136: Gambling: Time-Tested Destruction

This week is opening day for the 2024 MLB season. We ought to be talking about the prospects for each team or how the LA Dodgers committed $1 billion this winter to are agents trying to buy a World Series, but instead we are talking about one player: Shohei Ohtani, arguably the best baseball player on the planet. But we aren’t talking about him because he’s a talented ball player. We’re talking about him because he’s at the center of potentially the biggest gambling scandal in sports in a generation. How should we think about sports betting as Believers? Mike Florio, “The Ohtani gambling scandal, in a nutshell,” March 24, 2024. Keith O’Brien, “A Massive Baseball-Gambling Scandal Is Brewing. But Sports Betting Has Already Exploded—and Congress Couldn’t Care Less,” March 21, 2024. Daniel Darling, “The dark underbelly of sports betting,” February 29, 2024.