Try this one on. Free alterations.
The Wall Street Journal this week reported that several of the commercially conspicuous league and network-attached sports betting operations — including Bet MGM, ESPN Bet and Caesars, their ads endlessly seen on TV to convince their clients to lose their money — have a hard time suffering those fortunate few who are in the nasty habit of winning.
In other words, if you’re one of those young male adults seen in TV ads joyously celebrating their big score — the only folks shown — these sportsbooks no longer will take your action or severely limit it to comparative peanuts.
Dave Holmes, an online sports bettor from Chicago, told the WSJ that only when he began to win were his plays rejected.
Another, Michael Holt of South Dakota, who lives near the Iowa border — online sports betting is illegal in S.D., legal in Iowa — made modest bets on college basketball games, $50 his maximum. But only when he began to win was he flagged by ESPN Bet and Caesars, then allowed to bet no more than $5-$10 per game.
Said Holmes: “Would love to be given the reason why it’s happening.” The WSJ did, as well, but received no answers.
Holmes is apparently particularly irksome to legal sportsbooks as a wagerer non grata, as he estimates he’s up about 50 grand since he began to accede to the advertised come-ons — many of which carry the licensing logos of partner professional sports leagues including the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB and Disney’s ESPN.
Thus, I’d suggest both Holmes and the WSJ direct their highly pertinent questions to those who should already know or should know the answers, starting with our sports’ commissioners.
It’s worth noting here that Tuesday’s “kids friendly” All-Star Game on Fox was replete with in-game invites to gamble on baseball.
Not that these sports-betting schemes are designed to lose money, but that actual winners have been denied further action or limited to fractionalized action, seems a clear case of bad losing. Clearly, they’re not cooperating with the leagues’ certified plan to lose their money.
As for those commercials showing only over-the-moon winners? Repetitively false advertising — stickups targeting the vulnerable — that I would think are legally actionable.
Finally, another question: Most of those TV ads contain obligatory small print giving a phone number for “problem gamblers.” But if all the people displayed in the ads are seen winning, why would anyone have a gambling problem?
Roku latest addition to dizzying carousel of Yanks’ TV options
Expressing my inner Pete Alonso:
Another grueling task, as per Rob Manfred’s money-first MLB hide-and-seek TV mandates: Sunday’s Yankees-O’s, the one that ended with that mind-blowing gift to the O’s, began before noon and was lost to tens of thousands of potential viewers, hiding on a channel few knew existed.
So what is Roku TV? Well, Sunday it was a matter of replacing the F with an R to form Roku. Even if you don’t get it, you got it?
That country singer’s Yoko Ono-like All-Star Game rendition of our national anthem — afterward she claimed to have been drunk and in need of treatment, and her tattered appearance and vocals seemed in tune with that — taught Manfred about quality control.
From now on, he’ll go with a reliably vulgar, N-word-spewing, women-trashing, crotch-grabbing rapper, perhaps Ghostface Killah, on loan from Roger Goodell.
Loved Manfred’s response to the annually ugly, good sense-defying All-Star Game team uniforms — on sale now! — as opposed to the logical, better-for-the-game return to regular-season teams’ uniforms.
Manfred said, “I am aware of that sentiment, and I do know why people kind of like that tradition.”
But he came closer to the truth when he said the “conversation” has to involve “Nike, and some of our partners.”
He has to consult with Nike? For crying out loud, he’s the Commissioner of Major League Baseball! Demand that Nike just do it!
I always admired the pitching of Bud Black, a slightly built lefty who used pluck and savvy to go 121-116 while pitching 42 complete games, often for poor teams.
But as manager of the Rockies, you see none of that. He’s just another analytics-addled, mound-bound manager.
Sunday, as Carlos Mendoza and Black swapped turns trying to lose Rockies-Mets, Colorado reliever Nick Mears entered in the seventh. He struck out numbers three, four and five in the Mets’ order, all swinging.
But Black brought in Jalen Beeks to pitch the eighth. Beeks allowed a single, a walk, a double and two runs in the three batters he faced before he was pulled.
Black “managed” to turn an 8-3 lead into an 8-5 final, the Mets leaving two on in the ninth, for no discernible reason.
Same day in Baltimore, Aaron Boone pulled three consecutive relievers who’d allowed a total of one hit and struck out five until he reached off-and-on mandatory closer Clay Holmes, who then walked two and allowed two hits in that bottom-of-the-ninth, self-impaling loss.
Maybe it’s done to hold audiences. After all, it’s not as if we can’t see it coming — today, tomorrow, the past dozen years.
Hulk doesn’t smash ’roid problem
Was hoping kids TV hero Hulk Hogan, speaking at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, would have brought up the influx of illegal drugs at the border — the border of Harrisburg, Pa.
That’s where Vince McMahon’s then-WWF doctor, George Zahorian, was headquartered, and from where he shipped Hogan (and McMahon) his career-reliant steroids before Zahorian was sentenced to hard time for felony drug distribution.
There’s a photo of McMahon, Hogan and Zahorian, smiling, their arms over one another’s shoulders, taken well before former president Donald Trump was selected by his twisted pal, McMahon, to the WWE Hall of Fame.
Incidentally, I remain a registered member of the Surprise Party.
In supporting biological males who now often unfairly win girls and women’s athletics, New York Attorney General Letitia James, as matter of the fairness and equity she advocates, should answer this: Why don’t biological females who identify as males excel in boys’ and mens’ sports?
Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake, two of America’s most renown impaired reckless drivers, now co-own a Manhattan sports bar. They missed the chance to name it the “Recite the Alphabet, Don’t Sing It.”
Reader/radio host Jody Davis suggests that ESPN’s graphic scroll will soon report that Bronny James “racked up his fifth triple-single.”
We used to watch MLB’s All-Star games until their final outs. Now, on the day after, we’re likely to ask, “Who won?” to which we’d be told, “I don’t know.”
This Just In! An ESPN headline submitted by reader Phil Glowatz read: “Rookie phenom Paul Skenes has been selected to his first MLB All-Star Game.” To be fair, it was tough to find veteran All-Star Game rookies, no matter how hard ESPN searched.
Had a horrible nightmare. I was at a banquet, and John Smoltz was the after-dinner speaker.
