All Bets are On

Sports Betting, Big Food's New Influencers

I'm betting you're not sick of stories about the rise and impact of sports gambling. It's a bet that I'm making blindly, which is rare these days when just about every event has a betting line. Most of the recent sports betting headlines have been about the scandal involving Shohei Ohtani's translator. But there's a much bigger and more straightforward story here. It's about leagues, lobbyists, and lawmakers removing the gambling guardrails and unleashing a massive marketing effort that pushes gambling to sports fans everywhere. Leagues used to avoid betting, but now there are teams in Las Vegas and there's even "a Caesar’s sportsbook operates within the very arena where the Wizards and Capitals play." Brands like Disney once treated gambling like a plague, but now their ESPN is in the bookie business, talking about odds and taking bets in their own branded app. The house always wins, so the mouse wants in. I don't want to pretend that betting on sports isn't fun. The point is that it's so fun that it can be addictive. The old hurdles to placing a bet are gone. Now, all the forces that were obstacles have become fuel. If you really need to make a wager, bet on this: Society is in for a bad beat. The rapid transition to making bets integral to the viewing experience is going to have a negative impact on us. Alex Shephard in TNR: Our Entire Society Is Becoming Addicted to Sports Gambling.

+ Odds and Ends: Brendan Ruberry with a good overview of how we got here: The Future of American Sports Isn’t Pretty. "Nearly six years after the Supreme Court overturned a decades-old ban on sports betting, simultaneous scandals at the highest level of professional sports are forcing a long-delayed reckoning about the proper place of a runaway industry whose prominence is threatening to overwhelm the thin barrier between the increasingly symbiotic worlds of sports and gambling. Professional leagues have played the willing accomplice, making their own bet that they could net billions in profit without addicting their own fans, compromising the integrity of their sports, or socializing young fans into a world of vice. Those assumptions are crumbling. And the costs may prove great—not just to normal people’s wallets, but to their psyches, too."

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Take This with a Pinch of Salt

There's a group of influencers for almost everything. One of these groups leads the anti-diet movement. The idea is that society is too focused on health and that leads to fat shaming and everyone should eat what they want. And guess who decided that this highly-processed message should be a brought to the increasingly wider masses? Big Food. WaPo (Gift Article): As obesity rises, Big Food and dietitians push ‘anti-diet’ advice. "General Mills has toured the country touting anti-diet research it claims proves the harms of 'food shaming.' It has showered giveaways on registered dietitians who promote its cereals online with the hashtag DerailTheShame, and sponsored influencers who promote its sugary snacks. The company has also enlisted a team of lobbyists and pushed back against federal policies that would add health information to food labels." These guys would sell cynicism, but it's too healthy for their portfolio.

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What to Expect When You're Deflecting

"A little before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, an engineer named Matthew Gallelli crouched on the deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in San Francisco Bay, pulled on a pair of ear protectors, and flipped a switch. A few seconds later, a device resembling a snow maker began to rumble, then produced a great and deafening hiss. A fine mist of tiny aerosol particles shot from its mouth, traveling hundreds of feet through the air." It's an early test of a strategy that's a longshot to work. But we may need it to. NYT (Gift Article): Warming Is Getting Worse. So They Just Tested a Way to Deflect the Sun. At least someone is dealing with climate change with deflection instead of the usual repression.

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Going Cold Turkers

"The Amazon story is a stark reminder that 'artificial intelligence' still often requires armies of human babysitters to work properly. Amazon even has an entire business unit known as Amazon Turk devoted to helping other companies do just that — train and operate AI systems. Thousands of freelancers around the world count themselves as 'MTurkers,' and the unit is named after the story of the Mechanical Turk, an 18th-century chess-playing contraption that was secretly controlled by a man hiding inside." Bloomberg (Gift Article): Amazon's AI Stores Seemed Too Magical. And They Were. "The 1,000 contractors in India working on the company’s Just Walk Out technology offer a stark reminder that AI isn’t always what it seems."

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Extra, Extra

Taiwan Quake: Taiwan rocked by 7.4 magnitude earthquake, leaving at least 9 dead and nearly 1,000 injured. Here are some photos from the worst earthquake to hit the island in 25 years. Quartz: Taiwan's deadly earthquake stopped chipmaking at TSMC. The plant was only down for a brief time, but the earthquake was a reminder of how much of our chip-driven supply chain could go offline with one really bad event.

+ Let Them Eat: "In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always. The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war." A must read from Jose Andres written in the hours after 7 World Central Kitchen workers were killed by an airstrike. NYT (Gift Article): Let People Eat. "In the worst conditions, after the worst terrorist attack in its history, it’s time for the best of Israel to show up. You cannot save the hostages by bombing every building in Gaza. You cannot win this war by starving an entire population."

+ Care Less: "A state law enacted 48 years ago required the hospital to offer a forensic exam, often called a rape kit. A revision passed in 2018 also required the hospital to notify a sexual assault advocate on the girl’s behalf. But neither of those things happened." APM: Survivors Sidelined. "How Illinois’ sexual assault survivor law allows hospitals to deny care." (One of the most consistent stories uncovered by investigative reporting is the mistreatment—on often the vilifying—of sexual assault survivors.)

+ Trump Stakes: Yesterday, I gave a few of the many reasons why Trump's new publicly traded company is a garbage investment. (Trump and Dump.) It will take a while to get to the bottom of all the shenanigans, but let's warm up a bit. The Guardian: Trump Media saved in 2022 by Russian-American under criminal investigation. And, two brothers plead guilty to insider trading scheme linked to Trump’s media business. And here's the least surprising headline of the day. Trump Sues Truth Social Company Co-Founders to Zero Them Out. (Next he’ll sue god out of his cut from the Bible sales.) How has he gotten away with everything for so long? There are a lot of answers. At least when it comes to the remarkably cut and dry documents case, the answer is Judge Aileen Cannon.

+ Quality and Quantity: Yesterday, I also covered the remarkable rise of women's sports, especially this year's March Madness. (I Am Woman, Hear Me Score.) Today, we have some numbers. Iowa's win over LSU draws 12.3M views to smash record for most-watched NCAAW game. "That's more than all but one NBA Finals game last season."

+ Kiss and Sell: Remember Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football federation who was canned because of an unwanted kiss delivered to Jenni Hermoso after last summer's World Cup final? Well, he's back in the news, but this time for a much more expected offense. "He is suspected of receiving illegal commissions when negotiating a lucrative deal to stage the Spanish Super Cup competition in Saudi Arabia."

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Bottom of the News

"Earlier this year, Germany's environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing trophies from hunting animals. Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish people in his country. He said elephant numbers had exploded as a result of conservation efforts, and hunting helped keep them in check." All of which leads us to this rather unexpected diplomacy-related headline. Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany.