When the Supreme Court struck down the Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, it opened the door to legalized sports betting. Today, almost 40 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico allow some form of this pastime. But an unintended consequence has been the growing presence of gambling coverage in the news. On this episode of News Over Noise, hosts Matt Jordan and Cory Barker with sports writer Bill King to tackle this issue and explore the ramifications of this shift on sport journalism.
A special thanks to our guest:
Bill King is a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. He’s the publication’s lead contributor to In-Depth stories, Special Report coverage and profiles and has won numerous national and regional writing awards since joining SBJ in 1998.
Matt Jordan: Transport yourself for a moment to the winter of 1988. The 49ers and the Vikings are facing off in a divisional round of the NFL playoffs. The 49ers are favored to win. But in a stunning upset, they are defeated by Minnesota. The headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune read, "Vikings upset heavily favored 49ers in the 1987 divisional round, 36-24."
Cory Barker: Now, fast forward to January 2025. After the Eagles defeated the Packers in a wild card playoff game, one ESPN headline read "Eagles running back Saquon Barkley's late slide in playoff win stymies bettors." The contrast in these examples speaks to the seismic shift in sports reporting in recent years, with less and less attention given to the actual athletic endeavor itself and increasing emphasis on how outcomes impact those betting on the game.
Matt Jordan: When the Supreme Court struck down the Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, the decision's potential impact on journalism might not have been top of mind for many sports enthusiasts. But it's something on everybody's mind now. We're going to explore this impact with Bill King, a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. He's the publication's lead contributor to in-depth stories, special report coverage and profiles, and has won numerous national and regional writing awards since joining SBJ in 1998. Bill King, welcome to News Over Noise.
Bill King: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Matt Jordan: So, sports journalism has long been the strongest leg that newspapers have to stand on. I mean, it's the thing that keeps a lot of local papers alive. It's the thing that is continuing to—even the hedge funds that are gutting newspapers, they keep the sports beat. But it's changed. A couple of weeks ago, Saquon Barkley, who's a Penn State grad, in case anybody doesn't realize that broke—he broke free at the end of a game. And instead of taking it to the house, he slid to the ground. And 10 years ago, the stories would have been about him doing the right thing. And this is a disciplined guy who understands the game and didn't want to rub it in their face. A couple or five years ago, it might have been about what are the fantasy implications? But now, there was a fleet of stories from ESPN and everybody else about the millions of dollars that were going to be lost by him. So how has gambling changed sports journalism?
Bill King: Yeah, and even more recently, just the other night in the national championship game, I mean, that, quote unquote, "meaningless" field goal was not at all meaningless for a lot of people. I mean, that field goal was the difference in the spread for most people who bet that game one way or the other. And so yeah, it has a much higher profile. But I got to tell you, I mean, 30 years ago, people were betting on those games and hanging on that field goal. 50 years ago, people were betting on those games and hanging on that field goal. I mean, and even honestly, when you think about coverage, I think we think of it now as if this is all some sort of a new phenomenon. I mean, 30 years ago—10 years ago was before sports betting, right? But even 30 or 40 years ago, if you were in a newspaper, and you wrote sports, and you covered the NFL, there's a very good chance that you did a picks column on Sunday or on Sunday's games. And you often picked against the spread. In many cases, writers picked against the spread. So, we were doing that for a reason. It wasn't just—I don't think because it was interesting. It's what the readers wanted. And so, I think, again, now, it has a much—there's much more of a focus on it.
But you think about years ago, Brent Musburger, with his little nudge and wink line about that. Well, that field goal really is going to make a difference for a lot of people out there and that kind of thing. It's just out there now. It's more front and center. And certainly, without question, as much as people want to say, well, people have always bet, far more people are betting now that it's legal. We're talking about multiples. And so, it's certainly, I think, taken on a higher profile. But is it new? No, but you're absolutely right. I mean, when he went and slid, I'm not sure 10 years ago, if that would have been top of mind for me. And it was now.
Cory Barker: Does it seem like, from your vantage point, that the growing profile of this sort of coverage is mostly a response to consumer demand, the fact that there are more people literally legally gambling on sports, and therefore your ESPNs of the world are covering the game or the results in that prism more? Is it just a matter of, hey, more people are doing this. We're trying to meet people where they are. Or are there other things going on here as well?
Bill King: I think there are other things going on here as well. I think you're right on the first point. I think it absolutely is the case. But the handcuffs are off now. Honestly, it wasn't even until I would say three years ago that the handcuffs started to loosen. And it wasn't until this year that they came up and came off not entirely, but pretty close for ESPN, right? There is now a broader acknowledgment that this is a legal activity. And oh, by the way, they're in the business of it, right? They're not in the betting business. But they spend a lot of money to put their brand on a sportsbook. And so, it wouldn't be great business.
And beyond that, it would be rather—honestly, I think their first year, and a lot of people felt like it was a little hypocritical that they were trying to somehow keep their distance. I mean, what did you get in this for? You got in this because this is, quote unquote, "engagement," right? And that's when we really think about the business of this from the sportsbook’s perspective, yeah, it's obviously about getting people to bet more and hopefully having them lose more, right? Over the long haul, anyway. But when you think about what's in this f or the networks, when you think about what's in this for the teams, the leagues, it's really about building that engagement. Think about that field goal in that Ohio State game. Less so on the Barkley thing, but very much so on that Ohio State game. That was not—that might have been time to go to bed for a lot of people. I mean, that might have been it. It might have been like, yeah, they got within 8, I guess maybe, but there's less than a minute left. However, for all those people who had a wager on that game, that game was very much in play down to the last 20 seconds. So, think about what that means for ratings, right? And that's what this has been about from the beginning for the leagues. Yes, they're thrilled to take the sportsbooks money. I don't want to say for a second that they're not. They love the advertising dollars, certainly. But they love even more the idea that in this age where they were worried, especially about younger viewers, who didn't want to sit through the 2 and 1/2, 3 and 1/2, 4-hour game, now there's a little bit more reason for somebody to hang around and watch that fourth quarter. And that really is—that's the big win for them along with—again, so what do you do to bite-size that? So, you don't want that just to happen in the fourth quarter. And so, the league's very much like anything that drives people to bet what's called in-play. So, all those bets that are offered and within a quarter of a game or within the next 20 points of an NBA game or by halftime or anything like that. Or oh, by the way, just on this drive, will this drive end in a touchdown, a field goal, or a punt? All those things are out there. All those things are offered. That's the stuff that the leagues and the teams—that's what they're excited about, right? That's the kind of stuff that they think will recapture in some cases and maybe even capture. I think about my 18-year-old sons who are big sports fans. I got twin boys who are freshmen in college. They are big sports fans. They don't watch as I would traditionally view you watch a game from beginning to end very often. Something like that gives them that little bit more reason to be interested throughout the duration of a game, throughout every moment of a game. I think that's what the leagues and the networks are really looking at.
Matt Jordan: Is it changed—because that was what the claim was about fantasy, right? That was bringing back the audiences in a sense. Is there any sense from the data that you've seen and the people that you've talked to about how much more or about equal to or what the level of engagement that you get in terms of mass media and the captive audience that you get for advertising?
Bill King: To be honest, nothing that I trust. I do hear from—I do certainly hear from leagues that they have data that says that, yeah, it's happening. Yeah, it's working. Yeah, if you look at the viewership minutes and particularly when those minutes are—the duration of that viewership, it's up. But there's—since it's gone state by state, since you have California still not legalized, since you have Texas still not legalized, since you have Florida only marginally legalized with one sportsbook operator, you don't have FanDuel. You don't have DraftKings. And so, you don't have the massive advertising behind the sports betting there. You think about the population of those three states. I think it's still a little difficult to weed out. I've certainly tried lots of times looking at, OK, what's happened in ratings in these markets? It's really tough to parse through unless you are—if you're the Nielsen client, and you're sitting there. And you want to commission a research project. I suspect that you've got some data. And I would suspect that from what they've told me; they think it's what they thought and hoped was happening is exactly what's happening. Now, where we go from here as there's that pushback in state legislators and others start to question whether all this is healthy? That's a whole other question.
Cory Barker: I'm wondering if we can step back for one second. Can you explain to our audience what a sportsbook is and how ESPN, for instance, has developed this relationship with a sportsbook that now we're seeing not only more advertising, but maybe betting-related reporting and content integrated into their multi-media product?
Bill King: Sure. And this is actually where if—I'm going to assume this is probably audio. So, the visual aid isn't going to help a lot. But for you guys, what I would always do is I pull this out, my mobile device. This is what changed, right? It's not just that it legalized, all right? It legalized in a couple of states initially retail only, which meant you had to walk into a sportsbook to place a bet. So, to get back to your original question, so sports betting used to be you walked into a sportsbook. And you said, I would like the Eagles to beat the Giants. And so, for someone who's not at all familiar with sports betting, you would think that would be a simple thing. I'm going to give them my money. And they're going to say if the Eagles win, you win. But that wouldn't be very sporting this year, for example, because there was no way in hell the Giants were going to beat the Eagles. And everybody knows it, right? So why would anybody bet on the Eagles? And so, this is why we have point spreads. And so, you don't bet on just that the Giants are going to—the Eagles are going to beat the Giants. You bet that the Eagles are going to beat the Giants by more than 9 points, 9 and 1/2, say. And so, if they do, you win. And if the Eagles win, but they only win by 3 or 5 or 8 or God forbid 9, if you bet 9 and 1/2, then you lose. So that's the whole history of this. And it chugged along for, I don't know, a century, probably more just that way, and to the point, in fact, that we had legal casinos in Nevada, where you could do that legally. But for many people, it meant you found somebody in a bar or a barber shop who took those bets. And that was sports betting. So, you had Nevada. And then you had online betting, which began in Europe. And then a lot were offshore of the United States and the Caribbean, a lot of those operators. And so, you could bet online until the government got a little tight about that and shut some of those down. But that was also for anyone who's under probably 40. They probably remember that as sports betting. Well, what changed when it legalized really was that it legalized on your mobile device, right? That's what the difference is. If it's legal in Pennsylvania, for example, and I have to go into a casino to bet, if I'm really motivated, I might do that. I certainly might enjoy sitting and watching a whole slate of NFL games on a Sunday and maybe have lunch and dinner. And that's my day. But how many people fit in a sports bar, right? Not that many. How many people's fitness sportsbook? Not that many. So, putting it on everybody's mobile device, not just their computer, but their mobile device, changes the world. Because now, I'm sitting at home, and the game is on. And all I have to do is take out the device and tap, right?
And it's quite easy to register. I do have to give an awful lot of personal information. I have to deposit some money. But after that, this is all pretty plug and play. And there are thousands of options really pretty much at any time of day or night on things you can bet on. I mean, if you really are desperate to find a bet at 11 o'clock in the morning, somebody is playing basketball in Asia, or somebody is playing a tennis match in Bulgaria. And you can bet on it. It's all out there, right? So that's the product that we have now. And that's a very different thing than the sports betting that I grew up with and even the sports betting that you grew up with up until the last, I would call it, 10 to 15 years, if you might have had an access to an online account. So, I don't know if that got back to your original question, but it certainly is very, very different than what a lot—even—I'm in North Carolina. And so, when sports betting legalized here, in the months leading up to that, I had so many friends, guys I coached little league with and just all kinds of things like that saying, they envisioned they were going to walk in.
Who's going to have this? Am I going to be able to do this in a restaurant? Am I going to have to go to a—what am I going to do? And it was like, oh, they're going to have sportsbooks in the stadium because they gave them licenses. No, they're not. Because even though they gave them licenses, that's not what the business is. And nobody really wants to operate those because it's very hard to make money. So no, this is not that. This is going to be in your pocket 24/7—very different thing.
Cory Barker: And so, ESPN'S relationship then with the sportsbook is primarily a sort of branding marketing exercise.
Bill King: Absolutely. It's an advertising. And that's another interesting thing because I still remember the Gaming Commission in Massachusetts is pretty steadfast in—at least if you watch their hearings. They really wanted this button down. And so, when ESPN came in, there were a lot of questions about, well, wait a minute, you broadcast these games. You're going to be taking bets on these games that you broadcast. You might have access to information other people don't have access to, which is a whole other issue that we probably should get into because it does deal very much with the journalism side of this. But you're going to have access to information that others don't have access to. Maybe you're going to have that information first. And they really had to jump through some hoops to explain, no, no, no, the sportsbook is Penn. Penn Entertainment is the sportsbook. That's who takes the bets. We're paying them a ton of money to put our brand—or they're paying us. I'm sorry. They wouldn't want to get that one backwards. They're paying us a ton of money to put our brand on that sportsbook. And we will be marketing that. I mean, we will be trying to drive people to that sportsbook. And over time, they even got much more aggressive about the way they use on-air personalities to drive people to that sportsbook. But they don't own that sportsbook. It's not like somebody's going to come out of the news meeting at ESPN before SportsCenter and head to the restroom and happened to swing by the sportsbook on the way and let it slip that a quarterback is hurt. I mean, they're not in the same building. They're not in the same state. They're not the same business. And so that was something that—but that does not at all, I think, reduce the responsibility or the risk that everyone has to keep in mind that, yes, there are people at ESPN and at every other media outlet, by the way, that do know things before the general public does. And it's our job to get that to the general public as quickly as we possibly can.
But if somebody wanted to be of a bit of a bad actor, they could probably take advantage of that. And I will tell you, for 50 years, 70 years, probably 100 years, on occasion, there has been a bad actor certainly that took advantage of that. That was at practice and saw a player got hurt and maybe, maybe, maybe back in the old days called their bookie. That's not new entirely, but it's real. And it's something that anybody—that reporters should certainly be aware of. Remember when somebody is asking you a question, they might not just be because they're a fan, and they're interested.
Matt Jordan: So, I'm a media historian, so I spend a lot of time looking at the press and thinking about these historical trends. And certainly, you're right that betting is new. But there was—in 19th century America, gambling was an issue, but there was a huge pushback against it that journalists spent a lot of time storytelling and inveighing against this thing that was corrupting the youth, et cetera, et cetera.
Then, there was this moment. Let's call it pre-Black Sox Scandal where people started to worry about this perception of impropriety or corruption. And we certainly are in an era right now where out there in the ethos, everybody thinks everything is rigged. So, I mean, is it tilted toward normalizing it in a way that worries you? Given what we know about the potential for harm that is real now as it was 200 years ago, that it's become—we have fewer journalists who are pushing back on this, fewer journalists who were worried about the purity of the sport. That overcorrection that happened after the Black Sox and that kept Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, this is now becoming an issue again.
Bill King: I think that I worry a bit. I don't—it's interesting. The money, certainly, at the highest level, has changed things to the point that it would be hard for the Black Sox thing to happen again. But there should not be a normalization of an idea that it's just—look, to this day, people argue that what Pete Rose did was relatively harmless. Well, what's the difference? He didn't bet on his team. He didn't bet against the team, right? Well, yeah, maybe he did. But even if he didn't, if you think about it, if you bet on your team, what you've told that bookie is that you who have control of the outcome of this game or fairly certain that you're going to win this bet, otherwise, you wouldn't be placing it. And so that bookie might act accordingly when they're taking other bets or even when they're placing their own bets. That all—none of that has changed. We just saw it with the Jontay Porter thing, which is the biggest scandal really so far that we've seen in these last few years. An NBA player who got in over his head with a bookie, not DraftKings, not FanDuel, a bookie, an old school bookie, got in over his head. And to make up that debt, he made a deal that he would go into a game and say that his eye was bothering him and take himself out. And so, if you wanted to make some money, just make sure that you bet the under on anything that Jontay Porter might do that night—under on points, under on rebounds, under on blocked shots, under on steals. He's not getting any of them. So, he has guaranteed he's taking himself out of this game. He did it a couple of times, actually. It would have been to the benefit of those bettors had they not been caught because the sportsbooks see a bunch of money coming in on Jontay Porter to not do something. And they get a little suspicious too. And so, an investigation was launched. And they got caught. And people are going to go to jail. But that's the NBA. And a guy who makes $400,000 and some odd a year and got in over his head with people who then tried to bet $100,000 up—actually, I think in total ended up being a million on a couple of games. That, honestly, I think, is really still going to be very, very rare, largely in part because there's not many players in the NBA who make in, quote unquote, "only $400,000," right? So, would you risk it? Probably not. What I worry about is the point guard at Duquesne, right? That, to me—and it's whack-a-mole. There's thousands of games. I don't know, 10,000, maybe there's hundreds of thousands of athletes involved. Tennis has had a big problem globally because, again, there's just so many matches, and you can bet on every point. And so, some lower-level match where the losing—OK, I may not have a chance to win $10,000 If I lose, but I'm going to get $2,000 if I lose. But I'm going to get $2,000 for losing. So, a pretty good deal. That's really to me, when I look at where the dangers are and where the concerns are, it's there. So, when I see there's a push now in a lot of states, in many states, in fact, to not allow sportsbooks to take prop bets, player prop bets, bets like we were just talking about on college players, I think that's smart.
Matt Jordan: NCAA has asked for that, right?
Bill King: And the NCAA has asked for that. And back to your point, where this all goes sideways is—look, there's a little part of me who saw that field goal in that Ohio State game where really they probably could have knelt it out, but they probably could have done something other than risk a field goal being blocked. But I mean, an awful lot of Ohio State fans and boosters had money on Ohio State and were pretty happy that they kicked that field goal. Now, I'm not suggesting that they made the decision to kick that field goal because of that, but it sure made a lot of the people that they rely on very, very happy. So, the fact that I even think about that bothers me.
Cory Barker: From a technical reporting standpoint, how are you seeing gambling and betting more integrated into sports coverage, whether that's in print or on broadcast and podcasts? I mean, from your vantage point, are there good ways to do this versus maybe not necessarily bad, but less productive or less informative ways? Just from a reporting standpoint, what are you seeing?
Bill King: Less so in print, I would say. I suppose that you could—look, I think that being one of the God knows how many people on social media might want to come out and tell me whether they think the Sixers are going to cover tonight, I don't know, what's in that? But I will tell you, the sportsbooks, when you think about the way—the advertising and the promotion that they do, they really like it when it's the pregame show, and somebody in that broadcast says that same game parlay presented by FanDuel tonight. We like this guy, this guy, and this guy. And they feel like, and their data shows them that resonates with bettors. That gets people to take out the phone and see that bet. And they saw FanDuel. And even if they have three accounts, FanDuel was the one that they saw. And they know those are the odds on FanDuel. I guess I could look around on DraftKings and wherever else I have it. But I mean, why would I guess probably if you're a really heavy bettor? But for most fans that are just looking for one more reason to watch the game or watch it to the end anyway, that thing works. And so if you look at what FanDuel has done with their naming rights deal with Diamond Sports, where they've put their brand across regional sports networks across the country, along with the fact that FanDuel bug is going to be on screen every second of every minute of every game in that market, they do have it. And again, there's still deals to be sorted out with teams and things like that. And they have deals maybe with other sportsbooks, but that's valuable real estate. And so that's the kind of stuff that you see. I think ESPN on its pregame show, when you think about what they've started to do again, they've gotten much more aggressive without sticking it. See? This is the thing. I remember talking to the NFL when they first sort of crossed the threshold. They were the last of the leagues to come on board and embrace this and say the juice is worth the squeeze. This is a lot of money. But they had internal data going back to really even before the fall of PASPA, the Supreme Court case that turned all this around. Their internal data basically told them that they had, if I remember the numbers correctly, it's about 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3, who would really like to see this happen and would be excited and would want to bet. And then there was 1/3 or maybe a little less—if I recall correctly. I'd have to look back at the numbers, but it was somewhere in that range—who just were sort never, no, don't do this. This will ruin my game. And then there was that vast group in between that sort of said—and maybe it was 20 and 20 and then the group in between now that I think about it. But sort of said, I don't mind, and maybe I would do it. So that's what got them to move. But still, even with them moving and even when you talk to the networks, they don't want to stick this in anyone's face. They don't—there's that 20% out there. Maybe it's more than that. Whatever it is, they really don't want to alienate them. And so how can you do this? And one of the answers has been through digital media. So, you make it much more of a targeted to the consumer opt-in experience. That's why you don't hear it a lot still to this point during a game. You're still not hearing the commentators speak openly saying, well, it was 20. The spread was 18. And now it's down to 12. You don't hear that. You hear that promotion before the game. You might hear it at halftime, but it's not in people's faces. However, the leagues and the networks are all thinking about ways that can there be that parallel channel out there. Sort of can there be that feed on my phone, where if I want that, I get it? Now, the ones who've done it so far, who did—and you saw it in Pennsylvania, if I remember correctly, some of the teams, the Philadelphia teams did it where they did that. They did a broadcast where it was really targeted toward the bettor, right? It was a separate feed. And nobody's really doing them anymore. They've dropped off because they didn't work. It's not really what people want. Even if you bet, it's not really what you want to hear the whole game. You're still into the game. So that's, I think, where that is.
Matt Jordan: It's in a way, it's a microcosm of the news ecosystem in general. You have mass media center of it. And then you have the targeted tailor-made, digitally sifted feed coming directly to you.
Bill King: Right.
Matt Jordan: And just to give our audience a sense of the size of some of these things, I think I looked at one of your pieces where it was about the numbers from October of last year, $12.9 billion. And for our audience, it's called a handle, the aggregate amount that it's a bet. And then states, one by one, since they're regulating this, are doing it in New York in October, had $2.3 billion bet in that month.
Bill King: For people who big numbers, I've just been wrapping up the 2024 numbers. And there's still a few states out, but US, that 32 or so states that have online sports betting, we're talking about $142 billion this year. Well, that's now with probably six or eight states still coming in, it's going to be $145 billion, upward of that probably. I don't know. Once you get past a billion, I'm always like, what's the rest of it? I don't care. But it is. Yeah, that's what we're talking about.
Matt Jordan: And what's the tax implication or the tax revenue implication for states that legalize this?
Bill King: All over the board. Really, all over the board. You look at New York, it's 50%. And there's no deductions. And you look at Pennsylvania, it's 36%, I think, if I remember correctly. And there's really no deductions. You've got states where it's 10% to 15%. And that's after they deduct a bunch, so that if—if you're in a state where there are either conservative or no deductions like New York, and you're a sportsbook, and you give somebody $100 to play with because they opened a $5 account, in some states, you could take that $95 almost like a tax write-off, right? You can't in New York. And so, in those states, yeah, you think about it, tax rate, you think about what it is. And the tax—now, remember, the tax is not on—a lot of people think—they hear the $140 billion or the $145 billion. And then they think, oh, 20%. No, no, that's the amount that was wagered. The taxes on how much the bettors lost. And it may be—like we just talked about, it might be after some deductions and some fairly sizable deductions in some states. So, it really—and where the states land on that number, you've seen Illinois, which passed to the lower rate, has since increased. A lot of states are looking at New York. The sportsbooks that when they lobbied the states, they all told the legislatures, you really need to keep the tax rate low because that's what's going to get people to bet a lot. And that's what's going to make us advertise more because we'll have a better profit outlook. And so, we're going to do more. And they're going to bet more. And you're going to make more. And then, all those states are looking over at New York and Pennsylvania and going, I don't know, they seem to be getting more money than we are. Illinois looking and going—so those are coming up. And now Massachusetts is the latest bill is talking about a higher tax rate. It's going on all over the country.
Matt Jordan: What are the—we're about 30 states right now or something like that are—is that do you think—
Bill King: Yeah. When I always—and I honestly look at it as online. We're at 30, 31, I believe, online counting the District of Columbia.
Matt Jordan: Do you think that's topping out? Or do you see it getting—
Bill King: It's slowing, but it's not tf topping. What's happened now—and I talking to a lobbying strategist about this a couple of weeks ago. Any state that hasn't passed at this point has a reason, right? So, it used to really be like, you can just watch it go. You could watch the state. If you had a state map, and you colored it in as states legalize, you could see it move. You saw it move across the Northeast, across the upper Midwest. It's sort of my neighbor passed, therefore, I pass. Florida passed. Georgia doesn't much care. That was a real, I think, eye-opener for those who are proponents of opening this up. So now you've got states that there's a real resistance for some reason, whatever that might be. And it's probably it might be different in Georgia than it is in Texas. And it might be different in Texas than it is in California. The only one that I would absolutely say is highly likely to pass this year is Minnesota. And the only one—especially out of the larger states that have pro teams, which is what we really pay attention to. There's a chance in Alabama, I would say. But out of the pro states, Minnesota, that's this year. I don't think—Georgia, I think, is going to have to go to a referendum. Texas would have to go to a referendum. Those referendums probably wouldn't get hit the ballot until '26, if not '27. California might be talking about '28. That's really all controlled by the tribes out there. And they haven't really moved. They've been slow to move. And so, we're at the point now where that state number—North Carolina opened this last year. And it was the only one of the large states to open. That goes back to when there were six and seven falling each year going back to 2021, '22.
Cory Barker: On the reporting side, from your vantage point, what types of stories or what types of coverage has gambling coverage replaced? So, if there is more coverage of prop bets or lines, are we seeing things disappear from the way the NFL is covered or the way individual NBA games are covered? What's happening through that process that you've noticed?
Bill King: I don't think it's a zero-sum kind of thing. What I do think—what I think has changed is it's the lens. And so especially the networks that I feel like—when I look at it and I think, that probably is going to—what they really would like is something that's going to resonate with bettor than the non-bettor is not going to hate. And better yet, the non-bettor may like because if you can tell me that a wide receiver—you could tell me that a defense is particularly susceptible to tight ends. You can tell me that this defense—tight ends get the—and this goes back to fantasy days, right, for anyone who played fantasy? If you dug up that information that said that the Patriots just can't stop tight ends this year, and there's a good tight end on their opponent, you might want them in the lineup. Well, the lineup is now you might want to place a prop bet on them. So that's something that probably would have been discussed before. Maybe now, it's more likely to be discussed, I guess. I think that's—I guess you could argue that it has. I'm not on set, and so I don't know that. But I would think that it—and the other thing is there are dedicated segments now. So that might have been something that came up during the pregame show before. Now, there's a 3-minute window, and something's got to go in it. And so, they're going to try to make it something that's appealing to everybody. Because the reality is, especially when you think about the—and I was—not long after this, after legalization when—well, probably a few years after legalization, but it was when the networks started to do more. One of the things somebody told me at a sportsbook was the real professional bettor really doesn't care what those four guys think, right? Unless you're coming to the table with data. The fact that, yeah, I think that I like the Bears today. So those that you see where you'll have the five guys line up at the end of the game. And they'll do five games. And they'll put logos on the bottom. And they'll all do picks. To the bettor, probably, not real valuable. You'll notice you don't see those sponsored or promoted by the sportsbooks. The stuff you see is when somebody comes in and tells them, this is what I think is going to happen. And this is the data I have behind it.
Matt Jordan: But the sportsbooks don't mind people losing, so they may like to see those people.
Bill King: That's not a bad point, although I frequently talk to the guys about, they want you to lose, but they don't want you to lose everything.
Matt Jordan: Right.
Bill King: Because they want you to keep coming back.
Matt Jordan: Well, per that, almost every day, along with the newsletters I subscribe to, there's some junk email that comes in. I get two kinds—one from political organizations asking me for the donation, the other from FanDuel or DraftKings saying, essentially, the first one is free, which is also what your local pusher will say to you in a back alley. So, what's the data that you know of from the journalism side of thing that gets at the levels of addiction? How much of the social problem this is becoming because of the language and the chasing the dopamine that we see going on in this can have potential social risk?
Bill King: You nailed—you actually just nailed what I think the conversation needs to be around. The way that stuff is presented is really important. And I think that that's what—the sportsbooks that are still around have all come to the table on this. As a matter of fact, there are some states that have passed or passed regulations around what the language can be in those offers. But the sports sportsbooks tried to get ahead of it largely and come around their own language that they'll use. Free is not a word that should be appearing, right? And bet, it's not a bet. It's a bet credit, right? That's one of, I think, the great—and that to me is the deceptive practice that we saw in the early days. And honestly, I don't think it was—I don't know that it was intentional. I think it's a way to look at it. I think you could say, hey, you give me—put $5 in the account. I'll give you $100 free or however you might want to word it, even free bets.
Well, there's a lot of strings attached to that, right. So yeah, you get the $100. You have certain amount of time to play it. You can't withdraw it until you play it. So, if you put in $5, and they gave you $50, so you've got $55 in your account. Until you bet that $50, it's not actually in your account. It's just credits.
Does it look like that? Is that what you come away with if you watch that commercial? It certainly isn't what you came away with when you watched those commercials back in the early days when you saw all the bros jumping around on the couch and high-fiving any more than it was in daily fantasy. They were being much, much more careful about that perhaps because it's the right thing to do. Perhaps it's because if they don't, the regulators might come in and make it even harder on them. But to your point, when you think about what this has done in terms of addiction, I talked to those advocacy groups with some frequency. The way they look at it is the higher profile has certainly increased the risk. It also has increased the profile of their help lines—of the fact that you can text, not just call. So, for that 18-year-old or 20, who shouldn't be betting because you got to be 21. But for that younger bettor who's in trouble, maybe that's a little bit more likely thing. I know my kids aren't going to pick up the phone and call an 800 line. But if they got in some trouble, they might text. So, I think there's a lot to that. With that said, look, everybody eyes wide open. I'll tell you right now, all the leagues as they did these sponsorships, they knew that there was going to be increased problem behavior. And they were putting money into this product that was going to cause increased problem behavior for their fans. And so, they tied—every one of those deals has responsible gaming components to it, where they have to include messaging. They have to spend money here, or they have to spend money there. Every state that legalizes puts money into a responsible gambling fund. Now, there's a lot of problems with that because we've got state by state regulation of something that's advertised nationally. And so, if you've ever been in the car and heard that fast forwarded at the end of a sportsbook commercial, in Pennsylvania, call 1-800. And they speed it up because they have to do 15 of them. Nobody's going to catch those numbers at all. That's gotten better too, by the way. But in the early days, that was a real problem. So, I think you could look at it really two ways. There's no question, there's going to be more problem behavior because it's a much higher profile. But there's also going to be much higher profile for the help that might benefit those people.
Matt Jordan: Do you see any—are there any investigative reporters that you know of that are doing good work on this and looking at the rates of addiction, et cetera, et cetera?
Bill King: I think that a story pops up here and there every once in a while. It's the same story, honestly. When it was before it was legal, probably 35 years ago, I spent a month working on a story about—before the Super Bowl about problem gamblers and somebody who was in a hospital bed with 78 stitches after wrecking their car the night before the Super Bowl and managed to get a bet down that morning. And I talked to the police, local cops that had busted a bookmaking ring and all that other stuff. So, the problem is not new. But yeah, big problem, the bigger the issue, the better it is to tell the story through that individual person. I think there's still good work that crops up on occasion. But it's a lot more complicated now. That's the other thing is if you really dig into this, for me, one of the more troubling aspects is that when you think about the fact that this activity occurs online, one of the real benefits of this is if I was betting $75 or a $7,500 with a bookie on the corner, the only one who knew about it allegedly was me and the bookie on the corner. This is now you know my name. You know my address. You know my social security number. You know everything. You know how much I've been betting, and you know how much I've been losing. So, the first person who might be aware of some problem behavior is the person who's participating in the problem behavior on the other side of that bet, right? So that to me is where there needs to be work done. The same machine learning that is telling you that if you offer me this promotion on my favorite team, or you know I like to bet on wide receivers, or you know I like this or I like that, or if I lose, I'm going to do this, and you build all your marketing around it, you also can be the first to identify a problem. And when you talk to the sportsbooks, they do talk about this entire departments that they have. They're doing that. How much are they doing that? Is it enough? Should it be regulated? Those are all, I think, fair questions.
Cory Barker: One thing that I wanted to ask, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but do you think that we'll see any evolution in disclosures or ethical statements from journalists or folks who are on-air talent as far as their relationship to betting? I can see it on one hand that an updated version of a newsroom ethics statement might include a little bit more integration of gambling and betting, whether you can't do it or you have to disclose that you do. But I also see a world—and certainly as someone who consumes a lot of sports media online and in podcasts, that the audience seems to like or want to know that you are a bettor, and you're good at it. So, your recommendations to me about props or lines or whatever are actually something that I should pay attention to. I should take them seriously because you do this. I mean, what's the balance there as far as should sports reporters or sports media folks be able to do this? And if they do, should they just disclose it or not?
Bill King: Balance is—you nailed it. I think balance is the answer. And I think it's different depending on what your role is. So, if you're a betting analyst, that network is paying you to be a betting analyst. You're going to go on the air. And you're going to talk about who people should bet on. And that is one job. And it's an expertise. And hopefully, they're good at it. And if they're not, they'll find somebody else who's better at it. And they'll be the next one who goes on and provides that analysis. So that's one thing. And I don't think there's much you have to do with those people. I think you just let them do their job. We all—I think, again, it's eyes wide open. Everybody knows what they're getting into here. There's a lot of discussion really around the online stuff, whether or not—and I think there are places where you can go and follow whether these people are—how accurate they are, how much they win, how much they lose. And those who are reputable probably are more participating in that stuff. And those who aren't probably aren't. But on the mainstream media side, I think that when you think about network talent that does that, that's a job. Where you have to be careful is—so think about—and this is something that ESPN is—ESPN has a—they have a set of rules and guidelines for their on-air talent in what you're supposed to do, what you're not supposed to do, what you should talk about, what you don't talk about. So, for example, if you watch an ESPN game day show on a Saturday before the college games, you'll see Kirk Herbstreit at the desk. And he's got a game that night. And when they make picks, he'll pick other games. He won't pick the game he has that night. There's a really good reason for that.
And honestly, it goes beyond perception in this case. A lot times, this stuff is perception. Like I've always said, the reason we have ethical policies that say that I shouldn't invest in a public company that I cover, or I shouldn't let you buy me a $50 dinner, or I shouldn't take a $25 whatever is not necessarily just that I'm this bad guy who's then going to be bought off. It's that anyone who knows I did that is going to think I might be this bad guy that got bought off. And the perception is the reality, right? So, when you look at it that way, that network, that guy, Kirk Herbstreit, who's sitting there on Saturday morning on Friday was in a production meeting with the coaching staff. And this is, by the way, the same thing goes for NFL games. And they're talking about strategy. And they're talking about everything else. And they're opening up to him to allow him to improve the telecast. And there's things that you will see or hear in those meetings that he's not going to say anything about until he goes on the air. If he did, they wouldn't talk to him anymore. And he would go in not knowing anything more than you or I do before that game. So, they do give them sort of an idea of what to look for, what to look out for.
Think about that information that he gets on Friday and what he could do with it between Friday and Saturday night. Make a lot of money from it, right? I mean, it reminds me of when I was a sportswriter, and you're covering practice, and a guy gets hurt. This was back in the day before there was digital media, right? So, you knew that night, you saw in practice, he got hurt. You hope that nobody from the radio or the TV station heard it because you were a newspaper guy. And your next shot was going to come that next morning, right? You were very careful to make sure that—you weren't going to go talk about it. You weren't going to go hang out in a bar that night and say, hey, do you believe that Matthews is hurt? No. You wanted people to see it for the first time in the paper the next morning. The media world has changed, right? But the information hasn't. And who has the information hasn't. And when you think about—when you talk to integrity experts who talk about game fixing and that sort of thing, the biggest concern is not really fixing. That's going to happen. It takes it a fairly elaborate scheme. Jontay Porter, maybe not all that elaborate, but he got caught. But Jontay Porter was really inside information, right? And that is the real danger. And that really gets back to your original point, what can be done with policies? What can be done? What should the expectations be? If you're covering college football, you probably shouldn't bet on college football. Probably no harm for you to bet on the NFL. Probably no harm for you to bet on the NBA. But you probably shouldn't bet on college football. It's not just Penn State—college football, right? Not just the game you're covering. That would be my line. I would imagine—I hope they're having conversations about this in newsrooms around the country. I certainly would be. But I also know that a long time ago that I heard stories about people hearing about injuries and immediately placing a bet and then filing a story. So, it's still there, right? And that inside information, to me, when you think about the media, and the things to watch out for, and what sports betting has changed, this has always been an issue. I used to get calls on Friday nights. And after a while, I would realize that all of these people might not just be big Florida fans. Some of them might be—and I was very careful, honestly, because I didn't want to blow anything that I might have in the paper the next day. I wasn't going to tell people that. But I didn't say anything to anybody on the phone that I wasn't saying on a talk radio show or that I wasn't writing. But I know others occasionally did place that bet before they filed their story. And that's a concern. But that's ethics. And that's ethics in journalism. And it's just one more area that extends to now.
Matt Jordan: Well, Bill, thanks so much for opening this world up to us. My eyes are now much more open. And thanks for chatting with us.
Bill King: No, I enjoyed it. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for taking the time.
Matt Jordan: Cory, that was really interesting. And as a longtime sports fan and who's become more aware of this, it's really eye-opening. So, what are some of the things that strike you as being pressing issues for the day?
Cory Barker: I think Bill did a really great job, actually, of reinforcing that a lot of what was on our mind, as far as how this is playing out with people's betting habits and how it's being reported on, is actually maybe not as new as we thought coming into this episode, that it's just more prevalent and maybe a little bit more pronounced. So, I think it's important to always remember the historical context for some of these things that there have long been, as he mentioned, pick'em columns, questions about how reporters use their access to information before they print it or run it. So that's one of the biggest things that came to mind for me. What about you?
Matt Jordan: Just that we think of sports, especially big market sports and NFL, et cetera, as being like the last big mass media, right? These are the last things that are pulling in the huge 10 million, 20 million, 40 million audiences. But at the same time, you have the same things that we see in the rest of the media sphere, these very targeted streams of information along with that. And that combination reminds me about a media ecology question that I'm struggling with always. It's like, what do we call mass media today?
Cory Barker: Yeah, it also just feels like there are so few guardrails, right? And Bill did a great job of underlining the expansion of betting on your phone across the country, across the world, but in the US context. And that to some degree, increased coverage of gambling is a response to consumer habits and demand. ESPNs of the world getting into these marketing and advertising agreements with sportsbooks that all feels like of a piece. And it's hard to say, ESPN is to blame for this or that there's a particular entity or person that we should say has created this scenario. But it also just feels like this is all now running on wheels. And I don't know how it's going to stop. Or we're just going to continue to have these pockets of stories, as he mentioned, where a news organization does a big story about the effects of gambling on a particular population. And maybe people take it a little bit more seriously for a bit, but then it just keeps going, right? And so, I do—I'm worried about that just from a reporting standpoint, how do we cover these things? And from a societal standpoint, that it feels like this is so big now, it's almost too big to wrestle with.
Matt Jordan: That's it for this episode of News Over Noise. Our guest was Bill King, a senior writer for Sports Business Journal. Learn more at newsovernoise.org. I'm Matt Jordan.
Cory Barker: And I'm Cory Barker.
Matt Jordan: Until next time, stay well and well informed. News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State Donald P. Bellisario, College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
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