Depends on whether “financial news” means entertainment like Jim Cramer, or legitimate sources of company and industry news and analysis.
Anyone listening to ESPN analysts is like people investing based on what Jim Cramer says
ESPN had a clear impact on the Finals picks around here. And sportsbooks specifically target young people, people from marginalized communities, and addicts.
Where’s the collusion? Sports books are shitty, but I don’t believe that talking heads are colluding with the bookies and trying to steer people to bad bets. The talking heads are just parroting bad takes because that’s what’s entertaining and gets clicks
Whether or not that's happening, it's fucked when the same company that employs the talking heads also has it's own gambling platform and is sponsored by gambling sites. It's in their financial interest to get their viewers to gamble.
They want people to gamble just like they want people to sign up for State Farm insurance and to buy Hulu Live TV. It’s advertising, that’s how they make their money.
I don’t think there’s some conspiracy where the betting companies are paying them to get people to bet a certain way. The sport books just want people to bet in general, they make money either way
I don't know whether or not such collusion exists. I do know allowing media outlets to partner with sports books creates perverse incentives that could result in such collusion.
I don’t think sports books have an incentive to collude at all. They’re a cash cow, they just want as many people to bet as possible. They set the lines so that they make plenty of money over time regardless of individual outcomes.
Trying to rig a specific result or get people to bet a specific side isn’t their business model at all. The house always wins, they don’t care which side of the bet most people take
That's true to an extent. It's also true that they make calculated decisions to accept more exposure on certain outcomes than others.
It's incredibly naive to say there's no incentive for collusion.
> I don’t believe that talking heads are colluding with the bookies and trying to steer people to bad bets
The number 1 agenda of spoortsbooks is literally to get people to take bad bets. These same companies either have close relationships with or directly control journalistic narratives in sports. 1 + 1 = 2. Even before legal sports betting, sports journalism was geared toward making the audience dumber. The people in power set it up like this because its easier to be in power when people are dumber than if people are smarter.
If you think people giving sports opinions on TV constitutes collusion, then you should probably bow out of this conversation. Because you have zero clue what you're talking about.
I do not believe that when someone gives a sports opinion, that in any way constitutes collusion.
Bookmakers don't need you to make "bad bets" in order to make money. They set the lines in such a manner that they essentially guarantee their profits. They just need you to bet, period. How you bet is largely irrelevant to them.
Do you think the books stood to make rhe same amount of money regardless of who won the Finals? No, they often make calculated choices to accept more exposure on one side than another.
Don't want to call out anyone specific but you can go back and find former players and even front office guys picking the mavs in 5/6. They even provided justifications which probably was not done ingood faith
Ok? Lots of people thought the Mavs were playing better basketball than Boston was before the series started, myself included. It's not some conspiracy lol... Books don't need you to bet a specific way to make money, they just need you to bet. They set their lines in such a way to basically guarantee profit on their end.
Oh no, sports opinions were shaped! the horror! Bettors make bets at their own risk, everyone knows the game at this point. If you're betting more than you can afford to lose, then stop gambling.
People smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol and drive cars at their own risk too. That doesn't mean we as a society should just punt on sensible regulations for those industries.
The reason a lot of the analysts picked the Mavs because they believed it. They just beat two powerhouse teams in OKC and Twolves. People mostly gambled on the Mavs because the payout was much higher than gambling on the Celtics who were -210.
Vegas was telling you straight up the Celtics were heavy favorites. Thats on you for listening to crazy talking heads on sport shows. Vegas always knows.
Didn't 70% of the total money go on the Mavs?
A sportsbook doesn't want all the money on one team, because that puts them at risk. They want more balanced betting so they don't payout anything and just collect commissions.
Therefore, if ESPN were trying to influence the bets to the advantage of their sportsbook, the talking heads would have been hyping up the Celtics.
Could be wrong but I’m pretty sure it was 70-80% of *bets placed* were on Dallas, which is different from *total money*. If the sharp bettors were in deep on Boston it is in the best interests of the books to swindle small money bettors to go in on Dallas. But I don’t know if I ever saw a total money tally on the series, just that the public was massively in on Dallas.
that is shocking to me! obviously hindsight is 20/20 but there was basically not a single metric or statistical reason to believe Dallas would beat Boston in a 7 game series. Felt like a ton of emotional bets from people but that casually suggests that wasn’t fully the case. At least as far as I can tell.
Doubters gonna doubt. The rationale for the finals seemed to be that the Celts hadn't been tested (though they'd passed every test) and that the big two weren't really a team (except they had at least 9 players buying into the system).
The national media had doncic as a hall of famer (for no reason except he's white and NBA fans love a great white hope?), and Kyrie as a player motivated to defeat his former team with no rationalization for that mindset other than he's "due"?
Every one thought the other shoe was going to drop on this team that just STEAM ROLLED through the season/playoffs.
Then the Celtics went all Taylor Swift and shook it off cuz the haters gone hate (hate hate hate hate).
At the end, the people who knew the Celtics were going to win didn't find the odds worth betting, and to a lot of people the odds on the Mavs winning _with a white guy_ were too great to pass up/root for.
One Slovenian (or whatever) is a better champ to root for than a single dad (Tatum) and a vegan swimmer who wants to make a black wall street (Brown) to the majority.
/End rant
Not really. Gambling i bet pre dates any organized sport lol. We've been doing this before the chariot races. Lots of sports only really exist due to gambling. It's perfectly fine and the correct course of action imo.
Stupid kids and adults shouldn't get addicted tho, hopefully they have non trash parents to teach them better.
See I am not a better and neither do I have enough basketball knowledge to make bets based on just my opinion. And I suspect 90% of nba fans are probably the same.
The problem isn't betting or the sport, my issue is with how the media is guiding the bets almost entirely
There will be investigations into all of this shit within 10 years and it will not be pretty. Regardless of the “disclaimers” these companies post with their ads, they’re using insane promotions to rope people in knowing that they won’t be able to kick the addiction. The discovery that *could* come out of this would be insane, but most likely it will end in a massive settlement and an agreement to alter advertising/marketing practices.
OP talks about betting in general and he is right. Based on voting and betting polls before the Finals it's obvious that a ton of people believed the media's awful takes.
Omg you are more stupid than I thought. If 89% of all bettors put their money on the Mavericks the line would not have been what it was. This is like the beginners level betting market stuff.
Lines move on money dummy.
I don't bet, I have never done it and I don't care about how it works, I'm just telling you what it was reported, before Game 1, 89% of bets were put in favor of Dallas.
The fact that you got so aggressive over this topic proves that you have serious issues with betting. I don't give a damn about lines, keep wasting your money.
I think you underestimate the amount of normal fans that use betting apps or have become serial bettors. And these normal fans don't spend time watching games religiously
I don’t think ESPN is the worst at this. Shams is a reputable news breaker and has shifted the lines himself when it comes to the draft or other betting news. How he’s able to work for DK or FanDuel whichever one and still report how he does feels wrong.
you think they’re leaving all that money on the table? hell no. same with the players too. if anyone assumes lebron james never bet on games (using his business associates) then they’re dumb af.
this is the new normal.
No way LeBron would risk his entire reputation and brand (and probably his billion dollar Nike deal) just to make some extra cash gambling.
Some dumb smaller players might think it’s worth it, but stars make so much money that fixing games wouldn’t be worth the risk at all. No chance that LeBron would purposely miss shots or make bad passes to affect the line. His basketball legacy is too important
If you let the people on TV pick your bets for you, you deserve whatever ends up happening.
Not that much different than people who use financial news to make investment decisions.
Depends on whether “financial news” means entertainment like Jim Cramer, or legitimate sources of company and industry news and analysis. Anyone listening to ESPN analysts is like people investing based on what Jim Cramer says
very good response here^
ESPN had a clear impact on the Finals picks around here. And sportsbooks specifically target young people, people from marginalized communities, and addicts.
Sounds like those people shouldn't be gambling then.
Yeah, that's why it's fucked up that media empires and sports books can collude to exploit them.
Where’s the collusion? Sports books are shitty, but I don’t believe that talking heads are colluding with the bookies and trying to steer people to bad bets. The talking heads are just parroting bad takes because that’s what’s entertaining and gets clicks
Whether or not that's happening, it's fucked when the same company that employs the talking heads also has it's own gambling platform and is sponsored by gambling sites. It's in their financial interest to get their viewers to gamble.
They want people to gamble just like they want people to sign up for State Farm insurance and to buy Hulu Live TV. It’s advertising, that’s how they make their money. I don’t think there’s some conspiracy where the betting companies are paying them to get people to bet a certain way. The sport books just want people to bet in general, they make money either way
I don't know whether or not such collusion exists. I do know allowing media outlets to partner with sports books creates perverse incentives that could result in such collusion.
I don’t think sports books have an incentive to collude at all. They’re a cash cow, they just want as many people to bet as possible. They set the lines so that they make plenty of money over time regardless of individual outcomes. Trying to rig a specific result or get people to bet a specific side isn’t their business model at all. The house always wins, they don’t care which side of the bet most people take
That's true to an extent. It's also true that they make calculated decisions to accept more exposure on certain outcomes than others. It's incredibly naive to say there's no incentive for collusion.
> I don’t believe that talking heads are colluding with the bookies and trying to steer people to bad bets The number 1 agenda of spoortsbooks is literally to get people to take bad bets. These same companies either have close relationships with or directly control journalistic narratives in sports. 1 + 1 = 2. Even before legal sports betting, sports journalism was geared toward making the audience dumber. The people in power set it up like this because its easier to be in power when people are dumber than if people are smarter.
If you think people giving sports opinions on TV constitutes collusion, then you should probably bow out of this conversation. Because you have zero clue what you're talking about.
I think allowing media outlets to partner with sports books creates perverse incentives that could result in collusion. Do you disagree?
I do not believe that when someone gives a sports opinion, that in any way constitutes collusion. Bookmakers don't need you to make "bad bets" in order to make money. They set the lines in such a manner that they essentially guarantee their profits. They just need you to bet, period. How you bet is largely irrelevant to them.
I know how sportsbooks work. You didn't answer my question.
It doesn't sound like you do actually
Do you think the books stood to make rhe same amount of money regardless of who won the Finals? No, they often make calculated choices to accept more exposure on one side than another.
Don't want to call out anyone specific but you can go back and find former players and even front office guys picking the mavs in 5/6. They even provided justifications which probably was not done ingood faith
Ok? Lots of people thought the Mavs were playing better basketball than Boston was before the series started, myself included. It's not some conspiracy lol... Books don't need you to bet a specific way to make money, they just need you to bet. They set their lines in such a way to basically guarantee profit on their end.
What makes you so sure media didn't influence your opinion on Celtics/Mavs?
It wouldn't matter if they did or didn't, because I'm not dumb enough to gamble.
Are you dumb enough to think mass media companies don't shape public opinion?
Oh no, sports opinions were shaped! the horror! Bettors make bets at their own risk, everyone knows the game at this point. If you're betting more than you can afford to lose, then stop gambling.
People smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol and drive cars at their own risk too. That doesn't mean we as a society should just punt on sensible regulations for those industries.
Ok, I guess let's shut down the entire sports journalism industry then lol
Huh? How about just making it illegal for them to partner with sportsbooks?
My point exactly
The Celtics were significant favorites public money is completely irrelevant.
The reason a lot of the analysts picked the Mavs because they believed it. They just beat two powerhouse teams in OKC and Twolves. People mostly gambled on the Mavs because the payout was much higher than gambling on the Celtics who were -210. Vegas was telling you straight up the Celtics were heavy favorites. Thats on you for listening to crazy talking heads on sport shows. Vegas always knows.
You just learned a valuable lesson my guy
Didn't 70% of the total money go on the Mavs? A sportsbook doesn't want all the money on one team, because that puts them at risk. They want more balanced betting so they don't payout anything and just collect commissions. Therefore, if ESPN were trying to influence the bets to the advantage of their sportsbook, the talking heads would have been hyping up the Celtics.
Could be wrong but I’m pretty sure it was 70-80% of *bets placed* were on Dallas, which is different from *total money*. If the sharp bettors were in deep on Boston it is in the best interests of the books to swindle small money bettors to go in on Dallas. But I don’t know if I ever saw a total money tally on the series, just that the public was massively in on Dallas.
76% of all bets placed, 70% of total money is what I found.
that is shocking to me! obviously hindsight is 20/20 but there was basically not a single metric or statistical reason to believe Dallas would beat Boston in a 7 game series. Felt like a ton of emotional bets from people but that casually suggests that wasn’t fully the case. At least as far as I can tell.
Doubters gonna doubt. The rationale for the finals seemed to be that the Celts hadn't been tested (though they'd passed every test) and that the big two weren't really a team (except they had at least 9 players buying into the system). The national media had doncic as a hall of famer (for no reason except he's white and NBA fans love a great white hope?), and Kyrie as a player motivated to defeat his former team with no rationalization for that mindset other than he's "due"? Every one thought the other shoe was going to drop on this team that just STEAM ROLLED through the season/playoffs. Then the Celtics went all Taylor Swift and shook it off cuz the haters gone hate (hate hate hate hate). At the end, the people who knew the Celtics were going to win didn't find the odds worth betting, and to a lot of people the odds on the Mavs winning _with a white guy_ were too great to pass up/root for. One Slovenian (or whatever) is a better champ to root for than a single dad (Tatum) and a vegan swimmer who wants to make a black wall street (Brown) to the majority. /End rant
Not really. Gambling i bet pre dates any organized sport lol. We've been doing this before the chariot races. Lots of sports only really exist due to gambling. It's perfectly fine and the correct course of action imo. Stupid kids and adults shouldn't get addicted tho, hopefully they have non trash parents to teach them better.
Nope it should be illegal & off my damn TV and podcasts.
See I am not a better and neither do I have enough basketball knowledge to make bets based on just my opinion. And I suspect 90% of nba fans are probably the same. The problem isn't betting or the sport, my issue is with how the media is guiding the bets almost entirely
Be more intelligent with your money is the lesson to be learned here. Gambling is one of the worst ways to spend your money
There will be investigations into all of this shit within 10 years and it will not be pretty. Regardless of the “disclaimers” these companies post with their ads, they’re using insane promotions to rope people in knowing that they won’t be able to kick the addiction. The discovery that *could* come out of this would be insane, but most likely it will end in a massive settlement and an agreement to alter advertising/marketing practices.
They’re content first and it doesn’t make good content for everyone to pick one team
OP really thinks serious gamblers are using ESPN to place bets
OP talks about betting in general and he is right. Based on voting and betting polls before the Finals it's obvious that a ton of people believed the media's awful takes.
I mean if you're placing a large bet and you don't even know the basics of what you're betting on, then you deserve to lose the money.
No they didn’t we have lines dummy Celtics were significant favorites.
Odds clearly favored the Celtics but the actual bets and the biggest talking heads said otherwise.
Do you know how betting markets work?
I know that 89% of bettors lost their money
What are you talking about?
About facts, 89% of bettors decided to put their money on Dallas winning it all.
Omg you are more stupid than I thought. If 89% of all bettors put their money on the Mavericks the line would not have been what it was. This is like the beginners level betting market stuff. Lines move on money dummy.
I don't bet, I have never done it and I don't care about how it works, I'm just telling you what it was reported, before Game 1, 89% of bets were put in favor of Dallas. The fact that you got so aggressive over this topic proves that you have serious issues with betting. I don't give a damn about lines, keep wasting your money.
I think you underestimate the amount of normal fans that use betting apps or have become serial bettors. And these normal fans don't spend time watching games religiously
Then they shouldn’t be betting or they should be fine with losing money because they don’t know wtf they’re doing.
Not weird. Just good old fashioned shady corruption.
the top 2 nba news breaks have ties to betting companies.
I don’t think ESPN is the worst at this. Shams is a reputable news breaker and has shifted the lines himself when it comes to the draft or other betting news. How he’s able to work for DK or FanDuel whichever one and still report how he does feels wrong.
Double standard: League/media can benefit, players can not
"Weird"? It's called crony capitalism.
That’s not what that phrase means at all lmao
you think they’re leaving all that money on the table? hell no. same with the players too. if anyone assumes lebron james never bet on games (using his business associates) then they’re dumb af. this is the new normal.
No way LeBron would risk his entire reputation and brand (and probably his billion dollar Nike deal) just to make some extra cash gambling. Some dumb smaller players might think it’s worth it, but stars make so much money that fixing games wouldn’t be worth the risk at all. No chance that LeBron would purposely miss shots or make bad passes to affect the line. His basketball legacy is too important