Newest betting show a dud???

That’s entertainment?

Sports magazine Defector pulled no punches this week as it offered up its review of ESPN’s new gambling-based TV show, ESPN Bet.

The programme, which takes the same name as ESPN’s eponymous sportsbook, “is a black hole” according to the review.

“It adheres to a very simple pattern: Here is something you can bet on (e.g. NFL Comeback Player of the Year, the Cincinnati Reds, Israel Adesanya); here are the odds; here is an affirmative or negative case for why to bet or not bet on or against those odds.”

“Various gimmicky setups” do little to distract from this cut-and-paste formula, the piece argues, so “when ESPN personalities like Stanford Steve or Mina Kimes show up, it’s for this essentially cosmetic purpose.”

The programme’s intention, it addes, is not to make customers smarter at sports betting or give them an edge, “but to divert the nascent gambler away from the two biggest sportsbooks in the country and onto ESPN Bet.”

With market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings still heavily dominating the US betting sector, ESPN is hoping to leverage its media presence to turn bettors towards its own offering.

Such customer conversion “depends upon ESPN transforming itself into a gushing firehose of gambling sludge,” the piece unapologetically claims.

And, by doing little more than presenting potential sporting outcomes and their relative odds, the programme is telling “lies” to its customers about its ostensible objective of making viewers into better-informed gamblers.

“The show is straightforwardly an ad for the app, which ESPN executives have openly talked about on earnings calls,” it describes.

So, while the convergence of betting and mainstream media has yet to pay dividends, it seems Defector, at least, wishes they would try just a little harder to make it work.

Clean sweep

Elsewhere, the Australian Financial Review reported that Perth-based billionaire businessman Laurence Escalante’s gaming empire is “under attack”.

Escalante is the owner of Virtual Gaming Worlds, a sweepstake casino operator which “pioneered using a US legislative loophole that allows it to offer casino-like experiences online with real cash prizes in states where online gambling is otherwise banned.”

Recently, commentators including the American Gaming Association and Light & Wonder have been making their thoughts on the sweepstakes casino sector known in no uncertain turns.

The practice is “unregulated, untaxed, unlicensed and illegal,” according to L&W’s global head of government affairs, Howard Glaser.

“Lurking behind this mushy sounding term [‘sweepstakes casinos’] is a rapidly growing scheme of questionable legality which lets people play online casino games and wager real money – run by operators that skirt regulation and licensing, offer no player protections, and siphon revenue from state governments,” he is quoted as saying in the article.

In response, Escalante’s Virtual Gaming Worlds has rejected the claims, saying it had “best in class” financial crime controls, and tight verification processes for players.

“We have full confidence in our compliance with all laws and regulations where we operate,” a spokesman for the company said.

Virtual Gaming Worlds was, however, one of three operators to receive a cease-and-desist letter from Michigan regulators, while Delaware officials have also written to the firm to ensure customers in the state cannot play for cash prizes.

According to the article, the business generated a 30% revenue increase to $2.8bn in the six months to 31 December.

So, while the sweepstakes casino model may soon find itself in hot water, it seems for now at least, business is booming.

Anti-social media

Finally, The Guardian brought us a report on a worrying trend emerging in the world of professional sports, which Hot Copy has reported previously.

Following her first-round defeat at the US Open, French tennis player Caroline Garcia said she received widespread abuse on social media.

This, she suggested, was driven by “unhealthy gambling,” as losing bettors take to social media to vent their frustration, often under the guise of anonymous accounts.

Garcia suggests multiple sources of the increase in online hate, with both professional sports’ links to gambling and social media platforms’ lack of action to blame.

“Social media platforms don’t prevent it, despite AI being in a very advanced position,” she said.

“Tournaments and the sport keeps partnering with betting companies, which keep attracting new people to unhealthy betting.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they should be banned. But maybe we should not promote them. Also, if someone decided to say these things to me in public, he could have legal issues. So why online we are free to do anything? Shouldn’t we reconsider anonymity online?”

Garcia is far from the first professional sports star to report social media abuse in the wake of losses.

And worryingly, not only has the tennis player been targeted directly, members of her family have also been subject to online abuse.

Fortunately, Garcia says she has “tools and have done work to protect myself from this hate. But still, this is not OK. It really worries me when I think about younger players coming up, that have to go through this.”

If professional sports are going to continue to attract the brightest and best young people, it seems action will be required to curb the amount of unfiltered hate which can reach them online.

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