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Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling

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Jonathan D. Cohen

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“The classification of gambling as an addictive activity means that at some point, problem gamblers are not choosing to gamble. The road to addiction is smoothed for them by sportsbooks. The design of the app interfaces, the nonstop stream of betting options, the relentless advertising, and the auspiciously timed bonus offers all serve to keep people like Kyle engaged, maximizing their “customer lifetime value,” the industry’s holy grail metric dating back to the days of DFS. If sportsbooks have smoothed bettors’ paths to heavy losses and gambling disorder, then states have smoothed sportsbooks’ paths to products that let them do so.”

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Book:Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
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“Executives and spokespeople constantly argue that offshore, illegal sportsbooks do not have to comply with any regulations or pay any taxes. But legal sportsbooks should be held to a higher standard than illegal operators.”

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Book:Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
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“Sportsbooks are doing much more than siphoning money that would have already been spent on betting. They are inculcating sports betting among people who never would have bet otherwise, creating new generations of gamblers.”

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Book:Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
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“Sportsbooks’ current business model relies on a small percentage of bettors losing a lot of money, and their bottom line would be in grave danger if these RG [Responsible Gaming] tools were in wider use. Not surprisingly, most of these tools are entirely optional, and available data indicates extremely low uptake rates. In its home state of Massachusetts, DraftKings reported 0.1 percent of players set a time limit for app use, 0.13 percent set a spending limit, 1.4 percent had used a “cool-off” period, and a whopping 2.3 percent had set a deposit limit. As former problem gambler and longtime marketing professional Jamie Salsburg explained, the messaging around RG is “broken” and is not designed in such a way to effectively reach the people who most need to use RG tools. The messaging is not the only thing that is broken. Optional tools rely on a moment of clarity from someone who might already be chasing their losses. These tools are, fundamentally, the wrong way to protect players.”

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Book:Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
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“At the 2024 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Kristie Savage, head of data science at Fanatics Betting and Gaming, gave a presentation entitled “Predicting Problem Gambling Among Sports Bettors.” Savage explained how Fanatics creates player risk profiles using two measures, one of risky behavior and another based on the trend of that behavior if it is becoming more or less risky. Within a week of someone gambling on their app, Savage boasted, Fanatics can identify about half of all high-risk players. The presentation confirms what the Public Health Advocacy Institute and others have long suspected: Sportsbooks have massive amounts of data on players. If they wanted to, companies could use that data to stop unsafe practices before they develop. They are actively choosing not to deploy these predictive models, which would catch people like Kyle before they get into trouble.”

SportsAddictionGamblingGamblerGambling AddictGambling AddictionSports BettingLegalized Sports BettingOnline Sports BettingSports Gambling
Book:Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling
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