All Bets Are On

NBA Betting Scandal, Weekend Whats

It was inevitable. That opening from ‘Love in the Time Cholera’ by Gabriel García Márquez is one of the most famous lines in literature. Too bad it’s taken, because it also works as a pretty decent intro to the news that the mingling of professional sports and big time gambling operations has quickly led to scandals. García Márquez’ inevitability refers to “the scent of bitter almonds.” The NBA’s current scandal is all about the scent of money. The league, like its professional counterparts, has historically worked to keep a distance from anything even remotely connected to betting. A few years ago, with the legalization of sports gambling presenting an irresistible upside, what was once kept at arm’s length has been fully embraced. “For the last seven years, anyone who cares about sports has been conditioned to accept that gambling goes hand-in-hand with the activity of watching a game. We turn on a podcast, we get an offer code from a betting app. We read a story, we get the pop-up ad directing us to check out the odds. Even when we go to an arena in certain markets, you walk right past the sports book before getting to your seat.” Hence, wagering that a scandal would emerge was about the safest bet you could have made. Dan Wolken in Yahoo Sports: The inevitable bill of legalized sports gambling has come. “And everyone who feeds off its advertising dollars — the sports leagues, team owners, even the media — kept shoving it in everyone’s faces, buoyed by the idea that it’s better to have a gambling ecosystem operating with oversight rather than in the shadows. That may still be true. And yet today, for all the sports leagues that have been nursing from the teat of easy gambling company cash, the justification doesn’t matter. The inevitable bill has come due.” Will this be an isolated incident or the first of many sports betting scandals? Bet the over.

+ ESPN: What we know about the Billups-Rozier NBA gambling cases.

+ The NBA game-fixing part of this story has more far reaching implications. But the poker-fixing scandal is even more interesting. WSJ (Gift Article): The Rigged Poker Games That Used NBA Stars and James Bond Tech to Steal Millions. “Prosecutors say the defendants in the poker-rigging scheme would often modify DeckMate shufflers with tech that could read the cards in the deck and relay that information to an off-site operator ... They had other ways to cheat, too. They used poker-chip trays equipped with hidden cameras. There was an X-ray table that could read cards while they were face down. There were even special contact lenses that could read marked cards.”

+ “Terry Rozier has earned an estimated $160 million from three teams over his 10-year NBA career. Chauncey Billups played for 17 years and earned $106.8 million.” Why do millionaire athletes get involved with gambling? (You think wealthy people are any less attracted to gambling than anyone else? Consider that more than 1,300 AI startups now have valuations of over $100 million, with 498 AI ‘unicorns,’ or companies with valuations of $1 billion or more. The richest investors in the world like gambling so much they’ve made unicorns ubiquitous.)

+ For what it’s worth, I’m saving Gabriel García Márquez’ other famous novel opening for another story. From ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ICE.

2

Beef With Carney

The United States has another international conflict. With Canada. And, no, I’m not talking about Toronto playing the Dodgers in the World Series. “President Donald Trump announced he’s ending ‘all trade negotiations’ with Canada because of a television ad [featuring video from a Ronald Reagan speech] opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and was aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.” (You can watch the Reagan address for yourself.) I used to get really worried when Trump took out his petty anger on international allies. These days, I’m just glad he’s not taking it out on another wing of the White House.

+ Canada ready to pick up trade negotiations with US, Carney says.

3

The Lyin King

Humans are pretty worried about losing their jobs to AI. But don’t let that distract you from the other at-risk population. Why Hollywood’s Animal Actors Can’t Find Work. “Rocco, whose credits include Veronica Mars, Jane the Virgin and The Morning Show, is one of many four-legged actors in the L.A. area who aren’t landing Hollywood gigs like they used to. As AI continues to advance, more productions are opting to create animal performances in post rather than film with the real thing — a trend that’s left trainers, wranglers and animal coordinators increasingly anxious about the future of their profession.”

4

Weekend Whats

What to Hear: Today should probably be a national holiday. Brandi Carlile has a new album out. It’s more personal and more pared down than some of her recent work. If you happen to have a comfortable seat on a porch dabbled with some Fall leaves, that would be an ideal place to listen to Returning to Myself.

+ What to Watch: The Diplomat on Netflix continues to be one of the most fun and binge-able shows around. The politics and international intrigue in the show are wildly unrealistic, but not nearly as unrealistic as our current reality.

+ What to Coffee Table Book: “When great black and white photography and tongue-in-cheek humor come together, as they did with Elliott Erwitt, the result is a unique coffee table book like Last Laughs. No one was better than the New York photography legend at observing everyday scenes around the world with heart and humor through the lens of his camera.” Heart, humor, and non-AI photos. Who doesn’t need a little more of that?

5

Extra, Extra

Whatever Smotes Your Boat: “This latest strike appears to be the 10th carried out by the Trump administration against alleged drug trafficking boats over the past several weeks, which have now led to more than 40 deaths.” New U.S. strike on alleged drug-smuggling boat kills 6 on board. If Congress lets the White House do this with no oversight, what else might they be cool with? US is sending an aircraft carrier to Latin America in major escalation of military buildup.

+ Cool Aid: Inflation numbers (to the extent we can really trust them during a government closure) came in a little cooler than expected. That means the expected rate cut is even more expected. That means the market is soaring.

+ Half Cocked: Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time. (Well, I guess that means they’re a lot more accurate than humans...)

+ Lucky He Didn’t Take a Speed Boat: “The accused Chinese drug boss was this close to the perfect getaway. In July, Zhi Dong Zhang escaped from house arrest in Mexico, where he was set to be extradited to the U.S. on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges. The Justice Department accuses him of being the most important link between Chinese chemical producers and the Mexican cartels that make fentanyl. He then hopped onto a private jet to Cuba and boarded a flight to Russia, beyond the reach of U.S. and Mexican prosecutors.” Most-Wanted Fentanyl Producer Is Extradited to the U.S. After Brazen Escape.

+ Staked Alaska: NYT (Gift Article): Trump Opens Pristine Alaska Wilderness to Drilling in Long-Running Feud. “The Interior Department also said it would allow a contentious road to be built through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Alaska.”

+ All That And a Bag of Chips: “Taki Allen was sitting with friends on Monday night outside Kenwood high school in Baltimore and eating a snack when police officers with guns approached him. ‘At first, I didn’t know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I was like, ‘What?’” US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of Doritos for gun. (Maybe they just thought Dorito sounded like the name of someone here illegally?)

6

Feel Good Friday

“Maybe we’re overthinking it. In these grim times, the most efficient path to living a contented life may be to put ourselves through the same simple exercise of thinking about our purpose and then taking a step — even a modest one — toward fulfilling it.” WaPo (Gift Article): A 6-year research project found a surprisingly simple route to happiness.

+ “Ms. Chopin makes no claims to be a wellness guru, nor does she seem to feel a burning desire to evangelize about her own approach to life. But people keep asking for her secrets to aging well.” A 102-Year-Old Yoga Teacher’s Simple Approach to Aging Well. (For personal reasons, I’m a little worried that having tight hammies is not on her list of recommendations...)

+ mRNA COVID vaccines may be helping some cancer patientsfight tumors, researchers say.

+ Reversing peanut advice prevented tens of thousands of allergy cases.

+ “The officers, the A.P. caption said, were there to block the entrance to the museum. But the man, dressed in a buttoned up vest, a trench coat and a fedora, who seemed to be surveilling the scene, was more than enough reason for the internet to pounce.” Is This Dapper Man Going to Crack the Louvre Heist Case? (Or, a photo so good, people were sure it was AI.)

+ The secret California factory that powers theme parks’ biggest special effects.

+ When books were being pulled from Iowa classrooms, these teens started an after-school club to read them.

+ Watch a baby elephant play ball with a small pumpkin as her family smashes massive ones.