Inside the explosive growth of sports betting

Fresh Air

NPR

Society & Culture, Arts, Tv & Film, Books

4.3 • 36.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As part of his investigation into sports betting, Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins gambled $10,000 during last NFL season. He spoke with co-host Tonya Mosley about his experiment, what he learned, and what the explosion of betting is doing to society. “It’s turning all of American life into a Las Vegas table game. There’s always this kind of glittering mirage of profit that you’re chasing, when, in reality, it’s designed to sort of demoralize and crush every regular person who plays.” They also talk about how betting has expanded to politics and international conflict.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. When U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader last month,
0:07.9	some Americans weren't just watching the news. They were waiting for a payout after wagering on the Ayatollah's fate on a prediction market site called Kalshi. When he died,
0:18.6	Kalshi refused to pay, citing fine print that excluded death as a qualifying outcome.
0:23.6	Thousands of bettors are now suing for $54 million.
0:27.6	This isn't the first time a real-world crisis has become a windfall for online betters.
0:33.6	Days before U.S. forces stormed Venezuela, an anonymous account on the platform polymarket
0:39.4	wager tens of thousands of dollars that President Nicholas Maduro would be in U.S. custody by the end of February.
0:46.8	When Maduro was captured, that anonymous better walked away with more than $400,000 in profit.
0:57.1	That story stopped my guest, writer McKay Coppins cold. By that point, he was already four months into a reported experiment for the Atlantic,
1:03.2	spending an entire NFL season gambling to understand what America's sports betting boom
1:09.2	is doing to the country. He thought he understood
1:12.4	the terrain, the apps, the addiction, the game-fixing standals, but the Maduro bet pointed to something
1:18.5	bigger, a new relationship with gambling, where everything is potentially a wager. From sports to
1:25.2	elections, award show winner outcomes, even tomorrow's weather. His piece
1:30.3	explores the personal and societal cost of these bargains. Coppins is a staff writer at the
1:35.9	Atlantic, and his piece is called Sucker, My Year as a Degenerate Gambler. It's available on the
1:42.2	Atlantic's website today and is the cover story of the magazine's
1:45.9	April issue. And McKay Coppins, welcome to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. Well, what a title, first of all,
1:53.5	which we will get into. But you know, what was so interesting about this experiment is not only the
1:59.0	experiment itself, but that you are a Mormon, which means
2:03.3	that gambling is off limits. And yet, here you are doing this experiment. What made you want to
2:09.8	spend a season doing this? Well, it started as an assignment to basically look into and write a reported piece about the explosive
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.