Why Michael Lewis is worried about the sports betting boom

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s hard to remember now. But just a few years ago, sports betting was illegal in almost all of United States. And sports leagues and the media companies that worked with them wanted nothing to do with anything that even referenced gambling. Things are very, very different now! And it happened so quickly that very few people have stopped to ask what any of this means for America, and what it will mean down the road. Those questions — and the reasons why so few of us are posing them — turn out to be a great topic for Michael Lewis. You can hear him grappling with them in the excellent new season of his “Against the Rules” podcast series. And I was delighted to discuss all of it with him on my show. It also gave me an opportunity to discuss “The Fifth Risk” - his 2018 book about Donald Trump’s first attempt to take over federal government, which is extra-timely right now. And I couldn’t let him go without a brief chat about crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:40.1	From the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Channels. Peter Kafka, that is me.
1:45.8	I am he.
1:46.5	I'm also the chief correspondent at Business Insider.
1:49.9	Today I've got a special one for you.
1:51.4	It is a conversation with author Michael Lewis about sports betting and Donald Trump and crypto.
1:57.8	I'm pretty sure you know who Michael Lewis is because the people who listen to this podcast
2:01.5	are a self-selecting group. Just in case, Michael Lewis has been a world famous writer since
2:07.4	1989 when he wrote Liars Poker about his time on Wall Street. You probably know that since then
2:13.7	he's written huge books that often turn into huge movies like moneyball and blindside
2:18.7	and the big short and you also probably know that a couple years ago he came out with a biography
	...

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