The house always wins

Fear, loathing (and a secret third emotion) at the Rust Belt sportsbook

There’s a Cybertruck at the entrance to the casino. A bit too on the nose, as far as scene-setting goes, but these are not subtle times. A sign nearby informs me of an upcoming raffle for loyal Potawatomi Fire Club members. Play my cards right and I too can own a curveless hellmobile that only sometimes blows up.

The second thing I see is the long line of guys. Black/White/Asian/Latino/Native. A real rainbow coalition of fellas in hoodies. Young and old, but mostly young. Is the line always just dudes? Surely not, but it is now.

I take my spot at the back of the queue. None of us are talking to each other. We are first waiting for and then retreating to our individual kiosks. We are furrowing our brows and punching away. If any of us are having a good time, we are keeping it to ourselves. The guy next to me has a scribbled set of notes, opinions about the Mcneese State Cowboys and the St. Johns Red Storm. He makes his selections quickly. The guy on the other side isn’t in any hurry. He’s clicking and grunting. Clicking and waiting. Clicking and frowning. It’s clear that he’s been here a while.

As you’ve likely heard, America is now a sports betting nation. Ever since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling opened the door for state-level legalization, the sports gambling industry has spent upwards of a billion dollars a year ensuring that we all catch the fever. Because I watch sports on television in 2025, I’m served a never-ending stream of enticements to bet big: arenas plastered with logos for Draft Kings and Bet MGM; play-by-play announcers informing me about shifts in the lines; a million ads featuring Kevin Hart. When I watch my beloved Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks, I tune into a channel— the Fanduel Sports Network— named after a literal gambling conglomerate.

The wall to wall marketing barrage, not just from the casinos but from media partners and the major leagues themselves, is just one flank in the gambling industry’s invasion of American public consciousness. I’m here at Potawatomi because Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that only allows on-site gambling, but over thirty states have legalized app-based sports betting. Across the country, millions of phones are now, in essence, mini casinos. And just as physical casinos have mastered every trick in the book to make you chase good money after bad, so too have all those innovations now been uploaded to the cloud.

None of this, I suspect, is news to you. By this point, there has been no shortage of cautionary reportage both about the online sports gambling industry’s vampiric spread across the country. You have likely heard that bankruptcies are up over 30% in states that have legalized app-based sports betting. You have also likely heard that legalized sports gambling has been linked to increase rates of suicide and domestic violence. The fact that addiction peddlers leave a trail of destruction wherever they go is tragic but unsurprising.

What I can’t stop thinking about, though, is the particular demographic group that has most fully found itself under the spell of Big Bet. It’s the boys, of course, my current brothers in kiosk tapping. While Americans of all ages and genders can develop gambling problems, no cohort has been enveloped by the sports gambling wave like young men. Nearly 50% of guys between the ages of 18 and 49 have an active sports betting account. Of that group, over 50% report engaging in at least one problem gambling behavior (like chasing a losing bet, or having financial problems as a result of their addiction). As I’ve written previously, while I’m not convinced that there is a crisis in young manhood that can be separated from the broader crises we all face, I will continue to shout from the rooftops about the risks posed by the various snake oils— be they podcasts or gambling benders or authoritarian political movements— being sold to twenty-and-thirty-something men as a cure for what ails them.

I’m fascinated by sports gambling, but always from a distance. And so I’m here, on the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, staring at a kiosk. For the next few hours, the only thing that matters to me is how well various nineteen year olds can play basketball. Other than some scattered pull tabs, 50/50 raffles and office March Madness pools, I’ve never gambled for cash before. I’m a Quaker, a religion that frowns on fetishizing money in this way, so I’ve made a rule for myself. Depending on your perspective, it’s a statement of principle or an overly precious loophole. Either way, any money I spend and/or win, I’ll donate to the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, two organizations doing crucial, humanity-bettering work. As for me, today at least, I am pointedly not making the world a better place. I’m standing at a touch screen, trying to decide which teenager in the upcoming BYU-VCU game will score the first basket.

I am, quite clearly, the biggest mark in the entire sprawling building. My eyes dart in ever possible direction: jittery, panicky, overstimulated. Had a guy in a fedora walked up to me and asked me to play three card monte, I would have handed him all of my money and collapsed in a heap. Once again, I know that this sounds like a hamfisted writerly detail, but I am literally sweating. I insert my freshly printed Firekeepers Club card and forty bucks into the machine and am suddenly staring into the matrix. I hesitantly scroll through a never-ending stream of names and numbers. Do I want to make a money line wager? A parlay? An INSTANT BET? How the hell should I know.

I force myself to click a few buttons. I proclaim, with God and the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe as my witnesses, that Gonzaga will beat Georgia and that Virginia Commonwealth will beat Brigham Young University. Most arbitrarily of all, I declare that Egor Demin of BYU will score the first basket in that particular game. A prop bet, if you will. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I am now the owner of three little slips of paper, which I clutch like a kindergartener with a bus assignment slip. What’s my name? I forget. But what bus am I riding? The Egor Demin bus, at least for the next few hours.

I need a drink.

As the only casino in Southeastern Wisconsin, Potawatomi makes a tidy profit, and has reinvested its considerable wealth into creating what, at least to my untrained eye, presents as a convincing facsimile of a fancy Las Vegas gambling palace. While there is no charm to the auxillary kiosks at the entrance, walk down a floor and you’ll come to the sportsbook proper, a gorgeous, well-appointed sports temple. There are plush couches and towering video screens and nacho platters that don’t skimp on the queso.

It’s an attractive space, but packed to the gills, so while I intended to snag a spot at the bar, I instead take my Miller Lite and my three betting slips and lean awkwardly against a wall. I text a picture of the scene to two of my best friends, the men who taught me to love college sports back when we were rookie teachers in New Mexico.

I love Casey and Jake with all my heart. They are the guys with whom I’ve processed break ups and miscarriages, births and book deals. We don’t live in the same city anymore, but every year we get together for a weekend to drink beer, eat tacos and watch ball. Last year, in Bloomington Indiana, Jake— a math teacher and data scientist— spent an hour at a bar patiently explaining to two vaping frat boys why the prop bets they were about to place were a huge mistake. They assured him that they couldn’t lose. Jake remained unconvinced. This year, Casey told a story about how his sweet ten-year-old son recently complained that “of all my friends, I’m the only one whose dad won’t let him make bets on their apps.”

Jake was right, by the way. The IU boys did, in fact, lose. As for Casey’s son, he remains a man apart, the sole fifth grade boy not currently living a Jimmy the Greek lifestyle on a paternal smartphone.

My buddies agree that the bar does, in fact, look like an incredible place to watch a game. They are less interested in the bets I made than the scene itself. And with good reason. For as depressing as the experience upstairs was— the silent men at the kiosks, the grunting and frowning— the vibe here is… pretty fun, actually? I was expecting even more solemn dudes drowning their sorrows in Michelob Ultras and cursed parlays, but I’m one of the only lonely singles in the whole joint. In one corner of the room, a large crowd has gathered to celebrate a birthday. Across the way, there’s a work group having what looks to be a real blast. Next to me, a pair of 50-something guys in Drake University sweatshirts are telling everybody who’ll listen that they met because both their daughters go there. Go Bulldogs.

I’d love to hang with the Drake dads, but I’ve got more pressing concerns. After some build-up about the BYU player whose great-grandpa invented the tater tot, the Cougars and Rams tip off. And who gets the ball then my guy, my new best friend, the only human being for whom my heart currently beats.

Oh my God, is he actually going to do it? It sure seems like he’s gonna do it. He’s got that look on his face. That Egor Demin look. No doubt a look that he’s been cultivating ever since he dominated the hardwood at his hometown Moscow Basketball Academy. He’s a sharpshooter, that Egor. He proved that in his days at Real Madrid. I know all this, I swear, not because I just Googled a basic set of facts about Egor Demin, but because they are deep universal truths. We all know Egor Demin. We recognize that he was put on the Earth to make the first shot in this game, win me roughly thirty five dollars and solidify my identity as a sports gambling prodigy.

Come on, Egor. Come on, come on, come on.

Goddamnit all to hell.

I don’t know anything about the VCU player who scores the first bucket, except the most important fact of all (that he is not Egor Demin). And I suppose that now I am exaggerating, but truly not too much. In the moment, all of this feels profoundly impossible and deeply unjust. A wrong has been committed, to me specifically, and it needs to be righted as soon as possible. Is this how easy it is to become an aggrieved gambling guy?

And so here I am, in the exact cognitive place that the ascendent sports gambling industry knew I would be. I’m deflated. I’m a loser. I am fixated on a lanky Russian teenager. I need to make this feeling go away.

I can’t see any kiosks in my immediate vicinity, so I leave the jovial colleagues, ebullient birthday celebrants and proud Drake dads and make my way to the auxiliary sportsbook. There are TVs and couches here as well, but because this space also features a long line of kiosks, the vibe more closely mirrors the sullen line upstairs. Way more single guys, and way more guys who aren’t technically alone but who aren’t talking to each other. There are no nachos. We are here to stare at screens and either pump our fists or clench our head in our palms at seemingly random moments. We are here for kiosk proximity.

While my Lord and Savior Egor Demin failed to score the game’s first basket, the announcers are now yelping about how he’s lighting it up from everywhere on the floor. I scroll the kiosk for a new, Egor-specific wager, but none are forthcoming. No, “next player to make a three: Egor Demin,” or "next player to convert water to wine: Egor Demin.” As a consolation, I click on INSTANT BET and put twenty five dollars down on whether the next basket will be a two or three pointer. I choose the latter, of course. If there’s one thing I now know about Egor Demin (a man whose personhood I discovered an hour ago), it’s that he’s lethal from downtown.

I place my bet, tear off another slip of paper, and turn around just in time to see a teenager who is not Egor Demin make a lay-up.

The rest of the afternoon is a blur. I go back to the fun space, the one with the parties and the nachos and the dads. I stand at the wall and nurse a complimentary cup of Pepsi in silence. BYU handily dispatches VCU, once again on account of Egor Demin seemingly making every single shot except for the two specific baskets I needed him to make. I had money on VCU winning that game (a hedge?), so I desultorily stuff one more losing betting slip into my pocket. I watch Gonzaga-Georgia in the KISS Rock and Brews Restaurant on the second floor, which means that I get to celebrate my first and only sports betting victory by making meaningful eye contact with a tongue-heavy Gene Simmons statue.

Thank God for the Zags. The pride of Spokane, Washington. I knew that they’d come through for me. I grew up in Missoula, Montana, where we are accustomed to occasionally looking West towards Spokane. For Arena rock concerts. For chain restaurants. For prom dresses at Macy’s. And now, for gambling salvation.

Winning a bet feels better than losing a bet, but both produce the same Pavlovian response. Before leaving the casino, I commit to one last wager. I take my place, once again, in the line of silent men. It’s around 5:00 PM. Work’s off for the day, and the line now snakes all the way out to the Cybertruck.

I wait patiently. I try not to make eye contact. I think about whether anything about the experience surprised me. There was much that didn’t, I suppose. I expected the euphoria and deflation, the sudden hyper-fixation on external stimuli to make me feel decent about myself and my place in the world. I didn’t expect my brain to be affected any differently than anybody else’s brain. You know what they say about the house.

What I didn’t expect, though, was the constant reminders that this— the staring at screens, the consenting to having our brains toyed with, the pretending that other human beings are merely video game characters who exist to win or lose us money— isn’t actually what any of us want. I was expecting the sad-eyed men clicking away, but I wasn’t expecting the roomful of pals cheering and laughing and— seemingly at least— caring less about their bets than their time with each other. Even here, in a place so perfectly micro-managed to make us forget anything except our open wagers, we can’t help but be human to each other.

The line moves slowly. I have plenty of time to let my mind wander, to remember all the moments that I’ve been happiest watching or playing sports. I remember cul-de-sac baseball with elementary school friends; listening to Orioles games on the radio with my dad during our Maryland years; the high school track practices in Missoula where we’d run the Kim Williams trail but then slip across the river to Taco Bell; the parents I adore from my kids’ soccer leagues; every time I’ve ever watched a game in a bar and moved from high-fiving friends to high-fiving strangers. In all the moments I’ve loved sports, what I’ve actually loved was other people. It’s basic and obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

If you’ve ever seen a sports betting commercial, you know the message. Don’t you want to be a winner? Don’t you want to outsmart the house? Don’t you want to come out on top? In this way, this ravenous industry is a perfect stand-in for the false prophets whispering other varieties of lies. It’s the same rope-a-dope offered by Trump and the podcast boys. You can cure your emptiness, your ennui, your material precarity, without the pesky work of interdependence. All it takes is one more strongman, one more tariff, one more bathroom ban, one more deportation, one more winning bet.

But if that were truly the case, why would lonely men need podcast voices in their ears in the first place? Why would Trump and Musk thirst so nakedly for our affection? Why would none of this— the dominance, the suppression of contrary narratives, the never-ending war against empathy— bring them any joy? Because all of us, even the truest believers in the church of alpha male deliverance, can’t escape the pesky truth. We don't actually want to win. We want each other. We want to see and be seen. We want to be cared for, which means that we won’t get what we’re seeking until we actually learn to care in return.

Even here, in this gilded palace of instant gratification, the truth peaks out. There’s no joy in the solitary lines. There’s no joy in the obscene, angular Cybertruck. The only joy is on the couches, amidst the nacho platters and the high fives and the hugs.

It’s finally my turn at the kiosk. I make one last wager. Another INSTANT BET. Another chance to choose between a two and three pointer. I don’t even remember which game I pick. I just click. I lose again, but it barely registers. I’m done here. Twenty minutes later, I’m home. I hug my kids and relate the whole story to my wife. Before bed, I text Casey and Jake again. “I wish I was watching with you guys today,” I write.

Within seconds, I get a reply.

“Me too.”

End notes:

1. After pressing send on this piece, I’m off on spring break with my kids! I plan to reply to comments at night, but there’ll probably be more of a delay than normal.

2. Next week, I’ll announce when I’m offering new Barnraisers Project classes. If you’re on the interest list, you’ll know as soon as I open them up.

3. On the subject of spring break, I’m not going to do a subscribers’ discussion this Thursday, but WILL be sharing some of my favorite places that people have stuck “Trump and Musk don’t care about you” stickers. (I still have a few more left, by the way, but they’re going fast). There are some super fun ones (don’t worry, I’ve already prepped it; I promise I am actually enjoying a break).

4. A reminder that all of this— the writing, the organizing, the coaching, the pep talking, the supporting hundreds of big and small organizing efforts across the country and world— is both my day job and my talented colleague Carly’s day job. Neither of us is getting rich off this work, and goodness knows we aren’t supplementing our income by hitting it big on parlays, so please consider supporting our efforts. You can do so by buying my book, The Right Kind of White (out now on paperback!), donating to Barnraisers, but especially by becoming a paid subscriber here.

5. You’re now curious as to which BYU player’s great-grandpa invented the tater tot, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I’ve got you.

5. Would you like a song of the week? Was there any other choice? Kenny Rogers, please tell the people what they need to know.

The full song of the week playlist is on Apple Music and Spotify.