Support for the Radio West podcast comes from Harmon's Grocery, helping to make Easter dinner easy with ready to heat and serve citrus glazed ham, ogrotten potatoes, deviled eggs, and pastry trays. Make it easy with Harman's. Mackay Coppins and his editors at Atlantic Magazine wanted to publish a piece about the rise of legal online sports betting in the U.S.

For most of American history gambling has been heavily regulated and it carried this heavy social stigma.

But in 2018, the Supreme Court overturned a federal law that banned sports betting and it opened the door for states to legalize it.

And it didn't take long for sports books and betting apps and celebrity endorsements and partnerships with pro leagues to just spread like wildfire.

So it's a good idea for a story, right?

But Coppins editors were looking for an angle to tell it.

And I think it was my editor who said, you know, it would be really good if you actually experienced it firsthand.

And I said, yeah, no, I'm sure that would be kind of funny, but, you know, for religious reasons,

I don't gamble. And he said, yeah, no, we know you're Mormon, but we have this idea.

And they basically proposed what was essentially like a theological workaround.

They said, what if the Atlantic stakes you $10,000 to gamble with over the course of the upcoming NFL season?

We will cover any losses, but in order to kind of ensure that you remain emotionally invested in the project,

we will split any winnings 50-50.

I will say I was like intrigued.

I had never been a gambler before.

I really was never even that tempted to gamble.

It seemed like a waste of time to me.

But also I'm a sports fan.

So through almost like cultural osmosis in the last few years,

I had learned a little about, you know,

point spreads and money lines

and things like that. And so I decided that I should go consult my bishop. So I sat down with my

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