Sports Betting with Ken Vogel (and The Balloon)

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Chinese Surveillance Balloon Over U.S. Airspace

  • Sports Betting with Ken Vogel

  • Outside of Politics: Sabbath

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EPISODE RESOURCES

CONTENT RESOURCES:

CHINESE SURVEILLANCE BALLOON

SPORTS BETTING

SABBATH

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:25] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, where we try to take a different approach to the news. There's just a lot going on right now. Tonight, President Biden will give his State of the Union address. We'll process that together on Friday's episode. As we're recording, we're learning about the devastating earthquakes that have caused many deaths and so much suffering in Turkey and Syria. And our hearts are with everyone who is affected, we'll continue to monitor the consequences of those earthquakes. Today, we are going to talk about the Chinese surveillance balloon that was spotted in Montana and destroyed off the coast of Myrtle Beach. As one commenter on the Internet observed, the most Myrtle Beach thing ever. And then with Super Bowl Sunday coming up, we asked Ken Vogel of The New York Times to talk with us about his reporting on sports betting. Even if you don't care at all about gambling on sports, I think this conversation reveals so much about how our government works and about where the courts and Congress and state legislators and lobbyists come in. So we hope that you find it as fascinating as we did. And then after we talk with Ken, we will share, as we always do, what's on our mind Outside of Politics. And today that is finding some rest over the weekend somewhere in a kind of a structured way.  

Sarah [00:01:34] I do want to put a public service announcement out there around our conversation around sports betting. You guys know I don't like sports. Don't get upset about it. You already know that about me. We've already had all the email exchanges where you explain to me how wrong I am about sports. It's just a quirk of my personality. So we're just going to lean in at this point and accept that Sarah doesn't like sports or think it's an important American culture and that's okay. So I just want to put that out because, of course, that surfaces in a conversation about sports betting.  

Beth [00:01:59] And that's a good PSA because this is a conversation where we have really different perspectives. I both enjoy sports and have no problem with sports gambling. And you do not like sports and think sports gambling is terrible. So you'll hear some of that in our discussion with Ken.  

Sarah [00:02:13] He handles it very well. Our week, like the news, is very packed. As you listen to this episode, we are in Maryville College in Tennessee, where we will be speaking tonight. When we return on Wednesday, we’ll be hosting a live book club event to wrap up our reading of the January six report. You can find details about how to join our premium community, and that event in our show notes. We are going to be taking questions, it's going to be so much fun. And we're working on a special newsletter this Friday that will include links to everything that's helping us get through the winter. Our Winter Survival Guide. Our newsletter is the best place to keep up with everything we're making and doing in the world. And you can sign up on our website: Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com to get all of that information delivered to your inbox on Fridays.  

Beth [00:02:53] Next step, let's talk about the balloon. I feel like I should say, where were you when you found out about the balloons, Sarah?  

Sarah [00:03:10] Listen, the balloon flew over Paducah. Did you know this?  

Beth [00:03:12] Well, I was going to ask you because I saw the map and I thought, that looks like Sarah might have seen the balloon from her house.  

Sarah [00:03:19] I didn't see it personally, but very many people in Paducah saw it. Also, friendly reminder, Paducah is the location of a former gaseous diffusion plant. So between Montana and Paducah, this narrative that it was a weather balloon-- friends, friends, no. I said on the News Brief it made me feel simultaneously special and creeped out.  

Beth [00:03:41] My whole balloon posture is to try to be humble and just to realize how many things we don't know. There's so much that we don't know. And I was really frustrated reading commentary from members of Congress who are scheduled to be briefed but haven't been briefed yet on their analysis of the situation, because I  feel like there is just a lot that we don't know. So we are learning some things. We are learning that this is not the first balloon, that we have seen the balloon during the Trump administration. Maybe administration officials at that time did not know about it. It sounds like it was discovered later, like, we put the pieces together later. But we've seen the balloon before. It's not the first balloon that has sailed through the country during the Biden administration. We've had Chinese balloons near Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and Guam. A second balloon last week was observed over South America, also believed to be a Chinese surveillance balloon. The Chinese say "No, that one is just to observe weather and do research too." And everyone says "Lies, that's not what's happening at all." These balloons have been around since the 1800s. They were very common during World War One and two, and everybody's like why would we use balloons now that we have satellites? Because these billions can hover at about the same height as commercial airlines fly, so they're able to take some clearer images than satellites. And they might also be able to gather electronic signals and intercept communications.  

Sarah [00:05:06] I do feel like balloon doesn't quite do the size of this thing justice. It's the size of three school buses. And so when members of the Republican Party were, like, just shoot it down, what's the big deal? Well, if you shoot three school buses down from the sky, people could get hurt. And then we have a real international incident on our hands.  

Beth [00:05:32] Also, the pictures of the people with their guns outside ready to shoot the balloon. What if it's a trap? What if they are counting on someone shooting the balloon and then something terrible happens? Let's have some-- again, posture of humility, some imagination that makes us capable of understanding that it's not quite as simple as, oh, Chinese balloon in the sky. Someone should pop it. This is a very sensitive, unusual situation in terms of the public being aware of surveillance that's happening. And that's the other thing I think we have to remember. Surveillance is happening all the time. All the time.  

Sarah [00:06:07] Well, and the instinct to shoot it down is a natural one. That was President Biden's initial response. Like, damn, shoot it down. They're like well citizens might get hurt. He goes, okay, well then let's wait till it's at level of water. And that's what they did. On Saturday, a single air-to-air missile fired by an F-22 fighter jet took the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina. And so now the Navy and the Coast Guard are like get all the balloon pieces. We've got to get the balloon pieces and figure out what it was doing, where it was going. The Chinese are, like, you guys sure overreacted to our weather balloon. And everybody's, like, we don't believe it was a weather balloon, guys.  

Beth [00:06:40] The officials were saying preliminarily they don't think that it added that much to Chinese intelligence capabilities. So there's all this conversation about we should have gotten it before it was able to float over the United States. And I think it was really creepy and messed with us, but if they don't think it collected that much more, then when you're factoring that cost benefit analysis, what happens if we shoot down something this size? What is in it? What if we've incorrectly assessed what's going on here? It makes sense to me that they let it get off the coast of South Carolina. But more than anything, it doesn't matter if it makes sense to me. This is just one of those things where I feel like as a public, we have to take a breath and say weird things that we don't quite understand. Hopefully we can trust our government to handle it appropriately.  

Sarah [00:07:23] Well, there was really good analysis in the New York Times by David Sanger that everyone was linking to this morning as we're recording on Monday which is-- you're exactly right. That's why you're reading so much about the history of this is because that's all the media has. It's like let's look back at some other incidences with balloons and with miscommunication. And I thought that was the most interesting part of this analysis, which is we had two fighter jets. I think they shot each other down (an American one and a Chinese) one several years ago during the Bush presidency. And they couldn't get anybody from China on the phone. Everybody was like, well, that's a problem. Let's not do that again. But it seemed like there wasn't a lot of communication between our government and the Chinese government. And I think this analysis is right, that this was an unforced error from the Chinese government that really wanted Secretary Blinken to show up on that trip he was making to Beijing that is now canceled indefinitely because this was obviously a violation of our sovereignty, which is something that China crows about constantly. So this seems like one more big mistake as this new era of Xi's leadership continues from like the removing the guy at the conference and ending the lockdowns in a way that really creates a crisis. It's just one thing after the other after the other.  

Beth [00:08:34] So here in the United States where we have had some very unserious reactions from elected officials about this, we do have a process for members of Congress to get good information. The Gang of Eight will be briefed this week. Those are the senior members of the Intelligence committees in the House and the Senate, plus the top Republicans. So Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Hakeem Jeffries, and then the four top senators on the intel committees, they'll be briefed this week.  

Sarah [00:09:02] All men.  

Beth [00:09:03] All men.  

Sarah [00:09:03] Which is a little disappointing.  

Beth [00:09:05] I think that's disappointing, too. I had the same reaction when I was checking out who gets that briefing this morning. It's Mike Turner, Jim Hines, Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, plus the four leaders I mentioned. And then the full Senate was already scheduled to have a classified briefing on China on February 15th. And now, of course, the balloon will be part of that conversation and we will have a zillion committee hearings about it. Jon Tester of Montana has said he's very interested in knowing what was going on with the balloon.  

Sarah [00:09:33] I bet he is.  

Beth [00:09:35] But I thought his remarks were exactly the right ones. I want to know what happened. I will get to the bottom of it, but not making any preliminary judgments. It was his state that this first became a thing about and he was very measured about it.  

Sarah [00:09:48] Because Jon Tester is the best. That's why.  

Beth [00:09:50] I think so, too. And then, of course, House Republicans are considering passing a resolution criticizing their response on Tuesday. Which if you're looking at a calendar, Tuesday, is before the full Senate is briefed on the issue. But they already have decided that President Biden should have shot the balloon down much earlier.  

Sarah [00:10:08] They didn't know enough. Good for them. For me, I think the entire balloon incident is just a really important reminder and opportunity to continue to evaluate and learn as much as we can about China. What is going on there now? What our approach to this country is? We have clearly shifted our diplomatic approach to China during the Obama administration and previous administrations. We're going to have open channels of communication. We are in a partnership, we are in an alliance, and then that came under some pretty harsh criticism beginning with President Trump. But it's not like President Biden took a hard turn from Trump's approach to China. He didn't. And there seems to be bipartisan agreement that we need to be tougher on China. I'm not sure how much I agree with that. I do think the sort of old neoliberal approach to China is not great and showed several weaknesses. And I think this situation we found ourselves in where we have two super power players in the global economy and an international foreign policy based so heavily on sovereignty is just rife with tension that we have not figured out how to handle in the best of circumstances, but particularly when it comes to China.  

Beth [00:11:32] Well, I remember talking early in the Biden administration about their stated policy on China, which was to be competitors where we have to be and friends where we can be. And figuring out where are the spaces where we must cooperate with one another globally, like on climate change, and where spaces in which our hands are forced and we have to be adversaries. I was interested in seeing Pete Buttigiege's response. He was asked over the weekend on one of the Sunday shows if we're in a new Cold War with China. And I really wanted to hear his answer to that question. He kind of pivoted to talking about the administration's accomplishments, that competition with China is part of why we've done the infrastructure package on a bipartisan basis and why we've done the CHIPS Act. 

Sarah [00:12:15] I'm not mad about that. I think that's great.  

Beth [00:12:17] It was a fine answer, but it didn't really get to the essential question: What is our relationship with China now? I have some concern that the bipartisan push to be tough on China will have really negative consequences over the long haul. For example, I think a lot of what House Republicans are saying about energy policy is actually pretty pragmatic. And I find a lot of space for agreement with it. But I did not agree with the passage of a law that restricted our ability to ever give fuel from our strategic reserve to China because I think that carving out those spaces, it acts like the board is set and fixed in a way that it just can't be in a world as interconnected as ours is, especially when so much of our economy is dependent on shipments from China. So I don't know where this goes next, but I do worry that the political element of having this creepy, gigantic balloon floating over our country is going to harden people's attitudes toward China in a way that could manifest in hate crimes and some really unproductive behavior.  

Sarah [00:13:26] Yeah, I think the knee jerk reaction to they're spying on us, well, of course they're spying on us. You guys, you're all using tick tock. It doesn't seem to bother you? They're spying on us and we are spying on them. The mutual spying is not that upsetting to me. I understand why it feels creepy, but it's like that's just because you're realizing something that probably deep down you knew all the time, which is just we live in a surveillance state, all of us, everywhere. And so that to me is not so upsetting, but I understand why it upsets other people. And then I understand how that can set off sort of a domino effect that really restricts our options and our perspective on our relationship with China. I do think ultimately cooler heads will prevail and I feel myself being a little skeptical of the arguments I hear. Ezra Klein had a former Biden official, State Department official on talking about this and just that, like, are we restricting innovation? Things aren't limited. And arguing just what you did, like, we're thinking things are set in stone and they're not. And I see that and I get it, and I agree to a certain extent. And I can't quite name the sense of it's not really competition, it's just I think that there's this desperate attempt to have it both ways. To be a superpower in the world with China and also be a democratic leader, like a leader of democracy. And I struggle as an Enneagram one that often defaults to black and white to see how both things can be true. That's why I would be a terrible diplomat, and I acknowledge that. And especially in a moment like this where the spying comes into such sharp effect and the fact that there is a lot of competition and there is just some fundamental disagreements about how the world should be ordered between our two countries, I think is more difficult than we like to acknowledge.  

Beth [00:15:17] And I think all of that puts into perspective why it's fine for Americans to do what we do and make jokes and make memes and be fascinated by the balloon. It is a fascinating thing. And also we need our elected officials to say to us, friends, there are a lot of competing interests here and there are a lot of things to think about, not all of them existing just between the United States and China. Thinking about China's support for Russia and Ukraine, thinking about Taiwan, thinking about the South China Sea. There are so many factors here. Just let us handle the balloon. We'll talk to you about it as much as we can and know that we don't need to be sitting on our porch with guns thinking this is a simple problem that we could solve easily. We're going to take a hard turn now from international relations to arguably the Super Bowl, but really I think a conversation about how the sausage gets made in American legislation. We're going to be joined for this discussion of sports betting by Kenneth Vogel, who is based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. He covers the confluence of money, politics, and influence. In November, Ken and several colleagues published stories on the fastest expansion of gambling in U.S. history. And with the Super Bowl right around the corner, we wanted to talk with Ken about that. Thank you so much for being here, Ken. I wonder if we can start with the pre 2018 landscape because we had this National Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act that said that states could not authorize gambling programs. And then in 2018, the Supreme Court overturns that law, says it violates dual sovereignty. And suddenly the game is on and we get in five years to 31 states and D.C. legalizing sports gambling. So can you tell us  what happened immediately after that Supreme Court opinion and where this surge came from?  

Ken Vogel [00:17:27] Yeah. And if I want you to even back up to before the decision that the basis for the law, (PASPA the abbreviation for it) is that sports were at risk of being corrupted by gambling and that this was a move that was taken to prevent that corruption. And so it's quite interesting that when you fast forward to 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that this law was unconstitutional, that suddenly the leagues initially they sort of tiptoe into it and they say, "Well, we're not switching our stance and saying that we're for gambling on our sports, but if you are going to (you the states) are going to legalize gambling, here's the things that we would like you to do it in a way that would minimize the chance for corruption. And shockingly, one of the things that they wanted was money in exchange for gambling on their games. And there is, I think, a valid or at least understandable argument. Like they would say "It's our product. We are the ones who put on these games. If there is going to be money made betting on these games, then we should get a cut of it." And eventually it didn't take long for that stat to shift from like, well, if you do legalize it, we'd like you to do these things to please legalize it and also do these things. And they had really laid the groundwork. They, both the leagues and the betting companies, the companies that were sort of well-positioned to cash in on this in the years before the Supreme Court decision by pushing fantasy sports, daily fantasy sports offerings, which kind of showed the template that you could have something involving money being placed on sports. They objected to the idea that this is actually gambling, is that it's not wagering. It's a game of skill. There were legal arguments about that. But either way, there were lawmakers and companies and customers who became comfortable with this idea of sports having like a monetary element for the fans where they can make money based on the results of what happens in these games. So the groundwork was laid in a couple ways for there to be this surge of sports betting legalization across the country after that decision.  

Sarah [00:19:46]  I don't make it my job to defend the Supreme Court decision because I do think it opened up this tsunami of terrible outcomes, but it's flimsy. It's flimsy to look at sports industry and say, "Money will corrupt it, you guys." It's just that's a flimsy argument to base everything on. Like if money's going to corrupt, well, there's already plenty, plenty of money sloshing around, corrupting all kinds of decisions from like the NFL and CTE to the treatment of the players, all of that. I get that that was flimsy. I wish there was and had been a better argument which I think you sort of put forth about why this is a bad idea.  

Ken Vogel [00:20:30] Yeah. I mean, there certainly are concerns about gambling addiction. And that remains a serious concern and one that the leagues and the teams and the sports betting companies are very sensitive to because they've seen where there has been a rush to legalize in other countries, that there has been a backlash because of a surge in bankruptcies and gambling addiction and underage gambling. And so they're acutely aware of this and they're trying to show that they can self-regulate, that they can do the things always to prevent.  

Sarah [00:21:08] That always ends so well.  

Ken Vogel [00:21:09] Right.  

Beth [00:21:10] I think it's interesting how the court dealt with the addiction issue. I read the opinion this morning as I was preparing for this conversation, and it feels like such an eerie precursor to the Dobbs decision because Alito wrote the majority opinion and he starts very much like he starts Dobbs. Like, Americans are of different minds about this. People of good faith disagree and that's why it's a policy consideration that we should leave to the states. So talk to us about the state process, because the lobbying effort around state legislators I thought was such a fascinating aspect of your reporting.  

Sarah [00:21:42] Did it work out like you said? Did they do it so responsibly? Impact so much tax revenue that they then dedicated to addiction outreach. I feel like that's definitely what happened, right? Can you sense my sarcasm?  

Ken Vogel [00:21:55] Yes. So one of the main sort of points of contention, it was the taxation and what the taxes would be used for. And the gambling industry argued-- and this is, by the way, one of the main arguments of the gambling industry, not of the sports teams or the leagues, but this idea that this is already happening. It's happening illegally, either through bookies, at your corner bar or online, offshore companies that were offering gambling even though it wasn't legalized in the US. It is happening illegally. And I don't dispute that, but there are disputes about the extent to which there was illegal gambling and the way that the gambling industry used the specter of illegal gambling to try to push state lawmakers to legalize it.  We found that there was a figure cited regularly starting actually, interestingly, with this national gambling impact study commissioned of congressionally mandated body that study gambling and addiction risk and all facets of gambling in the nineties. And from that, there was this figure thrown out of like up to between $80 and $380 billion a year in illegal gambling. And we tried to forensically go back. And by the way, that figure then was thrown out regularly in the debates in the state legislatures after the 2018 Supreme Court decision. So we're like, well, that's an interesting figure. It was very convincing. I mean, it was thrown out by the lawmakers, the lobbyists, all the advocates for legalizing. And we went back and tried to reconstruct. Where did that figure come from?  

[00:23:39] It appears to have basically been pulled from the ether. I mean, it was very flimsy. And subsequently the gambling industry has gone back and they've done other studies that tried to apply a more rigorous methodology to it. But certainly that was one of the ways that lobbyists laid the groundwork to push this through. Another way was to try to pit these states against each other and say like, "Well, I don't know. You might not legalize this year, but your neighboring states they sure are going to push it through. And if you don't, all your residents are just going to go over the  border and place their bets. But the big point, which is what you raised, how much the states can benefit from this? And so there was this balance that basically the state lawmakers and the lobbyists were debating that like, well, you could tax it like some high rate and collect a lot more money for all these various programs, whether it be education or gambling addiction prevention, treatment, detection. But if you have a very high tax rate, then people are not going to participate  because the winnings will be lower and that then the individual betters winnings would be lower if it was taxed at a higher rate. And that's actually not-- 

Sarah [00:24:53] I was just going to say it don't make sense with the other argument they're making that you'll be more invested in the game. They're like completely in dispute with each other. Look, you are a very professional journalists, so I'm going to say the point that I don't think you would say because you're a professional journalist. But as I was reading it, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a problem. And this is the problem with Dobbs and Alito in this new-- Ezra Klein did a whole show on it. Like, well, the policy is going to come from the state houses. They're bozos. Let me say this nicely as I can. They're bozos. These are part time legislators, often with not competitive districts. And the ones that are there trying to do their best, are holding it all together with duct tape like these. They're not fully staffed. They're not even there most of the time. They have other jobs, and so asking them to do the heavy lift of policy work for like the whole country is a disaster. Like, it's just a disaster when they don't have-- look, I mean, it's not a brain trust at Congress all the time, but they have a lot more staffing support just on the most basic level and at least they're there full time. Like in Kentucky, they're there like two months a year and almost none of them have staff. And you're asking them to set policy around difficult issues like sports betting? Well, no wonder we end up in these debacles.  

Ken Vogel [00:26:11] Yeah, you're right that I would say they're bozos.  

Sarah [00:26:15] I was, like, he's a professional. He just won't say, "You guys, they're bozos." I'll say it.  

Ken Vogel [00:26:19] Right. But what I will say some of those dynamics I have seen for myself. I covered state government and politics for years before I moved to Washington and started covering national politics. And there are well-recognized among lobbyists in industries, ways in which having an issue before a state legislature is preferable to having it before congress. Now, it costs less to influence state elections. You can go directly to the ballot if you can't get your way in the legislature through a referendum or an initiative. And to your point, these advocacy campaigns sometimes are much more effective at the state level because of the lack of staffing that is sort of part time nature of many state legislatures and the ability to leverage political to leverage public sentiment to achieve a result is just easier, cost less, the ads are less expensive, etc.. And so you saw from going back to perhaps the pre Supreme Court decision period where the gambling companies were building these relationships and this customer base with people on all these states.  

Sarah [00:27:38] They were bringing guns to a knife fight. That's what they were doing.  

Ken Vogel [00:27:41] Right. Through daily fantasy sports. And then they wielded that. They actually were like messaging people on their phones, like, so and so legislature is opposed to sports betting or is opposed to daily fantasy. Call them and tell them why they need to... And so it's like you're really getting a lot of bang for your buck there. But because you're using your customer base, which is good for you to develop and wielding it as like a lobbying weapon. And you're also able to make these arguments and potentially direct to legislators or potentially directly to citizens, to voters in a way that is more cost effective than doing it in Congress. And so the point about the taxation, they were quite successful and using that argument about how if you set the tax rate too high, the business is not going to be successful, the companies aren't going to want to do business here and people aren't going to bet as much. And that turned out to be pretty false.  

Sarah [00:28:39] As if like high tax states and cities just opt out of sports teams because the taxes are so high. What would even be the point to have a sports team in New York City? Give me a break.  

Ken Vogel [00:28:47] Right. But New York did set the rate very high. They're like 51% and they are making a ton of money off of it. And it's true the gambling companies are still complaining about it and they're trying to go back and retroactively open up the legislation and lower the tax rate or try to find some way to compromise on that. In New York, the New York lawmakers are like your people are [Crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:29:13] You want in, you got to pay. 

Ken Vogel [00:29:14] Right. So, yeah,  you're right about it being sort of the analogy that we use in talking about this. It's like when these gambling companies and the sports leagues and the sports teams try to push to legalize at the state level, it was like a hot knife through butter. There just wasn't that much resistance. And even states now that still don't have it, it's mostly perceived as a question of when, not if, they will legalize.  

Beth [00:29:40] That's where we are in Kentucky. We're having this argument right now, and I live in a place where that other state component is very compelling. You can gamble 15 minutes this direction in Indiana, 15 minutes this direction in Ohio. Why can't we do sports betting here in Kentucky? And so there is a feeling of when, not if. But I think that your reporting so shows that, yes, the issue for the populace might be do we want this as a general matter? The issue for the legislators is how will this happen and under what circumstances. And I would love as we get into those details for you to talk about this issue of taxation around promotions and how states basically have become partners in attracting new gamblers, because I think this is where we have to be able to rely on our representatives to do the digging that we won't do as citizens. And they have failed around this issue I think.  

Sarah [00:30:37] I want to tack on to that question. What makes me want to just spontaneously combust, is it's not like all these states didn't do lottos, didn't see that they didn't produce this tsunami of tax revenue that was just going to fund everything for all time. You know who makes money in the lottos? The people who print them. That's who makes all the money. It's so frustrating to me we didn't have an example to look at and go, hmm, how will this turn out?  

Ken Vogel [00:31:02] Yeah, that's a good point. On the track record of gambling, state sanctioned gambling in a lot of these states that has not produced has historically not lived up to the billing. I mean, it is not to say that it has been lotteries in particular that have produced a lot of money for states, but there's always the argument on the front end about all the great things that it's going to fund. And it often doesn't live up to the billing. And to Beth's point about the promotion, that is one of the ways that  the gambling companies got sweetheart deals with these states. They said we're now in business together. If we're going to do this, the gambling companies are in business with the state governments. And so it is in your interests, the states, for us to be successful because the more gambling that we're able to process, the more money you're going to make for whatever the programs that you deem to be worthy of receiving the state portion of that revenue. And so they came in on the front end, these gambling companies, and said, "Well, in order for us to attract the gamblers to what is a new industry, we are going to need to offer these promotions." This is what you see any time you turn on any sports talk radio or turn on the TV during sports or really any programming, you're going to see these ads about free bets, or risk-free bets, or trials. And they say, like, if you open an account with DraftKings, we'll give you like $100, $200, $300 in free bets. And in most cases, they got the states to allow them to deduct from the tax rates those free bets. They're like processing--  

Sarah [00:32:48] They're marketing. Can I deduct my advertising? That'll be great. Thanks, guys.  

Ken Vogel [00:32:51] Yeah, that's basically what it is. So that has really eaten into the shares of the tax revenue that these states could reap in a lot of cases because the companies are deducting so much off of the top of what the portion that would be taxable of the gambling-- the handle, they call it. So that has been another thing that has diminished the profitability for the states.  

Sarah [00:33:21] Well, and listen, there was a companion piece to this about the universities. And when I got to the part where the universities were emailing the student body with those promotion, if I had my child at a university and was paying tuition and they got an email with a free promotion for gambling, I would go full Carrie Nation-- full Carrie Nation with the battle axe. Are you even kidding me right now?  

Ken Vogel [00:33:46] At least some of those cases after our stories ran, after the story that you mentioned ran, first of all, it was not something that was widely known necessarily even in those days.  

Sarah [00:33:57] I bet when people found out they were mad.  

Ken Vogel [00:33:59] Yeah. And there was a revisiting of it. And there have been a few things in our series that prompted some government attention, shall we say so. Massachusetts was in the process of legalizing when  the stories ran. It was after our stories ran, including an extensive story about Barstool Sports and its founder and this guy, Dave Portnoy, having himself racked up a bunch of gambling debt that led to a bankruptcy early in his life, they were rather aggressive. The Massachusetts gambling regulators and their hearing with this Barstool Sports to decide whether to license it. And they ultimately decided to license it, but are doing some kind of investigation of barstool sports and its marketing practices.  

Sarah [00:34:47] Well, that's good.  

Beth [00:34:48] Yeah. I'm not opposed to sports betting in concept. It is these details where I start to get really upset at how carelessly it was done. That even states, as you reported, that passed some restrictions on how you advertise and to whom you advertise developed processes for people to say, "I have a problem, don't let me bet here." They didn't fund the enforcement efforts and the efforts to keep this gambling in check. And that's what I find really disturbing.  

Ken Vogel [00:35:17] Yeah. We actually found instances where there are states that did have one of those we call like self-exclusion list. So in other words, they  wrote into the law that if someone has a problem or thinks they will have a problem gambling, they can go to the state. Unfortunately, it's not always the state. Sometimes they have to go to the gambling company, then they have to go to each individual gambling company in some states and say, "Hey, I got this problem. I want to be on the blacklist." The self-exclusion list. And we found a number of examples where in fact the gambling companies that let people who were on the self-exclusion list continue to bet. Or we heard examples of people who put themselves in a cooling off period, as they call it, is something short of the self-exclusion list. You say, well, I'll take a two week break where I am not going to be able to gamble. And as soon as that two week period ended, they were targeted by inducements to promotions by the gambling companies to come back. Hey, we want you back sort of thing. So there are rules and there are laws, but there's a lot of self-regulation. And even in cases where there are laws that are enforced by the state, we find these types of violations where it doesn't appear as if-- some of it may be the gambling companies say, well, that was a third party processors error, but just it all adds up to an industry that is not necessarily as thoroughly regulated as they would have led the lawmakers who legalized it to believe.  

Sarah [00:36:53] I am opposed to sports betting. I guess I do technically sports bet because I bet on the Kentucky Derby every year, but that's the extent of it. And it's not even that I'm opposed to it. I just feel like there's this undercurrent that happens in sports where we tell ourselves it's special and something better is happening when we play sports or watch sports or engage in sports, even professional sports. And so the idea of government regulation is like, you know, but this is where our bets sells. Even though we all have to see 1 million examples where that is, in fact, not true. It's just an industry just like anything else, and it's going to be motivated by profit no matter how teary we get during the Super Bowl ads like. And it just feels like that sort of infected the reasoning and infected the thinking. And it happens so often with sports I think where we're telling ourselves something really special and human and sort of set apart from the rest of our everyday lives is happening here, when I just don't think that's true. And I wish we were honest about it. And it feels like when you watch what rolled out across the state legislators with the sports betting is just one more example of that.  

Ken Vogel [00:38:01] I mean, it's such a huge part of American culture and civic identity. I'm an Eagles fan.   

Sarah [00:38:07] I Know. I see your football. I can see it behind you.  

Ken Vogel [00:38:10] You see like I'm in Washington, D.C., but I'm watching on social media the just spontaneous, outpouring of unity and enthusiasm when the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl, like just people flooding into the streets. It's like so important. And now this important part of our national cultural and individual like municipal civic identity is so wrapped up in gambling, it's really inescapable for like the kids who are playing it early on. Again, there are restrictions that are put in place that are intended to limit the reach of the marketing to kids because the kids are impressionable. You don't want them to think of sports as inseparable from gambling. You want them to think of sports as like a pursuit that they could go and get exercise and develop like lifelong healthy habits and bond with teammates.  

Sarah [00:38:59] Because our kids sports environment is also so healthy.  

Ken Vogel [00:39:03] Well, that's a better reason, yeah. But it's like impossible now. So let's say you have like well if it's a game that's on during a certain time, when kids would be watching there should be less gambling ads, but it's like right there on the wall of Fenway Park or wherever. And it's  like in the broadcast now we're if you watch a basketball game on ESPN, the game crew announces the game from the arena we'll do these in game passes to the studio crew and they'll do like a promo. They'll be like who is going to score the next basket? Is it going to be the Denver Nuggets or the Philadelphia 76ers? So it's like a kid watching that is not going to come away with the impression that gambling is something that's different and prohibited, that you have to be older. They're going to see it as part of the game. 

Sarah [00:40:00] So normalized. Yeah.  

Beth [00:40:02] I was interested in the piece on university participation in these promotions to see that an athletic director testified that it's one thing for a student athlete to be harassed on social media after a game because fans are hardcore, and I am familiar with that as a Kentucky basketball fun. But it's another thing when people lose a significant amount of money based on their performance. And I just wonder if that's anything that you've seen and follow up to these pieces. How has it shifted the culture as these laws have become so commonplace? You know, 31 states.  

Sarah [00:40:37] Well, and to add on to that, now we have the NCAA regulations changing as far as sponsorships. So it's like all of this is converging in the university environment at the same time in a very intense way for student athletes and the students themselves.  

Ken Vogel [00:40:51] Yeah, and there are a few areas of concern. One is the possibility that someone might be enticed to throw a game or to somehow influence the result of the game.  

Sarah [00:41:02] Because they're so young, they can't process all the actions and consequences for that. They're like 18, 19, 20 years old.  

Ken Vogel [00:41:08] A. And B, as you said, Sarah, you see where there are some athletes who are that old who are getting these NIL deals, who are making a lot of money. But there are many, many more athletes who are not getting those. And it's tough to know because who knows what's happening in something like small college sports program. There haven't been any instances that we've seen thus far since the legalization of a big point shaving scandal or something like that that has really shaken the confidence in the sports betting regime. The other thing that we've seen sporadically is like what happens if a gambler loses a bunch of money? Would they take it out on a player or seek to take it out on a player? And we have seen a few examples of threats made against players and people who say that they've lost money. But again, thus far, thankfully, nothing that has risen to the level of where there's like actual retribution and or attempt at retribution against a player. But you see like after that horrible Damar Hamlin injury-- the Bills player was injured during the game against the Bengals-- people are on social media talking about how it's going to affect their bets that they placed.  

Sarah [00:42:35] Oh, Jesus.  

Ken Vogel [00:42:36] And it's like, wow, that really should be a much lower consideration than the health of this guy. But  it is just now inseparably a part of the games.  

Beth [00:42:49] Well, we know it will be inseparably part of the Super Bowl coming up. And we're so glad that you were here to talk with us about it. And good luck to the Eagles, I know you're a big fan. And thank you for all of this reporting.  

Sarah [00:43:00] Yes. Thank you so much.  

Ken Vogel [00:43:01] Thank you, guys. I enjoyed the conversation. And go bears!  

Beth [00:43:15] Thank you so much to Ken Vogel for his reporting and for spending some time discussing it with us. Sarah, when we were talking about what to discuss Outside of Politics today, we hit on something that we have talked about so many times off the microphone that we couldn't believe we haven't talked about it here on the show yet, and that is our observance of Sabbath. Or just generally, what are you doing with your Sundays to try to rest?   

Sarah [00:43:40] Well, in the new year my family and I really prioritize Sabbath. Now we are defining Sabbath as Saturday. We are celebrating the Jewish Sabbath, really, because it starts on sundown on Friday and ends on sundown on Saturday. Because the religious service on Sunday, we do go to church on Sunday and that has like this very active energy all its own. Griffin has to be there at 8:45 in the morning. He stays still after. My parents take a child after lunch. We have family dinner. And so it's just there's not a lot of quiet rest. And that's what's really appealing to me. I've started reading the Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel, and he talks about the architecture of time. We so often attribute sacredness to a place, and that's definitely what happens when we go to church on Sunday, but that there is a sacredness of time and how you choose to spend that time. And as we talked about on the last show,  I can feel it speeding up this time together as a family of five. You know, Griffin is going to be in high school next year, and I can feel that pressure to be on screens and to consume, to  participate in the outside world all the time from our phones. And I really wanted to prioritize rest. And we've done it a little bit, but we really, really tried to lean in in the new year. And so we light a candle, we have dinner together on Friday night. We either play a game or watch a movie or have reading time. And then really on Saturday we try to do something together as a family and just rest together. It wasn't like we're not like at home not leaving or anything, but it's been both incredibly rewarding and incredibly difficult all at the same time. What about you? What has been your sort of new focus on the Sabbath?  

Beth [00:45:22] Well, I should say that I have not been as intentional about this as I hope to be in the New Year, because our new year hasn't been what I expected it to be. And that's just life and happens and it's fine. I am really looking for Sundays to be a day wherein I feel rested. We go to church in the morning, but our church service is at nine, it's done by 10:00 o'clock. And so I have the day. We have begun a practice of having Sunday dinner with friends of ours and we just rotate houses and that's been really lovely and it's something that I look forward to all week and it takes the pressure off that meal. Even if we're hosting it, it feels like something fun and special instead of, like, let me figure out what we're going to eat tonight. I have been trying to think for myself about how can I spend time with each of my daughters where we're doing something that isn't dominated by screens? I don't really mind watching a movie together. I think that that's fine because it generates a lot of conversation. And we make popcorn before, we talk about why we're watching this. We talk about it afterward. But I've been coloring quite a bit with Ellen on the weekends, and I'm really enjoying that. And it's something I want to lean into a lot more. It's nice to color. I forget how lovely it is to just sit around and color. So this is on my mind a lot. And my relationship with my phone continues to be on my mind and I find myself just leaving my phone at a distance more and more, taking the Apple Watch off, trying to not be beholden to notifications on the weekend and just recognize that it's okay for me to not have hard rules around this, but the intention of just paying more attention and slowing down and taking a beat is really vital. I agree with you. I can feel that our days are numbered when we have this time all together in one space. And I do want to feel that.  

Sarah [00:47:09] Well and our days are numbered, period.  

Beth [00:47:11] In general. That's right.  

Sarah [00:47:13] And I said it's been difficult. We have had so many tears. I don't want to do that. I don't want to watch that movie. I cried one Sunday because I said this feels like all of the pressure is on me to sort of organize our days and find things for us to do together, not to mention just the Chinese water torture of [Inaudible]. And so it is hard, like it is kind of work. We talked about Ezra Klein had a conversation about Sabbath on his podcast and they talked about like it is work. It is effort. There is effort here. So if the idea is rest, pure rest, this isn't what it is. Because pure rest is in a way all of us going to our corners and getting on our screens and just completely numbing out in a way. And we do that sometimes on Sunday. But like on Saturday I'm really trying to be very conscientious and intentional. I'm trying hard not to keep things out of Friday night just so we have Friday nights together. We've had family dinner with my parents and my grandmother since we moved back to Paducah, spawned by The Sopranos, because I watched Carmela Soprano host that Sunday dinner four years on that show. And I said when I go back to Paducah, we're doing that. I don't cook it like Carmela, my husband does. But it does it. That Sunday night dinner, having some structure in that is  really, really nice. There is rest in structure. I think that's one thing I've learned. Like, you think you just want to empty calendar and in a lot of ways you do, but and paradoxically also a little bit of something to do together and just have kind of a-- This weekend we worked on a Connect's Eiffel Tower, which was very intense and hard, but just like having something to do together I think is so important. I think we're like finding our groove here. And I don't know what'll happen as like it's easy to find the space in the winter. I don't know what'll happen in the summer as the sunsets get later and later and later, but I'm really enjoying it right now.  

Beth [00:49:09] Yeah, it's nice to have some structure even if it's just like there's a puzzle on the table. So you have a minute, you can say, "Hey, should we go work on our puzzle?" We've been doing some of that and we love that. We have regular card games that we play. Chad and I just started playing Cribbage. Have you ever played Cribbage? It is unbelievably complicated, but really fun. I really admire that.  

Sarah [00:49:31] I'm out.You know I don't like to learn new games. I don't want to learn a complicated game. Heck, no!  

Beth [00:49:35] I think that's what's fun about it. It was nice to learn something new. It has all these very charming expressions in it.  

Sarah [00:49:41] I truly believe that there are not a lot of things in humanity in which you can easily divide the population into two groups, but I believe this to be one of them. A person who likes to learn new games and a person who does not like to learn new games. I think you maybe can divide the entirety of the human population into those two groups.  

Beth [00:50:01] Okay. Well, now I want to know where everybody I know falls because I love to learn a game.  

Sarah [00:50:04] No.  

Beth [00:50:05] I think it's very exciting.  

Sarah [00:50:07] I just glaze over as I start to explain. And my husband loves the games, so I'm like, "Can we just play the games we know and love?" Like, I love Scattergories. He hates Scattergories. He's like it's the same thing every time. I'm like, I know, right? Isn't that great? It's fine.  

[00:50:21]  It's fine. Well, we would love to hear how you are finding some time of rest wherever you get them in your week. We love hearing your thoughts about all the things we discuss, and we often share your messages in our weekly newsletter. So just a reminder to sign up for that if you haven't already by visiting Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com or clicking the link in our show notes. We'll be back in your ears on Friday. Until then, have the best week available to you.  

[00:50:59] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:51:05] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:51:11] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers [00:51:15] Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lisa Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh.  

Beth [00:51:53] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremmer and Tim Miller.  

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