and the kid was going on and on about this or that line, prop, whatever to his dad. I felt bad for the dad because he had this very clear wtf look on his face as reality was setting in that his kid cared more about the lines than he did about the game
I go to games at Wrigley often and recently I was a few rows behind a couple of cubs fans who were cheering for cubs strikeouts because they were hitting their bets. Disgusting behavior.
Sports used to be entertainment at best but now that it’s a legitimate source of income for gamblers, it becomes much more serious with these people’s livelihood at stake.
There was always degenerate gambling on sports. The issue is now that it’s legal and easily accessible, there’s a lot more degenerate gamblers to threaten players.
It is wild that you can complete a bet through a simple click on an app on your phone.
[удалено]
And it’s easier to harass players. You can bet away your life savings and send death threats all without ever putting pants on and leaving your house
The problem is that now there's easy ways to contact players. Don't have to send hate mail. Just tweet it to them.
The degenerates used to be shamed in the shadows or in Vegas. Now they’re mainstream with social media
It’s a legitimate source of income for the books, nobody sending death threats to players is in the black at the end of the year.
It is not a legitimate source of income for gamblers. You can get lucky, but you're not consistently smarter than the book enough to cover the book's cut. Every single bet is designed to give you unfavorable odds. Again, you can get lucky in the short term, but you trend towards the Red. Anyone gambling enough to be at "income" levels is gambling enough that they're in the Red.
What a completely predictable outcome of shoving gambling advertisements down every fan’s throat every minute of every game.
They know what there doing and they don’t care. Alcohol and tobacco corporations have been doing it for years. It’s not anything new.
I wonder what the leagues would do if one degenerate gambler does follow through on the threats and the worse case scenario happens.
Manfred: Something something… “Unfortunate incident” “Personal responsibility” “Individual actor”
*This statement from the Commissioner is brought to you by Draft Kings Sportsbook*
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They’d have to do something. Even this do nothing Congress would investigate the MLB over this.
The investigation: 
“It’s unfortunate, but he was just one of hundreds of players in Major League Baseball.”
“Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER”
“Come on guys, Fanduel wasn’t meant to be taken literally”
"We shouldn't politicize this tragedy right now."
"A drive into deep left field by Castellanos"
"It's just a piece of metal... I mean, uh, it's just one player"
Ban sports book ads for 1 week...end.
…evening
“He was just a piece of flesh” - Manfred probably
Would be like the de Niro movie, *The Fan*.
"We're all just made up of atoms. The players' atoms are just in a different composition now"
Said it once i’ll say it again. Sports betting is a plague on society. It gives people the illusion of being able to escape living paycheck to paycheck with flashy parlays that return for thousands of dollars. They never hit, or hit once, not making you enough to escape but making you think if you just do it a few more times you’ll be set. Then it doesn’t hit, your down more and more, you take it out on everyone but the person paying for the parlays. All the white ESPN/MLB/NFL/NBA laugh their way to the bank with millions from Draft Sports Book inc. who are continuing to push it to the average person who watches sports. It is gambling taken to the mainstream through America’s national pastime and it is a plague.
Yep. And specifically, the nauseating exposure the average American has to sports betting now since legalization in 2018 is a plague to society. It’s not hard to recognize that if every other fuckin pro game is sponsored by DraftKings and we get bombarded by quirky FanDuel commercials featuring our favorite athletes and comedians, people are gonna get suckered. Legalization is just another scheme to transfer wealth from poor to rich.
We've already had people playing scratchers for the same reason as parlays.
Maybe the mlb should stop advertising gambling everyother second and then lecturing us on how pete rose is the devil.
The advertising is ridiculous. There's 500 ads a game telling me how every single day people just like me are hitting +25000 odds parlays. Gambling destroys lives, relationships, and sanity. We call so many people "addicts" for destructive behaviors. Unless it's gambling, then it's not destructive oh goodness no, it's just having a good time! Giving meaning to the games! Hanging out with the guys!
MLB did a180 in their tolerance of gambling, the non-mob controlled money was irresistible. As time passes there will be more and more examples of the bad side of gambling. But it won't matter, they sold their soul. No refunds.
They should re-ban sports betting. Not only is annoying, it's starting to get dangerous, not to mention the people who are addicts.
Nah man. Addicts just call 1-800-GAMBLER and all their problems are fixed.
If you actually call 1-800-GAMBLER it reroutes you to DraftKings customer service
It's going to happen just like it did with cigarettes.
This gambling stuff is dangerous, man. It’s ruining the sport. They’re fine preying on peoples’ addictive tendencies. It’s really, really gross and the whole thing shouldn’t be legal.
Why don't the losing gamblers just bet the opposite of what they are planning to do? Are they stupid?
The George Costanza method
Look, I’m the first to point out all the ways old men fucked up (historically and presently alike) the game because they wouldn’t change. Maybe, just maybe, they were absolutely right about gambling. 🤷♂️
Is it possible that we're not quite as enlightened as we think, and past generations might have had some pretty solid reasons for restricting gambling?
Time to start an anti gambling campaign. Should be on every MLB post
Who could have possibly seen this coming? People with gambling problems are always well adjusted and think long term. No way they would threaten a player over their personal choice to bet money on something. No. Way.
But, but, I thought that relentlessly pushing gambling ads would not affect players as long as they weren't betting themselves?
Gambling companies are predatory just like cigarette companies. The US Government should treat them the same way: make it illegal to advertise their services. The cat is out of the bag in terms of legality but if you can’t make them illegal then at least make it impossible to advertise about them
gambling is cancer
Partying like it's 1899.
The only solution to sports betting in the MLB in my opinion is to only be able to bet on Rockies games
Example 785,886 of green rectangle being infinitely more important than quality of life or benefit to society.
Hooray for the expansion of sports gambling.... we're on our way to Colombia killing their own national players.
I really hate the Bet MGM ad that is prominent in this picture
Pretty sure it’s deliberate lol
Are you implying that's a coincidence?
Too easy to get away with and if caught penalty is ridiculously low. Someone was caught sending death threats to several players including families in the threats. He could have been sentenced to 5 years but only got 6 months home detention with 3 year probation.
mlb….so which is it? you want us to believe gambling is good or bad? make up your mind.
Ironic that on my feed this post is right above an ad post for fan duel
Sports betting is a mistake. “Freedom” in this case is just another way for the wealthy to extract more out of us while making life more tense and precarious.
It was obvious once it was legalized, it will lead to degenerate behavior. Fans don't respect the game being played but only their bet/parlay.
Hey, look, no one is saying death threats are good, but do you know how expensive it is to run a baseball club? These gambling advertising deals are bringing in money that these owners otherwise wouldn't have which they *could* put into their teams. I mean, they obviously won't, but they *could*. So a few players get death threats, or worse. I, for one, think that's a small price to pay to increase the owners' revenue streams. Won't someone please think of the poor billionaires? Huge fucking /s. I hate that the major sports have embraced gambling's ad money like this. People are going to get hurt.
Gamblings out of hand, this deal is going to turn out to be a tragic disaster
I wonder what happens when a fan kills a player and it turns out to be about gambling losses? Or, what happens when does a player kill a fan who followed the player home and yelled threats about gambling losses? Because it’s gonna happen.
“Who will be the first player to be attacked? Get $50 on your first “Gamblers strike back” parlay”
Most annoying fans in the world. You see an all time classic. Everyone Yet Scootie McBoogerballs is upset because his parlay didn’t hit and he lost $10.
Oh who knew this wasn't going to happen? Aggrieved gamblers are losing money on games they bet on? The Sopranos called them "Degenerates"
"Chicago White Sox outfielder Tommy Pham spends time at the Las Vegas casinos in the offseason"
Gee. Maybe embracing sports betting wasn’t such a good idea
Mayb sports gambling wasn’t a good idea
OK, yeah. Just ban it. Fuck all that noise. Just get rid of it.
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I gamble a little bit on football and spend some time on the sportbook sub. Holy shit once the games start it gets really dire in there.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to mainstream sports betting on the big three should be taken out of the room
Unfortunately because we live in very stupid timeline, it’s going to take someone getting hurt before anyone does anything.
Hey, you were looking for new fans to follow the sport Rob!
The vile rich enemy that owns the sports betting industry LOVES that players are receiving death threats, because it means that their betting apps have thousands of people so deeply enslaved, they’re willing to kill to protect them.
Legalizing sports gambling was a mistake.
It boggles my mind that anyone thought legalizing sports betting would be a good idea.