Gambling is Going to Dominate American Sports Culture

Have you watched a sports game at a bar recently? I popped in a Chicago bar a few months ago to catch a basketball game. Around me, the atmosphere was oddly muted. I look around and realized that more than half the patrons were looking at their phones, talking about lines, prop bets and wagers. They looked very engaged. This isn’t a passive sports experience. They were actively following the game and completely engaged. Gambling on sports is Lindy. They have been together since the beginning of sport. It’s exciting.

But it’s a strange sight. Almost like fandom is shifting in real time. It makes sense, Americans are spending more and more on gambling than they ever have.

There is a side effect to all this gambling on sports. Some players are getting into the action as well.

Earlier this week, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter became the subject of a league investigation of alleged suspicious betting activity.

• The men's basketball team at Temple University was flagged by the gambling watchdog firm U.S. Integrity for suspicious wagering activity on its games.

• Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, the highest-paid athlete in American sports history, became entangled in a betting scandal due to his longtime interpreter's ties to an alleged illegal bookmaker under federal investigation.

• In 2023, the Ottawa Senators' Shane Pinto was hit with 41-game suspension for gambling, making the 22-year-old American the first modern-day player banned for sports gambling

• The National Football League, meanwhile, suspended 10 players for betting in 2023. 

Athletes gambling, even on their own games, is not shocking nor will it hurt professional sports too much I think. It's inevitable. With around 2,900 players in the NFL, MLB, and NBA, mostly men under 30, achieving even mid-90s percent compliance with league gambling policies seems unlikely. Young men will gamble and most likely get caught. Too many eyes are on the players now.

There is a bigger issue at stake here. The legalization of sports gambling in America is likely to fundamentally alter what it means to be a fan today. Gambling is a lot of fun. m could warp into a casino-like atmosphere with micro betting while watching.

How Did We Get Here?

May 14, 2018, might not ring a bell for most sports fans, but it's the day that forever altered sports culture in America. The Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, ending over a century of effective sports betting prohibition in the country. During the 20th century, mainstream Americans didn't bet on sports; they simply supported their team. But in the last year and a half, American sports culture has undergone a rapid transformation.

Of course, it has. This is America, where everything goes to the extreme. The American capitalist machine is unbelievably efficient. It is the number 1 place in the world for business and innovation. Sometimes to good.

This is what coffee people drink looks like now.

It's already started to happen. Betting app ads are popping up in every commercial break and covering stadiums and arenas. Sports leagues are even rolling out gambling-focused shows on their official networks.

Even players are beginning to hear fans starting to yell about stats and bets.

The NBA just added sports betting to its official game stream. Anyone can start placing bets while watching the game. It is a completely smooth experience now.

The message is unmistakable: leagues are pushing their fans to keep betting, convinced that viewers will stay hooked to their screens as long as there's money at stake. This shift is poised to redefine what it means to be a sports fan. I foresee that in the near future, more than 80-90% of sports viewers will have some financial investment in the games they're watching.

@bookitwithtrent

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But there is still time to save American Professional Sports Culture.

In This Newsletter

American Professional Sports Fan Culture must adopt European Fan Culture norms or else it will be completely taken over by Sports Gambling.

US Sports Culture Must Change

The introduction of sports gambling in the U.S. is like unleashing a sleek, insidious predator into an ecosystem unprepared for its arrival. In the constructed world of American sports, fans have always relished the purity of the game. The sudden infusion of gambling is a jarring disruption.

In Europe, gambling and sports have evolved together over a hundred years. Sure there gambling scandals in Europe and betting is very normal. But gambling doesn’t disrupt the fan experience. It competes with a passionate fan base that watches the game without monetary incentive. American professional athletes go play abroad and this is the first thing they notice.

But in the U.S., our sports culture is more family friendly, laid back and passive. Which is fine in normal times when gambling wasn’t legal. But now? It’s like the ecosystem is shook up because an apex predator has been introduced.

US Culture Must Adopt European Sport Cultural Norms

If you never traveled to another country to view professional sports, you wouldn’t know that the US pro sports scene is a little bland comparison. American professional sports events feel more sanitized and entertainment-focused, with fan engagement being more about consuming the spectacle rather than actively participating in it.

@sentenza915

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Sport must not just be regarded merely as another form of business entertainment, rather than being recognized for what it truly is: a tool that fosters a kind of ecstatic communal spirit, bordering on the sacred.

Here are 5 ways to install more of a fan culture in the US so sports gambling won’t take over:

1) Lower The Ticket Prices. Attending professional sports games in the US, especially NFL and NBA games, can be more expensive on average than attending equivalent games in Europe. NFL games are known for high ticket prices, often exceeding $100, while NBA games also tend to be pricey, with average prices frequently above $100. Moreover, the Sports franchises cater to richer and richer fans. Cutting out any working collar element.

2. Ban Teams From Moving Cities.

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