Place your bets: sports gambling is coming to America
Lesson summary
Hi there, welcome to Plain English lesson number 348. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and this full lesson can be found at PlainEnglish.com/348.
Coming up today: sports betting has been gradually legalized in the United States after a Supreme Court decision in 2018. After a pandemic year, 2021 is shaping up to be the first big year of online sports betting. On today’s lesson, we’ll talk about how the sports landscape is changing with the introduction of legal sports betting. And I won’t hold you in suspense: I don’t love it.
The expression we review today is “stay out of it” and we have a gambling-related quote of the week. So let’s get started.
American sports fans rush to place their bets
The smell of freshly-cut grass, decorative bunting, flyovers, the national anthem, bright sunshine, optimism and excitement for the year to come: these are the hallmarks of Opening Day, the first day of the baseball season. This Opening Day will be different in many ways, as many stadiums remain empty. But American baseball fans will also notice something else new on Opening Day: their local regional sports television networks may be changing their names. Local stations that used to be called Fox Sports will become Bally Sports networks.
What’s the big deal? I’ll tell you: Bally’s is a casino. And now the television networks that carry local games of America’s baseball, hockey and football teams will be named after a casino. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the programming on the channel will now be related to sports betting. And this is just one out of many changes to the sports landscape that follows a Supreme Court decision legalizing sports betting.
For years, betting on sports was illegal in most of the United States. A federal law prohibited states from allowing sports betting; the only significant exception was Las Vegas. But in 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal government didn’t have the power to tell states what gambling laws they could pass: under our Constitution, regulating gambling is a power held by the states, according to this decision, and the national government had to stay out of it .
That opened up possibilities for individual states to allow sports gambling. In the years since that decision, many but not all states have passed laws allowing sports gambling. In most cases, individual states give permission to a limited number of companies to offer gambling to residents of their state. Some big companies have permission in multiple states; in this way, they are building a quasi-national business in sports betting.
Twenty-twenty was a lost year, so the sports betting apps are starting to ramp up now. Apps like Draft Kings, Fan Duel, PointsBet, and others, are advertising heavily on television and radio, trying to get consumers to download their apps and start betting on games. The apps let you bet on the outcome of a game, the number of points scored in a game, or specific events in the game. More complicated wagers let you combine games on a single ticket. And you can even make additional bets as the game goes on and as the action unfolds in real time .
The apps use all the same tactics as traditional casinos. They show off their big winners—but they never show off the losers. If you’re a little behind, they nudge you to bet more. They give you brightly-colored rewards to stimulate your emotions. They even use language that makes gambling seem no different from investing. For example, many sites offer a money-back guarantee for your first bet. So if you lose on your first bet, they’ll cover your losses. Others advertise something called “loss insurance,” which is not insurance whatsoever. But they’re using risk-reversal tactics to make people lose their fear of gambling and make their first bet.
They are also making savvy partnerships. Several sites are becoming official sponsors of individual teams; the Detroit Tigers baseball team signed a partnership with a sports betting app in their home state of Michigan. PointsBet will get signage in the park, advertising on the radio, and publicity on the team’s web site.
America’s sports leagues used to be afraid of gambling, fearing that the integrity of their games would be called into question if they were associated with gambling. No more. With consumers’ attention spans dwindling and with more competition for fans’ attention than ever, and hammered by a lost year due to COVID, sports leagues need the money and excitement that betting firms offer.
I mentioned earlier that television networks will be named after Bally’s, a casino. It won’t stop there. The editorial content on the network, and the features in the games, will include sports betting content. Already, sports networks are integrating sports betting into their programming lineups. ESPN—never known for its subtlety—opened a television studio in Las Vegas and has digital programming devoted entirely to sports betting.
Sports betting has been legal in Europe for many years, from the Twelfth Century, when betting on cockfights was common, to the invention in Italy of baccarat, through present day betting on soccer. But ironically some countries in Europe are moving in the opposite direction of the United States.
The Spanish government recently passed a law heavily restricting marketing of sports betting sites. The law also prohibits sports bodies, like leagues and teams, from partnering with gambling sites. And sports books can no longer offer bonuses or incentives to first-time bettors.
The UK is currently performing a wholesale review of its online gambling laws. Several ideas are in play, including stricter limits on how much people can bet and affordability tests to make sure people are placing bets they can afford. Britain has already imposed limits on ads targeting minors and ads during games.
What will true fans think?
Personally, I don’t like this at all. I like watching sports for the competition and the drama on the field, the ice, or the court. I don’t like watching sports for the Twitter controversies, the debates about who’s the greatest this or that, or the political causes of the players. I just want to watch the games. Now I’m afraid the experience of watching a game on TV is going to be about gambling—it won’t just be commercials, but the commentary in the game, the graphics on the screen, whatever.
I don’t gamble on sports—or anything. I would say my big worry is that this will attract people who just like gambling and repel people who like sports.
I’d love to hear your perspective. Share your thoughts on sports gambling in our free Facebook group. To join, just visit PlainEnglish.com/Facebook and feel free to reply to today’s lesson topic and leave your comment.
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