Danny Funt

And this guy who's a micro betting executive said, we recognize that fans are predisposed to think positive outcomes will happen.

So you're going to hope your team scores more than you're going to hope they punt in a football game.

And we're going to shade the odds, as they put it, so that those positive outcomes pay out less.

And he sort of thought about it for a moment and said, we're kind of taxing the casuals.

with that shading.

And I just thought, man, the leagues and even these sports books have said betting is a way to enhance fandom.

It just makes you more on the edge of your seat, you know, more locked into the game.

At the same time, they're very explicitly taking advantage of your weaknesses as a fan just to drive up their margins.

So that, you know, as basic as it is, was telling, I thought, of just how this industry works and how ruthless they can be.

Right.

I'm glad you brought that up because there's a lot of ways in which the industry will say there's always been illegal betting.

We've just brought it out of the black market.

Sure, there's some truth to that.

But the online betting industry is a whole new ballgame, partly because just betting on your phone.

95% of this business is now conducted online.

So online betting opens the doors to such more complexity with how you're betting.

And the menu of things you can bet on has just exploded where there are thousands of things you can bet on within a single game.

Parlays are now all some people bet on, especially young people.

The idea that you can combine a bunch of things.

If they all hit, you'll make a lot of money.