Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Don't miss out on consistent bookings and global reach. Head over to Booking.com and start your listing today. Get seen. Get booked on Booking.com. Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher, Nick Pell, which means, you know, it's gonna be a banger, because he only gets the topics that nobody else will do.
Here on the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker.
During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, it's Skeptical Sunday. A rotating guest co-host and I are going to break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic.
such as GMOs, toothpaste, crystal healing, banned foods, chemtrails, recycling, and more. And if you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime and cults, and more.
That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. All right, here we go. Let me set the scene. A guy at a bar whips out his phone. He's six beers deep and in the middle of watching his favorite team play. Not exactly drunk, but definitely not sober.
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Chapter 2: What led to the explosion of online gambling in the U.S.?
He decides it's time to put his mortgage payment on an in-play bet, a bet placed after the game has started. He follows the sport closely. He knows both teams well. He even knows the spread. Plus, it comes with a risk-free bet that if he hits both, it's going to pay his mortgage for the entire year. So why not? right? Well, of course, the bet doesn't hit.
And now five seconds spent on his phone has him wondering how he's going to stay in his house this month. He's not a habitual loser. In fact, he wins more than he loses. But when he loses, he loses big and often finds himself worried about how he's going to make ends meet this month. And he is not alone.
Since the legalization of sports betting at the federal level, there's been a flood of apps that make it easier than ever to put your hard-earned money on a sure thing. But is any of this a good thing? Who's making the money and who's losing it? And what are the broader social effects? Here today to help me raise the stakes is writer and researcher Nick Pell. Are you a gambling man, Nick?
I think I know the answer.
No, no, no. I trade crypto like a respectable degenerate.
Oh, right. Yes. Totally not gambling. I forgot.
No, no, not at all. I use charts and graphs for my gambling. I mean, trading. It's called technical analysis, and it's totally not astrology for crypto bros.
You actually, you came to me with this topic, which I was a little surprised by because, well, because you trade crypto, which is kind of just like gambling for nerds.
Not gambling, Jordan.
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Chapter 3: How does the business model of gambling apps exploit users?
If you've ever seen the movie The Grifters with John Cusack and Angelica Houston, Angelica Houston's job is to go into horse tracks when the odds are too lopsided and throw a bunch of money to even them out because that's how they make their money. It doesn't matter really who wins to a bookie because they're getting their juice, which is typically 10% of all the action.
They're not trying to out-bet anyone. They want to manage the line, and the VIG makes that profitable.
All right. So this is one of those terms I've heard in every gangster movie ever and every episode of The Sopranos or whatever. And I have no idea what it means. Well, Vig, you apparently do. So can you explain what the Vig is for me and everybody else who didn't grow up with an uncle who was a bookie? Didn't grow up in a mobbed up family.
Right. The Vig is mostly an interest rate thing.
Chapter 4: What is microbetting and how does it affect gamblers?
It's usually how it's used. But in gambling terms, it's the house advantage that's baked into every bet. You're not wrong in a certain sense. Crypto is sportsbook for nerds, for sure. And much like in crypto trading or other forms of trading, you can place bets in sportsbook in a way that makes sense. You can get partial wins. You can make wins that easily compensate for your losses.
And if you're a whiz at arbitraging your bets, this is called dutching in the world of gambling, you can lose most of the time and still win. If you just bet... the minus 110 line, you only have to be right 52% of the time to make money.
Okay, without getting too deep in the weeds, what does that mean slash what would that look like?
A 110 line means you spend a buck 10 for every $1 you hope to win. And the 10 cents is the vig or the juice. That's the house advantage. Bookies want to take money from the losers and give it to the winners and then pocket the 10 cents. So it actually is quite a bit like trading crypto or stocks. I mean, we're talking market maker fees and stuff.
So super simple math here in terms of how you would win by losing. Say I'm at the horse track and I put a dollar on a 10 to one shot and five bucks on a three to one shot. Well, the three to one shot loses. So I lose five bucks. but the 10 to one shot comes in. So I made 10 bucks. So I'm still up. Like I think the actual math is four bucks. You're up four bucks.
Multiply it by 10 or a hundred or whatever. You played the odds. That's what you do. You play the odds. This is effectively what day traders do. You know, if your trade is unprofitable, you throw more money at it at a lower price so that you're in profit more quickly, DCA down. The math is somewhat more complicated here because there are fees.
But the basic point remains that the thing is you play the odds.
So at the very least, it's slightly less stupid than just pumping your money into video poker.
You can actually get an advantage on video poker, but the squeeze is not worth the juice on that. But it can be done. With Sportsbook, you can manage the downside and take home decent profits. And do you want to know how online betting apps deal with guys who know how to arbitrage their bets properly? I see. My guess is they ban those users. Your guess is correct.
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Chapter 5: Why is gambling addiction particularly dangerous?
And they focus on things like expected value and arbitrage.
Okay, what's expected value again for people who didn't take statistics slash gambling class in college?
Or never took gambling. Yeah. Yeah, so it's... It's a method of calculating risk versus reward in Sportsbook. You want to bet on lines with positive expected values and avoid negative expected values. But yeah, these platforms, they use AI to ban people who actually know how to bet, which should tell you everything you need to know about these apps.
Yes, that is definitely really sus like, oh, you're too good. You're out of here. And it's not cheating. You're not cheating. You're not hacking anything. It's not even like sportsbook version of card counting or whatever that might be. You just happen to know what you are doing. So they throw you out. What I don't I don't get is why ban them. They're still making money off those users.
I don't I don't really understand.
You're messing up their business model. There are places that are specifically for the sharps, and they love sharps because you're creating data for them. You're helping them set a better line. So they don't care. They welcome sharps.
Oh, because they're using your brain as part of their computer to train where the bet line, whatever, should be, if you're smart.
Yeah, they will literally say sharps welcome. Like you said, their business model is like, well, these guys know what they're doing. Let's use them to set our line. Like crowdsource data. Yeah. Yeah. Most guys and they are overwhelmingly guys using these apps are just going to YOLO a thousand bucks a clip at a 10 game parlay because all they see is, oh man, if this hits, I get 75 grand.
And that's the business model of retail gambling apps.
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Chapter 6: What strategies can help casual gamblers avoid addiction?
Take these people's phones away, I guess. I don't know.
It would not be the worst idea because it's going to get very, very greasy the further we get into this.
Yeah. So lots of people are gambling with their phones, but okay, devil's advocate, who cares? You of all people would agree this is not a problem in and of itself.
Chapter 7: How has the legalization of sports betting changed the industry?
So how do we know when gambling is actually a problem versus just a really dumb hobby?
Absolutely. The Mayo Clinic offers us a comprehensive list of signs of problem gambling. If you're constantly obsessing over gambling, including figuring out ways to get more money for gambling, you're probably a gambling addict. Like any other addiction, gambling Gambling addiction requires increasing amounts of the drug to get the same thrill.
You're taking bigger risks with bigger bets just to feel something. In the words of Axl Rose, I used to do a little, but the little wouldn't do it, so the little got more and more.
Yes, okay, now I can relate. Axel explained it for you. Axel explained everything.
Yes. Another common symptom of addiction that applies to gambling, trying to quit without success, irritability when not gambling or gambling to avoid your problems, chasing losses, which is gambling more money to win money back, lying to your family about losses or otherwise letting gambling interfere with your personal or work life.
Finally, there's borrowing money to cover your gambling expenses.
I'd probably also add to that gambling money you don't really have, which I guess is covered by borrowing money, but it seems worth pointing out that once you start gambling money you can't afford to lose slash is not even yours, that is a problem. So how common is problem gambling then, specifically related to mobile and online platforms?
According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, between 2 and 2.5 million adults have severe gambling addiction, with another 4 to 8 million with gambling problems that impact their lives but don't tick enough boxes to officially be gambling addicts. The lifetime risk is that between 1 and 2 percent of all Americans will experience a gambling problem at some point in their life.
We talked earlier about how it's mostly men who are gambling. How does this work out when it comes to problem gambling?
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Chapter 8: What role does AI play in online gambling platforms?
How much of an impact does the legalization of sports gambling have financially? Well, how big did this all get? That's what I'm asking.
Before the repeal, we had a $5 billion industry that was effectively confined to one state. Afterwards, it's a $120 billion enterprise. Wow.
Okay, that's like 25 times what it was before. Holy smokes.
Yeah, it's a big deal. Now, this is where it ties into digital gambling. 94% of bets are now placed online or via mobile. In 2025, American gambling platforms close their fourth consecutive year of growth when we include both sports betting and online slots and table games, which it's insane to me that people can do slots on their phone.
We also have some data about how online gambling is impacting problem gambling in the United States. If you gamble online, you're three to eight times more likely to develop a gambling problem than a brick and mortar gambler.
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