Around this time last year, I was listening to The Athletic’s daily NBA podcast. One host recapped the week in professional basketball, ending with the news that player Terry Rozier was under federal investigation as part of a sports betting scandal.
“Brutal,” his co-host responded. “From that, um, let’s go to our, uh, BetMGM line of the week, brought to you by BetMGM.”
The uneasy transition has been repeated countless times as sports betting and its worst outcomes — threats to athletes, cheating scandals, and gambling addiction — have risen alongside deep, profitable partnerships between news companies and sportsbooks. A new book by journalist Danny Funt, Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, tracks the legalization of sports betting and its infiltration of the mainstream. It’s a fascinating investigation into a new force shaping the lives of many Americans — especially young men.
Everybody Loses also contains lessons for journalists and news organizations. And you don’t have to know what an over-under is to appreciate the story of how fast and thoroughly sports betting has become standard fare in sports journalism.
Funt notes that one argument that led national sports leagues to become more receptive to gambling was the supposed size of the illegal market. NBA commissioner Adam Silver estimated the size of the black market as “nearly $400 billion” in a now-famous op-ed in 2014. The New York Times, ESPN, CNBC, NPR, Bloomberg, and others (including Funt himself) repeatedly published the “round, remarkable number” of $150 billion illegally wagered annually. Funt builds on previous reporting to call the estimates into question. One expert, after Funt shared the methodology, called the much-cited figures “garbage.”
I asked Funt about the online gambling phenomenon, the pressures on journalists at news organizations that make sports betting deals, and the parallels he sees with prediction markets. It’s a timely conversation; the American Gaming Association estimates a record $1.76 billion will be wagered on Super Bowl LX this Sunday — about 27% more than last year. Our back-and-forth has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Scire: You’ve written about sports betting for a number of outlets. What made you realize there might be a whole book in the topic?
Danny Funt: I had been investigating the consequences of legalization for several years, mainly for The Washington Post, but feared I was only scratching the surface. A big part of that was because most sportsbooks — especially FanDuel and DraftKings, the dominant online operators — rarely grant interviews that aren’t promotional. These brands are becoming household names, but they remain largely mysterious.
I wanted to know what it’s like to work at a sportsbook, but I also wanted to hear from current and former employees about how they think about their customers and how they respond to criticisms that the betting industry is preying on people. Cultivating those sources was time-consuming, so it really helped that I was able to devote a year to reporting this book.
Beyond that, the fundamental reasons why sports leagues, politicians, and news organizations had such a profound change of heart about gambling seemed underexplored, and I was glad to get to the bottom of that in the book.
Scire: How are these gambling deals viewed by journalists in their newsrooms?
Funt: Many journalists told me they view gambling partnerships as a necessary evil, since their companies are fighting for survival and it’s difficult in that position to stand on principle and turn away a new, massive revenue stream. That said, there is definitely concern that journalists are being used to make gambling seem innocent and harmless, especially for young people. Worse, some journalists told me they fear gambling sponsorships have a chilling effect on their work, since it’s intimidating to publish something that will embarrass your biggest advertisers, as well as the leagues for doing business with them. As a former ESPN reporter put it, “Sports media is kind of getting bribed.” Another reporter who was pursuing a story that could discredit sports betting said it may end up being career suicide, saying, “I worry I’m tying a noose around my neck.”
Scire: What pressure is exerted on journalists when it comes to sports betting? Are they, for example, asked to emphasize odds and such in coverage?
Funt: Absolutely. At The Ringer, one of the most prominent news organizations to lean hard into covering sports through a gambling lens, one of their top sponsors is FanDuel. So, naturally, podcast hosts are encouraged to promote parlays, FanDuel’s most profitable betting offering. “This is kind of a slippery slope,” a former Ringer staffer told me. “It’s actively bankrupting some people on a regular basis, so that makes me feel a little gross. But it also pays all our paychecks.”
Bob Costas, meanwhile, told me how his father had a sports gambling problem that could be “traumatic” for their family, so Costas opted out of reading gambling ads and touting bets when calling ballgames. Of course, that might be possible after you’ve won 29 Emmy Awards. For most sports journalists, promoting gambling can be the price of admission.
Scire: Why do you think some of these media-branded books didn’t take off? [Note: ESPN Bet closed in November 2025, just two years into a 10-year, $2 billion contract. Other flops included sportsbooks tied to Sports Illustrated, Fox, and Barstool.]
Funt: The assumption was that ESPN, Fox Sports, Barstool, etc., would be able to reach a lot of sports fans without spending as much on advertising. But a big differentiator among sportsbooks is the in-app user experience, since the odds and types of bets available tend to be the same. FanDuel and DraftKings got a decisive head start developing the technology that powers online sports betting from their days offering daily fantasy sports, so many apps couldn’t compete on that front.
As a former ESPN Bet employee put it to me before the operation was abandoned last year, “Unfortunately, our product is shit, and it just does not retain users.”
Scire: The book discusses a few instances when reporters decided against betting on their own insider info. But, as you also point out, few newsrooms have adopted formal policies on the matter. How common do you think it is for journalists to bet on leagues they cover?
Funt: I can’t say for sure, but I do get the sense that a lot of gambling happens in press boxes, and that the temptation to leverage inside information is greater than ever. That’s because online betting makes it so easy to bet instantaneously, of course, but also because you can now bet on thousands of “props” within every game, things like whether a basketball player will have four rebounds in the first half. Since you can make a lot of money wagering on props that granular, it broadens the scope of valuable inside info.
The ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst recalled covering the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Akron Beacon Journal and learning that LeBron James was going to sit out a game before anyone in the public, bookmakers included, knew. It occurred to him that betting on the Cavs to lose before the odds changed could have been quite profitable. But nowadays, a reporter could leverage that sort of scoop for all kinds of players, not just superstars, and make a small fortune betting on their props.
Scire: In recent months, several news outlets have signed partnerships with prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi. What parallels do you see when it comes to their rise and their presence in the news industry? Are there meaningful differences, as some have argued, in the journalistic value between the two forms of betting?
Funt: The parallels are striking, and that story might merit its own book! For starters, as the media reporter Oliver Darcy explained, financially imperiled news organizations might be willing to form partnerships with betting operators that they would have turned down in the past. I also think CNN, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, etc., will help legitimize their new partners, making betting on the news seem unremarkable. And again, as we’re seeing with sports outlets beholden to gambling advertisers, I worry that these partnerships will cause journalists to think twice about reporting something unflattering about gambling — and that’s what prediction markets mostly offer, no matter what they call it.There is, as you alluded to, some value in citing betting odds for things like elections, since those odds tend to be remarkably predictive, more so than polls. That’s probably useful in moderation. The problem is that there will be pressure to promote gambling on current events of all sorts. I saw a ticker on CNN recently promoting Kalshi odds for which film will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I can see why people betting on things like that might be quite profitable for Kalshi. The journalistic value for CNN is harder to pinpoint.
Scire: If a news organization is considering a partnership with a sports betting — or prediction market — company right now, what questions should they be asking themselves?
Funt: There are many, but two strike me as paramount: Will it inhibit your ability to tell the full story of what’s happening with gambling across the country? And will it damage your credibility if you come to be seen as prioritizing the interests of gambling operators over those of your audience?
Scire: So…who is going to win the Super Bowl this weekend? And are you going to bet on it?
Funt: As a huge San Francisco 49ers fan it pains me to say this about a division rival, but I consider Seattle the heavy favorite. I’m not going to bet on it, though — not only because so many bookmakers and professional gamblers have explained to me how extraordinarily difficult it is to actually win money betting on sports, but also because I’m really troubled by what I report in my book about people, especially the most vulnerable, being exploited and in some cases preyed upon by sportsbooks. For now, I’m disinclined to patronize that industry.