DAYTON, OH -- A wave of hatred is rolling across the great US. There are senate bills being proposed in Maryland and other states to ban sports betting outright. There is nation wide blowback to the prevalence of DraftKing, FanDuel, PrizePicks, Caesars, Underdog, and various other gambling platform ads which pollute nearly all of sporting broadcasts. Your friends have their phones in their hands during every game, palms dewy from the constant stress of hitting a $5 promotional same-game parlay for some made-up virtual or crypto currency.
No longer is betting confined to a cigar filled Sports Book in the corner of a reservation casino, which they literally only keep them open as a courtesy while your wife goes and plays slots. That is what a Sports Book really used to be. Essentially an adult daycare with the grown man equivalent of Cocomelon playing on 12 screens. Not a single thought floating through that toddler brain as you clutched a little slip of paper, sipped a light lager, and perspired freely.
No longer. This activity is now readily available from the comfort of your own couch. As God intended. You don't need to pay for a $10 Miller Lite anymore, and you're free from bumping shoulders with strangers. The equivalent to Bowling Alone for the previously social act of losing and winning money on the physical merits of another human being.
They're trying to take this away from you, just like everything else.
The 5thQuarterSports staff sees this as tragic. We think the world needs to go into the opposite direction. Embrace, Extend, Enshittify. Sports Betting should become the barrier of entry. The bare minimum requirement to even watch a sporting event for free. Hear me out. Instead of having 100+ streaming subscription based services, there are free streaming platforms with integrations into the major Sports Books. We get rid of ads completely. All one needs to do is place a few bets during the game. A minimum of 5 per game is a good start.
I know what you are thinking. "The first one is free", you say. A common adage when it comes to the entry point to an addictive behavior. But, don't you see, that is the point. This will proliferate like wild-fire. Reality TV shows, network television, late-night TV hosts. Next up, highschool sports and little league and pee-wee football games.
America must embrace this. It is only being propped up by the creative accounting bets made on AI, so this is the next logical progression of not only our societal future but also the basis of a new financial paradigm. Third and fourth order derivatives on betting. Bundling parlays into tranches. Selling these to retirement investors. It. Is. The. Future.
I love you.