Betting Addiction Quotes

Did you bet on me?' I ask dumbfounded. 'Yeah,' Lo says, unabashed. His eyes fall to mine. 'And I'll always bet on your side.

You want more of me, don't you, Barrons? I got under your skin deep. I hope you got addicted to me. I was a wild one, wasn't I? I bet you never had sex like that in your entire existence, huh, O Ancient One? I bet I rocked your perfectly disciplined little world. I hope wanting me hurts like hell!" Mac

I bet you have the softest pair of lips out there. And I bet you taste sweet—sweeter than one of those beignets you've got me addicted to." His hand squeezed around the back of my neck. "But you got one hell of a bite—a kick to that sweetness. It'll be rough getting in there, and you're going to fight it every step of the way, but it'll be smooth once I'm there.

It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.

What did you do to him?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Did you get him addicted to happy pills? Did you give him a personality transplant? Hypnotism? You have to tell me, because I have a bet going with Artie.

but if I had to put money on a match between these two, I’d always bet on Connor Cobalt.

There's also a possibility that the landlord is in there right now, wearing women's undergarments. Or a drug addict is inside stealing jewelry.Or a boatload of recent Chinese immigrants without a television watching Russia play Finland in hockey and placing bets over beer. You have no idea what's behind that door. You can't just pick the options within your field of vision. Reality comes from everywhere. At best, you can narrow down the likelihoods. But in the end, it's not a matter of deduction. It's a matter of fact. One bullet will kill you if you're stupid or unlucky. So at least don't be stupid

I bet if I spent less time with the television and more time pursuing activities that enhance my life and expand my knowledge, I won't freeze up in business or social situations.

If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. It might even make you live longer. Coffee can also make you more likely to exercise, and it contains beneficial antioxidants and other substances associated with decreased risk of stroke (especially in women), Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Coffee is also associated with decreased risk of abnormal heart rhythms, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.12, 13 Any one of those benefits of coffee would be persuasive, but cumulatively they’re a no-brainer. An hour ago I considered doing some writing for this book, but I didn’t have the necessary energy or focus to sit down and start working. I did, however, have enough energy to fix myself a cup of coffee. A few sips into it, I was happier to be working than I would have been doing whatever lazy thing was my alternative. Coffee literally makes me enjoy work. No willpower needed. Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non–coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks. The biggest downside of coffee is that once you get addicted to caffeine, you can get a “coffee headache” if you go too long without a cup. Luckily, coffee is one of the most abundant beverages on earth, so you rarely have to worry about being without it. Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit.

She had landed the better odds, starting with the drug that ruled their respective childhoods. Chanels mother had chosen crack. Supreme's parents had fallen to heroin. Both habits could be catastrophic, but given the choice, crack was the better bet. A crack addict could learn to function between highs. Heroin left people flattened.

Connor, raising yourself on some prodigious level. I bet your biggest dream is to kiss the ass of Bill Gates.

Hey, laugh all you want, but I grew up poor in backwoods Florida, with an immigrant, single mom. I'm the only person in my family who learned to read, and that was only because of comic books at first, and then fantasy novels and an active imagination. I got addicted to them when I was a kid and read like crazy. I must have read thousands of them. So I've been reading about elves and that kind of thing for twenty plus years. I can't help it if I'm excited." "You were a geek," she said. "Well, I guess." "I bet you played Dungeons and Dragons in a friend's garage." "Well, yeah." "Nerd.

I’ve been in your skin,” he taunted. “I know you inside and out. There’s nothing there. Do us all a favor and die so we can start working on another plan and quit thinking maybe you’ll grow the fuck up and be capable of something.” Okay, enough! “You don’t know me inside and out,” I snarled. “You may have gotten in my skin, but you have never gotten inside my heart. Go ahead, Barrons, make me slice and dice myself. Go ahead, play games with me. Push me around. Lie to me. Bully me. Be your usual constant jackass self. Stalk around all broody and pissy and secretive, but you’re wrong about me. There’s something inside me you’d better be afraid of. And you can’t touch my soul. You will never touch my soul!” I raised my hand, drew back the knife, and let it fly. It sliced through the air, straight for his head. He avoided it with preternatural grace, a mere whisper of a movement, precisely and only as much as was required to not get hit. The hilt vibrated in the wood of the ornate mantel next to his head. “So, fuck you, Jericho Barrons, and not the way you like it. Fuck you—as in, you can’t touch me. Nobody can.” I kicked the table at him. It crashed into his shins. I picked up a lamp from the end table. Flung it straight at his head. He ducked again. I grabbed a book. It thumped off his chest. He laughed, dark eyes glittering with exhilaration. I launched myself at him, slammed a fist into his face. I heard a satisfying crunch and felt something in his nose give. He didn’t try to hit me back or push me away. Merely wrapped his arms around me and crushed me tight to his body, trapping my arms against his chest. Then, when I thought he might just squeeze me to death, he dropped his head forward, into the hollow where my shoulder met my neck. “Do you miss fucking me, Ms. Lane?” he purred against my ear. Voice resonated in my skull, pressuring a reply. I was tall and strong and proud inside myself. Nobody owned me. I didn’t have to answer any questions I didn’t want to, ever again. “Wouldn’t you just love to know?” I purred back. “You want more of me, don’t you, Barrons? I got under your skin deep. I hope you got addicted to me. I was a wild one, wasn’t I? I bet you never had sex like that in your entire existence, huh, O Ancient One? I bet I rocked your perfectly disciplined little world. I hope wanting me hurts like hell!” His hands were suddenly cruelly tight on my waist. “There’s only one question that matters, Ms. Lane, and it’s the one you never get around to asking. People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm. It’s the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. Prove yourself. How much truth can you take, Ms. Lane?” Dreamfever

Seattle. I’ve never seen a city so overrun with runaways, drug addicts, and bums. Pike Place Market: they’re everywhere. Pioneer Square: teeming with them. The flagship Nordstrom: have to step over them on your way in. The first Starbucks: one of them hogging the milk counter because he’s sprinkling free cinnamon on his head. Oh, and they all have pit bulls, many of them wearing handwritten signs with witticisms such as I BET YOU A DOLLAR YOU’LL READ THIS SIGN. Why does every beggar have a pit bull? Really, you don’t know? It’s because they’re badasses, and don’t you forget it. I was downtown early one morning and I noticed the streets were full of people pulling wheelie suitcases. And I thought, Wow, here’s a city full of go-getters. Then I realized, no, these are all homeless bums who have spent the night in doorways and are packing up before they get kicked out. Seattle is the only city where you step in shit and you pray, Please God, let this be dog shit. Anytime you express consternation as to how the U.S. city with more millionaires per capita than any other would allow itself to be overtaken by bums, the same reply always comes back. “Seattle is a compassionate city.” A guy named the Tuba Man, a beloved institution who’d play his tuba at Mariners games, was brutally murdered by a street gang near the Gates Foundation. The response? Not to crack down on gangs or anything. That wouldn’t be compassionate. Instead, the people in the neighborhood redoubled their efforts to “get to the root of gang violence.” They arranged a “Race for the Root,” to raise money for this dunderheaded effort. Of course, the “Race for the Root” was a triathlon, because God forbid you should ask one of these athletic do-gooders to partake in only one sport per Sunday.

Even drinkers that would be classified as "normal" in the eyes of a doctor, would find it unimaginable and horrifying to never drink again. That, friends, is a sure sign of addiction. It may only be a thrice-a-week psychological addiction, or an "I have to drink at parties" dependence, but it's a bet-your-bottom-dollar dependence nonetheless. If you can't live without something, it's an addiction. The inconvenient truth that we conveniently ignore is this: it's practically impossible to drink alcohol without getting its hooks into you. Because it's addictive.

Seattle. I’ve never seen a city so overrun with runaways, drug addicts, and bums. Pike Place Market: they’re everywhere. Pioneer Square: teeming with them. The flagship Nordstrom: have to step over them on your way in. The first Starbucks: one of them hogging the milk counter because he’s sprinkling free cinnamon on his head. Oh, and they all have pit bulls, many of them wearing handwritten signs with witticisms such as I BET YOU A DOLLAR YOU’LL READ THIS SIGN. Why does every beggar have a pit bull? Really, you don’t know? It’s because they’re badasses, and don’t you forget it.

i met this girl down the block from me. used to tell myself she was to hot for me,but then i saw her at the corner store,so i ran on over just to grab the door,i got her number we started chillen [ hay] we started buzzen we got addicted,now i,i'm the one she can't live with out... i bet that her right now, shorty hiten me up,says she wants a re-up,knows i got the best in town cause when she gets the shivers,she knows i'll deliver, i'm the one who holds her down,she's about to break +4,nd know i won't let her wait +4,its geten kinda late,late,late, late,and she just wanna shake, shake,shake,shake..

ghost. No way am I gonna get bullied by anyone or anything—especially ghosts. “Mattie, you okay?” Mrs. Olson is eyeballing me with concern. I haven’t moved to get out of the car. “All good, Mrs. O,” I smile weakly at her. “Just tired.” Taking a deep breath, I open the door and force myself out. I am not afraid, I chant over and over. The other kids are still at school, so the house is pretty empty. Mrs. O had told me earlier we had a new foster kid in the house, but I’m betting he’s at school too. She sends me upstairs with the promise to bring me a sandwich and a glass of milk. The doctors said no caffeine for a while, so my favorite drink in the world, Coke, is off limits. At least until I can escape and get to a gas station. I need it like an addict needs crack. My room is exactly as I left it, the bed turned down and my clothes thrown into a corner. A simple white dresser and mirror, desk, and a twin bed covered in my worn out quilt decorate the room.

Cassie,” I growl at the young brunette. “How’s the sobriety?” Alex brought the submissive to us. She’s an addict that he councils at Transcend. I don’t want to be mean to her right now, especially since my best friend brought her here, but I’m furious and she’s an outlet. She can’t strike back. “Ninety days sober,” she says with pride. “That’s awesome,” I say enthusiastically and smile at her. “I love how we have to give fuck ups a medal when they behave. I would think it should go to those who never fuck up. What’s the incentive to behave if all you have to do is get shit-faced and steal shit for years and then ninety days on the straight-and-narrow we have to pat you on the back for being a good girl,” I say in a saccharine voice. She gazes at me with huge, glassy brown eyes. I can see the tears forming. Cassie worries her full bottom lip between her teeth and tries not to blink. “But hey, what do I know. It just seems like the system is flawed. The good little boys and girls just don’t get the recognition that a crack-whore thief gets,” I shrug. Cassie blinks and the surface of her tears breaks and they finally slide down her cheeks in shame. “But go you!” I shout sarcastically. I give her a thumbs up and walk down the hall. “Cold… that was just cold, dude,” Alex chuckles at me. That was so bad that I have to laugh or I’d puke. I shake my head as my belly contracts from laughter. “Score on my newest asshattery?” I ask my partner in crime. If I didn’t have him I’d scream. I’ll owe Master Marcus forever. He stripped me bare until Font was naked in the impact room at Brownstone I trained in. Alex walked in and shook my hand- instant best friend. “Ah…” He taps his chin in thought and the bastard tucks his black hair behind his ear. I growl at him because he did it on purpose. He knows how much I miss the feel of my hair swinging at my jawline. Alex arches a perfect brow above his aqua eye and smirks. He runs his hands through his hair and groans in pleasure. “8.5. It was a decent attempt, but you pulled your hit. You’re too soft. I bet you were scared you’d make her relapse.” “Yeah,” I say bashfully. “Not happening, bud. I’m just that fucking good. I better go do some damage control. Don’t hurt any more subs. Pick on the big bastards. They may bite back, but their egos are delicate.

Tolerance is a key feature of addiction, but can occur without developing all the brain changes seen in full-blown addiction. Substance addicts attempt to overcome CREB’s effects by taking larger doses. Gambling addicts might place larger bets. Today’s internet porn users may find they need more videos, or VR porn, or cam-2-cam, or perhaps acting out a fetish to get the buzz their brain is desperately seeking. More often than not they try to overcome tolerance with new genres, usually more extreme, or even disturbing.

Worries genius or happy simpleton? The moment you get caught with the reading bug and learning, you get addicted to it, and you have to know that your mind is going to process stuff and the debate starts happening [in the head] and it’s forever— it never stops. You lose a little bit of happiness when you get too interested in wanting to get certain questions answered in life because it’s never going to end. If you choose to subscribe to wanting to be a lifelong learner you must be ready to lose some happiness and freedom that you once had when you didn’t know everything.

Worried genius or happy simpleton? The moment you get caught with the reading bug and learning, you get addicted to it, and you have to know that your mind is going to process stuff and the debate starts happening [in the head] and it’s forever— it never stops. You lose a little bit of happiness when you get too interested in wanting to get certain questions answered in life because it’s never going to end. If you choose to subscribe to wanting to be a lifelong learner you must be ready to lose some happiness and freedom that you once had when you didn’t know everything.

Calls are super-juiced investments that allow you to control a lot of stock with much less money than you would need to buy the stock itself. Until you have to take delivery you can trade the value of the option, which goes up if the underlying goes up. There comes a time when option have to be exercised, though, and if the stock doesn't go up in the interim you lose everything. You don't buy calls to hold them. Owing to the volatility, you have to trade them, and trade them constantly. They are addictive and when you are right they can make you money with greater velocity than any other bet on earth. 21 If you have a edge, you have to be willing to bet the house on it. 31

Snapchat has a lot less social pressure attached to it compared to every other popular social media network out there. This is what makes it so addicting and liberating. If I don’t get any likes on my Instagram photo or Facebook post within 15 minutes you can sure bet I'll delete it. Snapchat isn't like that at all and really focuses on creating the Story of a day in your life, not some filtered/altered/handpicked highlight. It’s the real you.

Lady finally broke and said, “I gotta smoke. Gimme five minutes.” Her hands were trembling. “Sure,” Mattie said. “Just step outside.” “Thanks.” “How many packs a day?” “Just two.” “What’s your brand?” “Charlie’s. I know I ought to quit, and I’ve tried, but it’s the only thing that settles my nerves.” She grabbed her purse and left the room. Mattie said, “Charlie’s is a favorite in Appalachia, a cheaper brand, though it’s still $4 a pack. That’s eight bucks a day, two-fifty a month, and I’ll bet Stocky smokes just as much. They’re probably spending $500 a month on cigarettes and who knows how much on beer. If there’s ever a spare dollar, they probably buy lottery tickets.” “That’s ridiculous,” Samantha said, relieved to finally say something. “Why? They could pay off his fines in one month and he’s out of jail.” “They don’t think that way. Smoking is an addiction, something they can’t simply walk away from.

We’re going to your place tonight?” she asked with surprise. Anders lowered his hand to his side, the stake dangling from his fingers. Expression solemn, he said, “I am. But I think you should stay here. I think that’s probably best until you make your decision.” Valerie frowned. “What do you mean?” Anders grimaced and glanced away, “Well, I’ve been thinking that life mate sex is pretty mind-blowing and addictive.” “I’ve noticed,” she admitted wryly, bending slightly to pat Roxy, who had been lying down beside her, but now stood and pressed against her leg. “That being the case,” he continued gently, “I thought perhaps it might be best if we abstain until you’ve made your decision.” Valerie straightened slowly to stare at him. “Abstain?” “Yes,” he said solemnly, and then added, “You need to have a clear head to make a decision as big as this and constantly being bombarded with pleasure, your body and mind crying out with it . . . well, it will just muddy your thinking and delay your decision.” Valerie frowned. “But—” “It’s for the best,” he added solemnly. Valerie narrowed her eyes. “How long are we supposed to abstain?” “Like I said, until you’ve made your decision,” Anders answered. “But what if it takes a while?” she asked. “Then we’ll wait a while. Years if we have to,” he assured her. “Honey, I want you happy and you’re worth waiting for.” “But I’m happy when we—” Flushing, she cut herself off and said instead, “And if I decide I’m willing to be your life mate?” “Then I’ll rip your clothes off and make love to you until you can’t stand,” he said as if they were discussing the weather. “And if I decide I’m not willing to risk being your life mate?” she asked. Frustration filled his expression. “Valerie, there is no risk here. The nanos don’t make mistakes. This is a sure bet. The only game where you can’t lose. All you have to do is be willing to accept the gift they’re offering us.

Coffee If you don’t drink coffee, you should think about two to four cups a day. It can make you more alert, happier, and more productive. It might even make you live longer. Coffee can also make you more likely to exercise, and it contains beneficial antioxidants and other substances associated with decreased risk of stroke (especially in women), Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Coffee is also associated with decreased risk of abnormal heart rhythms, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.12, 13 Any one of those benefits of coffee would be persuasive, but cumulatively they’re a no-brainer. An hour ago I considered doing some writing for this book, but I didn’t have the necessary energy or focus to sit down and start working. I did, however, have enough energy to fix myself a cup of coffee. A few sips into it, I was happier to be working than I would have been doing whatever lazy thing was my alternative. Coffee literally makes me enjoy work. No willpower needed. Coffee also allows you to manage your energy levels so you have the most when you need it. My experience is that coffee drinkers have higher highs and lower lows, energywise, than non–coffee drinkers, but that trade-off works. I can guarantee that my best thinking goes into my job, while saving my dull-brain hours for household chores and other simple tasks. The biggest downside of coffee is that once you get addicted to caffeine, you can get a “coffee headache” if you go too long without a cup. Luckily, coffee is one of the most abundant beverages on earth, so you rarely have to worry about being without it. Coffee costs money, takes time, gives you coffee breath, and makes you pee too often. It can also make you jittery and nervous if you have too much. But if success is your dream and operating at peak mental performance is something you want, coffee is a good bet. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so strongly that I literally feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t developed the habit. Pleasure

When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it. Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act. It is the anticipation of a reward- not the fulfillment of it- that gets us to take action. p106

When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it. Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act.

One of the things poker teaches is that we have to take satisfaction in assessing the probabilities of different outcomes given the decisions under consideration and in executing the bet we think is best. With the constant stream of decisions and outcomes under uncertain conditions, you get used to losing a lot. To some degree, we’re all outcome junkies, but the more we wean ourselves from that addiction, the happier we’ll be. None of us is guaranteed a favorable outcome, and we’re all going to experience plenty of unfavorable ones. We can always, however, make a good bet. And even when we make a bad bet, we usually get a second chance because we can learn from the experience and make a better bet the next time.

The radical acceptance of the accumulations of our lives is born in the giving up, the acknowledgment of the artifice. It is what journalist Ken Fuson exudes in his self-penned obituary. Having been unshackled from pretense by a public struggle with addiction and freed from performance by impending bodily death, Fuson delivered a remarkable eulogy for himself: He attended the university’s famous School of Journalism, which is a clever way of saying, “almost graduated but didn’t.” . . . In 1996, Ken took the principled stand of leaving the Register because The Sun in Baltimore offered him more money. Three years later, having blown most of that money at Pimlico Race Track, he returned to the Register, where he remained until 2008. For most of his life, Ken suffered from a compulsive gambling addiction that nearly destroyed him. But his church friends, and the loving people at Gamblers Anonymous, never gave up on him. Ken last placed a bet on Sept. 5, 2009. He died clean. He hopes that anyone who needs help will seek it, which is hard, and accept it, which is even harder. Miracles abound.9 Fuson evinces true authenticity, something close to real freedom, and it is beautiful. His prose is not a parade of accomplishments but a catalog of embarrassing details and defeats—the kind that makes a reader’s heart beam with appreciation, identification, laughter, and hope.

You're like a drug, and I'm so fucking addicted," I murmured against her lips as I settled my hips between her legs and ground against her.

A blanket could be bunched up and used as a seat cushion. But I’d rather cut off your buttocks and use that instead. Isn’t it better that I be the one to sit on your fat ass all day? After all, sitting on your ass is all you seem to do now that you’re addicted to high fructose corn syrup and targeted advertisements. 


I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything. But I’ve had plenty of wasted nights, after losses and bigger losses, to consider the question more seriously. So why the attraction? Most people would think it’s the wins that keep the gambler going, but any gambler knows this is not true. As you place your chips on the craps table, you feel anxiety and impatience. When the red dice hit the green felt with a thunk and you’re declared the winner and the chips are pushed toward you, you feel relief. Relief is all. And relief is fine, but hardly what a man would give the whole rest of his life to gain. It has to be something else, and the best I’ve come up with is this: It is a particular moment. A magic moment that occurs after the placing of a bet and before the result of that bet. It 1s after the red dice are thrown but before they lie still on the green felt where they fall. It is when the dice are in the air, and as long as they are there, time stops. As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing to be addicted to.

I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything. But I’ve had plenty of wasted nights, after losses and bigger losses, to consider the question more seriously. So why the attraction? Most people would think it’s the wins that keep the gambler going, but any gambler knows this is not true. As you place your chips on the craps table, you feel anxiety and impatience. When the red dice hit the green felt with a thunk and you’re declared the winner and the chips are pushed toward you, you feel relief. Relief is all. And relief is fine, but hardly what a man would give the whole rest of his life to gain. It has to be something else, and the best I’ve come up with is this: It is a particular moment. A magic moment that occurs after the placing of a bet and before the result of that bet. It 1s after the red dice are thrown but before they lie still on the green felt where they fall. It is when the dice are in the air, and as long as they are there, time stops. As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing to be addicted to.

Yeah, it is,” he agreed, offering me a bottle of water. “But the fact that Shan and the boys are here today, still standing, still breathing? It’s a miracle in itself. As for Joey? He’s a force to be reckoned with. I’ve never seen a more resilient human in my life. Yeah, he’ll always be an addict, but he’s got a family in there worth staying sober for. A girl and a baby that not only would he fight to the death for, but that he also wants to live for. So, fuck guarantees and don’t bet against him. He’ll forge an epic future for Aoife and AJ, just like he forged a future for his siblings.

I bet she fights against those cravings every minute of the day and sex isn’t just a physical act to her but a way to push down the need for something that hurts her

In 2010, a cognitive neuroscientist named Reza Habib asked twenty-two people to lie inside an MRI and watch a slot machine spin around and around. Half of the participants were “pathological gamblers”—people who had lied to their families about their gambling, missed work to gamble, or had bounced checks at a casino— while the other half were people who gambled socially but didn’t exhibit any problematic behaviors. Everyone was placed on their backs inside a narrow tube and told to watch wheels of lucky 7s, apples, and gold bars spin across a video screen. The slot machine was programmed to deliver three outcomes: a win, a loss, and a “near miss,” in which the slots almost matched up but, at the last moment, failed to align. None of the participants won or lost any money. All they had to do was watch the screen as the MRI recorded their neurological activity. “We were particularly interested in looking at the brain systems involved in habits and addictions,” Habib told me. “What we found was that, neurologically speaking, pathological gamblers got more excited about winning. When the symbols lined up, even though they didn’t actually win any money, the areas in their brains related to emotion and reward were much more active than in non-pathological gamblers. “But what was really interesting were the near misses. To pathological gamblers, near misses looked like wins. Their brains reacted almost the same way. But to a nonpathological gambler, a near miss was like a loss. People without a gambling problem were better at recognizing that a near miss means you still lose.” Two groups saw the exact same event, but from a neurological perspective, they viewed it differently. People with gambling problems got a mental high from the near misses—which, Habib hypothesizes, is probably why they gamble for so much longer than everyone else: because the near miss triggers those habits that prompt them to put down another bet. The nonproblem gamblers, when they saw a near miss, got a dose of apprehension that triggered a different habit, the one that says I should quit before it gets worse.

As for Joey? He’s a force to be reckoned with. I’ve never seen a more resilient human in my life. Yeah, he’ll always be an addict, but he’s got a family in there worth staying sober for. A girl and a baby that not only would he fight to the death for, but that he also wants to live for. So, fuck guarantees and don’t bet against him. He’ll forge an epic future for Aoife and AJ, just like he forged a future for his siblings.

I bet he tastes like the sweetest piece of candy going down; it’s that bitter aftertaste that will get you.

Joe read two papers on Sundays, cover to cover. He went out in any weather to get them. A war outside wouldn’t have stopped him. Joe’s habits weren’t just habits. A couple of months in Joe’s company had taught Paula that there was more to addiction than alcohol and betting.

I laugh, and it’s a laugh I let carry me to bed. Though, maybe I should’ve let it carry me to the moon. Her moon. God, I wonder where that is. I bet it’s beautiful there.

So now you’ve got to bet $25,000 instead of $10,000 because otherwise, there’s no thrill. Once a $5,000 shopping spree does nothing for you, you’ve got to max out two credit cards so you can feel that same rush again. All of this is to make the feeling of who you really are go away. Everything you do to get the same high, you have to keep doing more of, with increasing intensity. More drugs, more alcohol, more sex, more gambling, more shopping, more TV. You get the idea. Over time, we become addicted to something in order to ease the pain or anxiety or depression we live by on a daily basis. Is this wrong? Not really. Most people do these things because they just don’t know how to change from the inside. They are only following the innate drive to get relief from their feelings, and unconsciously they think their salvation comes from the outside world. It has never been explained to them that using the outer world to change the inner world makes things worse … it only widens the gap.

For years, scientists assumed dopamine was all about pleasure, but now we know it plays a central role in many neurological processes, including motivation, learning and memory, punishment and aversion, and voluntary movement. When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Gambling addicts have a dopamine spike right before they place a bet, not after they win. Cocaine addicts get a surge of dopamine when they see the powder, not after they take it. Whenever you predict that an opportunity will be rewarding, your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation. And whenever dopamine rises, so does your motivation to act. It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action.

I bet Aunt Rose never had this problem. She was probably born in the womb with five-inch heels and a razor-sharp glare.

Young men across the globe have a documented appetite for risky behavior that might predispose them to gambling, especially for large stakes. In the United States, this appetite for risk is augmented by a relative decline in income for all but the top-earning men and by lower rates of enrollment in higher education compared to women. For many, gambling presents a seemingly rational alternative way to try and get rich. The sportsbooks know all this.

The two companies that dominate the American sports gambling market—FanDuel and DraftKings—came onto the scene in the mid-2010s as the purveyors of daily fantasy sports. Today, they control 75 percent of the American sports betting market, generating a combined $8.07 billion in revenue in 2023. Their political spending has made it almost as easy to find one of their lobbyists at a state house as it is to find one of their ads on TV. In many ways, they are more tech companies than sportsbooks, given their reliance on specialized software to generate constantly changing lines on every possible game and every possible outcome within those games. Like other tech companies, they know how to find their target demographic and how to keep them engaged. They keep players hooked with everything from carefully constructed app interfaces to VIP hosts, all with the goal of extracting as much money as possible from as many gamblers as possible.

In most states, sports betting was the first form of legal internet gambling. But lawmakers did little to prepare the populace. Gambling can be harmless, provided the right safeguards and treatment options are in place. They are not. Most lawmakers are either oblivious to the harms from sports betting or have chosen to turn a blind eye.

There have always been Americans driven to ruin by gambling. But never have so many been driven to ruin so easily, and never has government done so much to enable them to gamble.

The sports leagues and their gambling partners ... conspired with state governments to place what he calls a “landmine” in front of young people. Many of these young people will be able to avoid gambling or avoid incurring any harm from gambling. Many will not. Most do not realize how addictive it can be, how much attention, time, and money it can suck away. So they download the app onto their phone, eager to add some excitement to the games they love, not realizing this can be the start of a dangerous journey.

[New Jersey Democratic senator Bill Bradley] feared the spread of problem gambling, that legalized gambling would supplement rather than supplant illegal gambling, and most of all, the threat of the corruption of sports and of America’s youth. “When young people see the State involved in gambling on sports, can there be any doubt that they will think that that’s what sport is all about?

Garnett and the sportsbooks justified the design of their bill by emphasizing the need to compete with the illegal sports betting market. By their telling, Colorado was a state overrun with bookies and offshore gambling websites, and the only defense against these nefarious forces was legal, regulated gambling. DraftKings’ Stanton Dodge estimated that sports betting was already taking place “on a massive scale,” and that 1.2 million Coloradans (one out of every five people) bet a total of $2.5 billion per year illegally, an enormous, un-fact-checkable figure of unknown origin. Proponents implied that so much gambling was happening anyway that HB1327 would not so much expand sports betting as siphon existing illegal players into a taxed marketplace. The black-market bogeyman both got legislators on board and rationalized the industry-friendly aspects of the bill.

Garnett chose water as the beneficiary for sports betting as a matter of both good policy and good politics. Water turned gambling skeptics—and maybe even opponents—into believers. Western Colorado state senator Dylan Roberts (at the time a member of the state house) said the water tie-in made it a “no-brainer” for him to support the bill, “not because I love sports betting or anything.

The sports gambling crisis could have been avoided if states had taken a more careful approach to legalization. Instead, entranced by promises of easy money, they went all in.

After the 2018 Supreme Court decision, sports betting launched in thirty-eight states in less than six years. In much of the country, this rapid pace was facilitated by the gambling industry, which not only lobbied for legalization but helped write the bills and the regulations governing its own behavior.

Fearful of competition, of demanding stockholders, and of public and private entities seeking greater cuts of their profits, sportsbooks allow people on their platforms to develop gambling problems. Then they let them keep betting until the money runs out.

Much of sportsbooks’ behavior is obviously less about competing with the black market and instead about cultivating a new generation of gamblers. “Anybody under twenty-five they have their eye on,” one former FanDuel employee said of their old company. The vast majority of these bettors would likely never have bet illegally. But the companies know that young people are crucial for their bottom line, that bettors between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five are “the guys that bring you all the money,” the former FanDueler told me.

The ad campaign focused on the Water Plan, not sports betting. As Perry put it, “No one really understands the nuance of why water is important, but they know it’s important.” In one commercial, Terry Fankhauser, longtime executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, proclaimed, “DD is a win for Colorado’s water.” While the campaign did not hide that DD benefited sports betting, neither did it place gambling front and center. The campaign turned the ballot measure into a simple equation: A vote for DD was a vote for water. A vote against was a vote against water, and by extension, against the future of Colorado. Of course while the ads never quite claimed sports betting would be a panacea for water, neither did they make clear just what percentage of the Water Plan would be funded by gambling.

The election still proved extremely close. At one point on election night, “Yes” led by just eighty votes. Sports bettors across the country stayed up to watch the results. Garnett was awake with them, tweeting at 10:30 p.m. “Just hang tight and enjoy the #sweat,” the term used by gamblers to describe anxiously watching the outcome of a bet. Ultimately, DD would prevail with 51.4 percent. “Yes” votes outnumbered “no” in just seventeen of Colorado’s sixty-four counties, but the campaign was able to run up the score in Denver and its surrounding suburbs. Despite the bipartisan nature of the original bill, the vote fell largely along the state’s established rural/urban, Republican/Democratic divide. In all but nine cases, a county’s vote for DD predicted which way it would swing in the following year’s presidential election, with pro-DD counties going for Joe Biden and anti-DD counties for Donald Trump. According to Brian Jackson, polling conducted after the vote by the Environmental Defense Fund revealed that, without the water tie-in, the proposition very likely would have failed.

Richard Schuetz, longtime industry insider and former regulator, … likens states handing control over sports betting to inexperienced regulators with a patient placing their life in the hands of an inexperienced surgeon and hoping for the best.

Sports betting consumed him. If he was not watching a game to follow a bet, then he was thinking about past wagers, discussing gambling with friends he made through a Discord channel, or researching the upcoming slate of games. Working primarily from home, he would use a dual monitor setup and keep one screen devoted to gambling. In many ways, his life had two monitors, one for gambling and one for everything else—family, friends, work, hobbies, dating, self-care, and so on. “It was what I enjoyed in life at the time,” he said. Gambling offered an escape from any problem he was facing. The only issue was that his escape was more stress-inducing than whatever he was escaping. Gambling left him “just constantly on edge, never really had peace of mind,” which led him to alcohol to take the edge off. He had fallen into a rabbit hole where gambling took on a logic of its own, where the only rational thing was to keep playing.

Modern sports betting is so dangerous specifically because it is available online.

Sports betting today bears little resemblance to the smoke-filled sportsbooks tucked inside Las Vegas casinos. Players can bet on almost everything, from how the Jacksonville Jaguars will do next season (probably poorly) to the speed of the next pitch or which team will score the next basket. Online sports betting offers almost no friction, providing little to encourage players to slow down and take stock of their play. Instead, the apps present an endless stream of action at the touch of a button.

Internet sports gambling has particular consequences for young bettors, nearly a third of whom said someone has expressed concern to them about their gambling and almost a quarter have at one point lied about the extent of their betting. While most states only allow bets from those who are at least twenty-one, high schoolers have found ways to get in on the action too. Young people are already used to gamified algorithms shaping much of their lives, from who they date to the TV shows they watch. Online sports betting adds a new level of gamification to sports gambling, which is itself a gamification of actual sports.

Using his unemployment checks, he placed at least 151 bets totaling $14,000 over the course of February, losing $2,300. He kept going, gambling multiple times a day almost every day for nearly six months, resulting in a net loss of $7,250. With his mental health deteriorating and a void in his bank account where all the money he gambled should have been, he decided that something needed to change. He moved back in with his parents, outside of Wichita, Kansas. His career, his finances, and his life had been thrown off track. Gambling, he said, “tore me apart.

Polls indicate that between 20 and 40 percent of American adults have bet on sports, many doing so legally for the first time in the last seven years.

Between May 2018 and August 2024, Americans gambled $308 billion through legal sportsbooks, including $121 billion in 2023, more than they spent that year on video games, movie tickets, music streaming services, books, and concert tickets combined.

Calls to gambling hotlines have increased dramatically since states legalized sports betting. For the first time, many of these callers are young people. The director of a problem gambling resource center on Long Island notes that teenagers and twenty-somethings have become the “number one demographic” for gambling hotlines.

A study from Australia finds that each problem gambler financially or psychologically affects five others—for example through requests for money—so even a modest increase in the percentage of people with a gambling disorder will impact millions of people.

Conversations with current and former gamblers offer a portrait of the standard trajectory of a bettor whose life becomes uprooted by gambling. The story begins with a young male sports fan enticed by a sign-up promotion in a sportsbook advertisement. He probably wins his first bet—as Kyle did—which provides a huge rush of dopamine and an overconfidence that will be almost impossible to shake. Eventually he loses and starts to chase his losses, which over 50 percent of all bettors and over 60 percent of young bettors admit they have done. While chasing, he loses more than he intended. Maybe he stops betting, or maybe he keeps chasing for a few hours or a few days. When the clouds clear, he might be a few hundred or thousand dollars poorer, but he has learned firsthand the dangers of careless betting. Others will have stories more like Kyle’s. They will fall farther down the rabbit hole for longer periods in ways that damage their financial security and mental health. Still others will develop full-blown addictions that will be with them permanently, their lives fully derailed by gambling. If they are lucky, their losses will only be financial.

Nearly half of millennials and 60 percent of Gen-Z have bet on sports, including two-thirds of students living on college campuses.

Young Americans are open to a range of speculative forms of investing, from the stock market to cryptocurrency to video game skins. Many in this generation have disposable income, but not so much that they see a realistic possibility of saving up to buy a home, start a business, or pay off their student loans. So they gamble instead, whether on March Madness or meme stocks, hoping to multiply their money many times over.

Modern sports betting is so dangerous specifically because it is available online. Sports betting today bears little resemblance to the smoke-filled sportsbooks tucked inside Las Vegas casinos. Players can bet on almost everything, from how the Jacksonville Jaguars will do next season (probably poorly) to the speed of the next pitch or which team will score the next basket. Online sports betting offers almost no friction, providing little to encourage players to slow down and take stock of their play. Instead, the apps present an endless stream of action at the touch of a button. “I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten into it if I couldn’t do it online,” Kyle noted, recalling how carefully he has bet each of the handful of times he has been to a casino. He compared these trips to his all-night betting sessions chasing losses with four-figure bets on minor-league British darts. The online accessibility was “everything.

For decades, the [NFL] had a strict ban on all televised gambling references. Some announcers, like Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder or Al Michaels, would cheekily skirt this rule. If the outcome of a game was in hand but the losing team scored a touchdown that affected the over/under or the game spread, Michaels might note that the touchdown was “significant to some.” Such insider comments notwithstanding, the NFL’s stance on gambling ensured its broadcasts were gambling-free zones. These days, Al Michaels does DraftKings ad reads for Amazon Prime’s broadcast of Thursday Night Football.

The NFL justified its embrace of gambling with a new favor­ite Goodell phrase: “fan engagement.” “We’re going to find ways we can engage fans through legalized sports betting,” he declared in 2021. What Goodell meant was that betting offered a chance for people to raise the stakes for the games they already loved and to make being a football fan a more interactive experience. Gamblers had always taken a special interest in NFL games and now there were a lot more potential gamblers, casual and occasional viewers who could be converted into superfans if they thought they could win some money.

67% of sports bettors said they watched more than usual when they had bet on an NFL game. While a quarter of all sports bettors said they watched more than usual when they had bet on an NFL game, watching a game that was a blowout, just 10 percent said they would do so if they had money on the line. This was music to the league’s ears. As a former DraftKings employee observes, gambling is “scratching the itch of people who are competitive . . . or somebody that just wants a reason to watch a Thursday night Titans/Texas game.

With indications that Gen Z is less interested in watching football—and professional sports generally—as well as an overall decline in America’s broadcast TV habit, dark clouds appear on the horizon, revenue-wise. Gambling was both an infusion of money through partnerships, sponsorships, and data agreements and a way to bump ratings back up. Sure enough, average viewership for 2021–2023 was 17.2 million. As more Americans try their hand at sports betting—especially as more states legalize it—the NFL will rely on gamblers to keep its revenue arrow pointing upward. The league does not seem to mind if it becomes as normal to bet on football as it is to watch football.

The normalization of sports betting represents the most consequential outcome of the NFL’s flip-flop on gambling. Had it only been states and the gambling industry that embraced gambling after Murphy, sports betting might have remained a somewhat niche interest. Betting would have a strong appeal but would have largely remained a subculture within American sports. It could have become something like fantasy sports: an activity that is hugely popular but also a pastime that can be avoided by anyone who does not want to participate. Today, sports gambling is definitively not a subculture or niche interest. This is in large part because the NFL and its fellow leagues helped transform the nation’s sports ecosystem into a sports gambling ecosystem. Is all of this gambling a threat to the integrity of football? Apparently not.

From TV broadcasts to data deals, gambling is now an unavoidable part of the football experience, one that the league insists does not threaten the integrity of its product. As it has for decades, the NFL is trying to have it both ways: cracking down on some types of gambling while simultaneously making as much money from gambling as it possibly can.

Every problem gambler’s story is unique. But in many ways, their stories are also all the same. Most sports bettors are drawn to gambling because they love sports and because gambling offers the chance to make the games more exciting. For some people, though, the pursuit of that excitement takes over their lives, leading to addiction—followed, for those fortunate enough, by recovery.

As philosopher Kent Dunnington explains, “persons with severe addictions are among those contemporary prophets that we ignore to our own demise, for they show us who we truly are.

Gradually his wagers got bigger, as he needed to gamble more money to have the same thrill that he had once gotten from just $5. And because he was betting digitally, the “money never felt real.” Scholars have documented that casino chips help dissociate gamblers from the size of their bets, encouraging them to act more liberally than they ever would with cash. Smartphones take this dissociation to a whole new level.

Parlay bets are the combination of at least two wagers. A parlay wager might include a bet that a baseball team will win, the pitcher will record at least three strikeouts, and the catcher will hit a home run. The possibilities are endless, and the added bets don’t all have to come from the same game or even the same sport. The upside is that, with each additional component, the payout rate goes up. The downside is that parlays are all or nothing: If a single leg of the parlay misses, the whole bet loses, so adding more lines to the parlay drastically reduces the odds of winning. The result is pure excitement. “A parlay is sort of like poppers mixed with molly mixed with cocaine mixed with a heart condition,” journalist Anthony Schneck writes. The excitement factor is offset by the fact that parlays are simply a dumb way to bet for the vast majority of gamblers. Between 1989 and 2023, casinos kept roughly five cents for every dollar bet on non-parlay sports bets and thirty-one cents for every dollar bet on parlays; still, parlays are hugely popular among amateur bettors, especially in the United States. In the age of cryptocurrency and GameStop, these gamblers want to multiply their money many times over, and they want to do it quickly. So they turn to parlays, which represent the jackpotification of sports betting, the transformation of sports betting slips into lottery tickets.

His gambling routine was blessedly interrupted in March 2020, when professional sports shut down amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But before too long, Korean baseball came back, followed by tennis. Because he was working from home, he could have sports on all the time. It was like an “NCAA Tournament every day, every week.” Not knowing any other bookies, Andrew turned to the two largest offshore, online sportsbooks: Bovada.lv and BetOnline.ag. Both offer a wide array of sports betting options, as well as casino games and poker. BetOnline consistently accepts credit cards, which only sometimes worked on Bovada. For the latter, Andrew would deposit money into cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, purchase Bitcoin, and immediately deposit the Bitcoin into Bovada, where it was converted into cash he could use to gamble. On the offshore sportsbooks, Andrew resumed his normal betting routine. But once he started gambling with credit cards, he began racking up significant debt.

Once he went into debt, Andrew’s imperative shifted. He kept betting less to try to recover his losses or his ego and more to win money that would allow him to prevent anyone from discovering his gambling problem. Andrew’s doubling down speaks to an important feature of gambling disorder: It represents the only addiction where the affected individual can reasonably hope their addiction will solve the problems that stem from that addiction. Someone dependent on alcohol, for instance, has no reason to hope that their next drink will relieve them of their substance use disorder. A problem gambler, on the other hand, can hold on to the belief that all it takes is one big win to wipe out all of their debt, and therefore all the negative consequences of their gambling. As a result, many keep betting, and keep losing, which only makes them more desperate to bet, and so on. Andrew fell into this exact trap. He would gamble, and the feeling of his life hanging in the balance only made his bets even more thrilling. Eventually, he would win enough to come close to getting out of credit card debt. Rather than stop betting, he would push to try and get enough for all of it. Then he would start to lose again. And the cycle would continue.

Problem gambling has a higher suicide rate than any other type of addiction. According to a 2023 Rutgers study of New Jersey bettors, almost 30 percent of individuals with a gambling disorder reported thoughts of suicide, 25 percent had engaged in self-harm, and 20 percent had attempted suicide. An important factor is gender. Men are already much more likely to die by suicide than women, and heavy gamblers, especially sports bettors, are predominantly male. Gambling studies scholarship offers two additional reasons for the high prevalence of suicide among problem gamblers. First is indebtedness, the understanding that the gambler’s debts would disappear with them. The second is shame. Gambling addiction has not been destigmatized nearly as much as other substance addictions.

Many sports fans—especially young men—feel they have a unique understanding of the games they watch. Sports betting capitalizes on this unearned confidence, daring fans to prove that they know sports better than their friends, their coworkers, and the hosts of their local sports talk radio station. When their intuition is wrong, these same fans have a remarkable ability to maintain their confidence, convinced that their wins are the result of their knowledge of the game and their losses are due to unlucky bounces.

Rather than feel humbled by a big loss, gamblers instead have an urge to bet more to win it all back. Anna Lembke theorizes that problem gamblers are addicted to chasing their money: “The more they lose, the stronger the urge to continue gambling, and the stronger the rush when they win.” Andrew chased, and he lost. But he did not panic. After all, he was the sports genius who had been up $43,000. So he kept betting, buoyed by the belief that, “If I got up all this… I can get it back so quick, because I got it so quick, right?

Here was the downside of gambling as a signifier of intelligence: If winning says a bettor is smart, what does losing say? Gamblers chase as much to recover money as to recover their self-esteem. And if they keep betting, they can avoid admitting they have lost. So, if he was down $40,000, what was another $5,000 or $10,000 compared to the possibility of wiping the slate clean?

Andrew received an email notification every time he accessed his FanDuel account, and there were some days when he would log in twenty times, the only gap a few hours of sleep between 3:00 and 7:00 a.m. (it is not possible to determine how long he kept the site open each time he logged in). More troublesome was the pace of his deposits. He would rapid-fire money into his account, on one day making twelve deposits totaling nearly $1,000, behavior that suggests he was chasing losses. ... FanDuel never flagged Andrew’s account. Sportsbooks make choices all the time about limiting players. They have a habit, in fact, of cutting off or severely limiting anyone who wins consistently, in some cases doing so under the guise of protecting problem gamblers. But people like Andrew, who was exhibiting clear signs of problematic play but consistently losing, are welcome to keep betting.

His partner knew he liked sports but had no idea the extent of his gambling. They would have explosive fights sometimes, which multiple family members said was very unlike him. His gambling set him constantly on edge, exacerbating the tensions in their relationship. Andrew was, by his own admission, living two lives, and he could not prevent one life from affecting the other.

When someone engages in a pleasurable activity like gambling, their brain releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that processes rewards. Dopamine is what makes these activities feel pleasurable. Psychiatrist Anna Lembke explains that pleasure and pain act on an equilibrium, encouraging limits on the activity in question, no matter how enjoyable. Over time, repeated exposure to pleasure means the brain requires more of that activity—gambling with more money, for example—to receive the same amount of dopamine. Once someone has built up a tolerance, they are susceptible to addiction and, with their equilibrium imbalanced in favor of pain, they will need ever-increasing amounts to experience even a modicum of pleasure—or simply a break from pain.

Gambling addiction is not an addiction to winning money. Problem gamblers’ brains do not release any more dopamine when they win a bet than non-problem gamblers’ brains. The largest difference—when problem gamblers release markedly more dopamine than non-problem gamblers—comes at moments of high uncertainty. These instances provide the rush and the fleeting pleasure/pain equilibrium to which problem gamblers are addicted.

He was addicted to the dopamine high that came with the feeling of a bet hanging on the outcome of a game, having a stake in something he could not control. “Since I started gambling, I could turn every day—no matter how much work/school/ stress I had into the most exciting day of the year,” he later wrote in his journal. He would bet in the shower. He would bet while driving. Betting became his reason to wake up in the morning. He would place a wager before he fell asleep and wake up eagerly to check the result. Regardless of the outcome, he would place another bet, his action the only thing that could motivate him to get out of bed and start the day.

Winning money felt different, providing a hit of dopamine no biweekly direct deposit ever could. Unlike a salary, winning said something about the gambler as a person. It marked them as a winner. The lottery lets bettors feel they are lucky or blessed. Sports betting lets gamblers feel smart. Of course, luck plays an important role in sports, and by extension in sports betting. However, because gamblers make their own picks, they can imagine sports betting as an exercise in intelligence.

Colorado had the misfortune of launching legal sports betting at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all major professional sports leagues were shut down. Some people, like Garnett, were willing to place bets that would not be decided for months (the Broncos finished 5–11). Others wanted action right away, wherever on the globe they could find it. Among the most popular sports in those early months were South Korean baseball, Costa Rican soccer, and Russian ping-pong. In May and June, Coloradans bet $15.7 million—roughly a quarter of the total bet on all sports—on table tennis, which was exciting, fast paced, and played at all hours of the day. Even if many bettors were simply picking players at random, they were not going to miss the chance for convenient, legal betting.

In interviews, many current and former lawmakers and industry representatives acknowledged the flaws in Colorado’s initial sports betting system, which they attributed to the fact that Colorado was an early adopter and had few models to learn from. (It was the sixteenth state to launch sports betting after Murphy, and the ninth to launch full online gambling.) But there was nothing forcing the state to adopt so early other than a gambler-esque hope for a quick windfall. Colorado could have sat back and assessed the results from New Jersey and Delaware and designed regulations that addressed the issues faced in other states. With money—or water—in their eyes, it chose not to.

States were unprepared for the onslaught of lobbying that followed the Murphy decision and were caught flat-footed by an aggressive campaign to set up industry-friendly sports betting systems. Facing the promise of a new source of tax revenue, lawmakers largely went along with sportsbooks’ desires without considering the potential harm that could ensue from gambling arriving onto every cell phone in the state.

The NFL was terrified of gambling because it would be devastating if fans came to believe that the outcome of that one-yard run was fixed, scripted, rigged. Notwithstanding the popularity of professional wrestling—which actually is scripted—a sports league cannot attract viewers if people believe the outcome to be in any way predetermined. The league’s concern with integrity, then, was as much about ensuring the fairness of its games as ensuring the perception of fairness. “The most precious possessions that we as a football league have are our reputations for integrity and the integrity of our games,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue told Congress during hearings over PASPA. The league went to extremes to preserve that reputation and distance itself from all things gambling.

Once the NFL decided to go in on gambling, it sought to squeeze every last dollar out of the betting economy.