You can’t escape it. DraftKings and FanDuel ads are everywhere, and putting money on sports has gone mainstream. But the darker side of the business is becoming harder to ignore.
This spring, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson had an idea for an experiment: What would happen if he mimicked the betting patterns of a problem gambler on these online sportsbooks?
With more than $20,000 from ProPublica, Jake spent 10 weeks during the NBA playoffs testing the responsible gaming guardrails of online sports betting, one of America’s most popular — and controversial — pastimes.
Read our full investigation:
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Our reporting doesn’t stop here. If you’ve bet on DraftKings or FanDuel, you can help us understand how these apps respond to users’ betting behavior. Full details here: https://www.propublica.org/sportsbetting
A future void of proper guardrails creates fertile ground for unlimited exploitation by these companies.
18:00 young blood didn’t get the Ferris Bueller reference 💔
Whoever told you it's easy to make money gambling is not your friend.
The fact that sports players are sponsored by these companies is just insane to me. How is it not declared as insider trading, if someone like Lebrun is heavily favored betting on this 1 line and he is sponsored by poly market and then he some how docent hit that projection its just so shameless to m.e
ill bet $200 that nothing gets done and people will still lose their shit.
Delete these apps. all of them.
I suspect the early win streak was programmed into the plaform to get you hooked.
All I hear is people who make 80k betting 300k and somehow its draftkings fault. Did they make you download it? Did they drive to your house and put a weapon to your head saying do it or else? NO. YOU DID IT TO YOURSELF. The first step to recovery is admitting YOU have a problem. I'm a recovering gaming addict, I live near a casino and I don't go because I have free will. Its not their fault I ever did. It was mine. Stop bitching about poeple not holding your hand and be responsible for your own actions.
Really good job of capturing the frenetic energy of sports betting
He looks like Archie Manning
My coffee got cold because I couldn t stop watching.
Dude became a gambling addict for a story. I love journalism. Bravo
Losers gonna lose. Survival of the fittest RIP.
Holy shit. An evil company likes when you give them free money. Who fucking knew. Keep doing great reporting
Should do something on gambling influencers on youtube. They make it seems like a fun group activity that always works out in the end, meanwhile it is anything but that. YouTube is complicit by monetizing these lying crooks.
Same mate got vip status after a 13 leg parlay
Sports betting and the ponies are the worst
This is top-tier content.
I made 2 bets on tonight’s game while watching this video. Insipring
Brother, this is having the opposite effect on me lmao…
They never would have cut you off, never.
The flip side to this, which makes it even more diabolical, is that these same books and companies will LIMIT winners and folks who know how to beat them consistently. I started sports betting in 2023 and am limited on my max wager or outright banned on almost every available book in my state. This isn't surprising when you step back and think about it, but it just further drives home the predatory nature of what these books want to do.
me looking at sports gamblers from a safe and smug distance and then turning around to my gacha games
They just do things to cover there butts. While they make people broke while they get rich. This is all sports betting does. Make you feel like you will win. Just like the casino or lottery. They all deserve to be shut down. All of these companies. Screw them running. They just be stealing people's money. While selling you hope you might win big.
Loyal to a sports betting company. The vip is the one who losses extra extra money. Then tell you your a vip. Like the casino. You loss huge amounts of money. Your treated with vip treatment. If everyone jumped off a cliff. You clowns might do it too. This does not make you people smart. It makes you a gambler with a problem.
sports books want people to keep gambling, fork found in kitchen
Its all on purpose. They just want to take your money and leave you homeless if that is what happens. These companies do not care about you as a customer. They just want your money. They will do anything to get it. Lie steal kill even.
Gambling contributes to GDP and people wonder why the number is positive, yet everything feels like shit.
Who is the speaker at 11:45?
Thanks for doing this reporting! I will submit my story to you on that site.
The human brain is almost totally unconsciously driven. We live with the delusion that our actions and behavior are conscious and rational. We should ban these gambling and prediction markets sites outright
I have Vip on DK and I have over 700k lifetime winnings and have no problem showing a Pikkit of DK Stat sheet
“Fun”
Bro is the human Mark Zuckerberg
This felt very similar to supersize me. Same predatory ideology being used by the corporation to manipulate the consumer
What a crazy time to be alive
"Addictive substance/activity becomes hard to regulate because it makes so much money for the state that they end up literally needing it to get by" is literally how chronic alcoholism got to the levels it did in the Soviet Union
You have to have manure in your brain to think you can actually live off gambling. These entities can only survive if more people lose than win. If you want to have side bets with your friends, that is one thing, but the minute you go to a business to bet, your fate is sealed. For me, those ads for those betting sites are as useful as the ads for those medications.