What Next | Where Sports Betting Got Us

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week, the FBI indicted more than 30 people in a series of NBA gambling scandals. The sports leagues are promising drastic action – but with everyone from the states to the owners getting rich off legal sports gambling, is the game rigged? Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've been thinking a lot lately about Back to the Future Part 2.
0:11.0	In the 1985 classic, Marty McFly makes a brief visit to the future, or, well, to 2015.
0:28.7	And while he's there, he buys this sports almanac.
0:33.3	He takes it back to the past, tempted by this idea to make money off of upcoming games.
0:39.8	The only problem is it's Biff Tannen, the McFly family's generational bully who gets his hands
0:45.3	on the scores, and he uses them to cheat his way to becoming one of the richest guys in America.
0:51.2	It doesn't end well.
0:53.3	Discover how in 1979 Biff successfully lobbied to legalize gambling and turned Hill
0:58.5	Valley's dilapidated courthouse into a beautiful casino hotel.
1:02.6	You just want to say one thing.
1:05.3	God bless America.
1:16.2	Is this story about a millionaire tearing down a public government building to put up a giant vanity project a little too on the nose?
1:19.5	Well, that's kind of my point.
1:21.6	Because it feels like even though Marty eventually wound up correcting his timeline, our real
1:26.6	world feels way too similar to Biff's
1:29.3	gambling dystopia. Maybe it's because Marty only went to 2015. If he traveled just three years
1:35.9	later, he could have witnessed the Supreme Court and the federal prohibition on sports
1:40.4	gambling. So there's, I believe, 38 states in Washington, D.C., in which sports gambling is now legal
1:49.6	and regulated by the states.
1:53.0	That's Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of the legal website, Balls and Strikes.
1:57.2	He also writes about sports betting for Fast Company.
2:01.2	It's everywhere, and it's easier.
	...

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