00:00Okay, this happened yesterday and the MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, MLS and all the players unions to get that group
00:14of people together to agree on anything is wild.
00:17But they are coming together asking sportsbooks and states to get after the bad actors and the bettors who are
00:30harassing players online.
00:32Five major sports leagues, as InGame.com wrote yesterday, along with the unions that represent the players in those leagues,
00:39sent a strongly worded letter Tuesday to state gambling regulators urging strict measures against bettors who harass and threaten players.
00:48The letter, signed by all the teams, all the leagues, was sent, quote, regarding the escalating threat facing professional players,
00:57coaches and officials that continued harassment and violent threats from sports bettors.
01:02The letter noted that states such as Ohio, West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming have already put in place ways to
01:09ban such fans from sportsbooks, but other states need to get on the ball and do the same thing.
01:16I highlight this for a couple different reasons.
01:19As we start football season, prop betting becomes a very big thing in college and pro football.
01:25When a player individually does not do what you think that they are going to do, social media gives you
01:32access in some form or fashion to that player, either their DMs or in their mentions.
01:37In some form or fashion, you can go and rant and you can go invent.
01:41It is the worst part of the internet.
01:44It is the cesspool of the internet that people are able to do that to professional players, athletes, public figures.
01:52It is unlike any other part of society because if you saw that basketball player, that baseball player, that football
02:01player at a restaurant or at a bar, out of a thousand encounters, maybe one time you would bring up
02:10your bet to that athlete.
02:12And maybe it would be because an athlete would be talking to you in some form or fashion and maybe
02:17you would say, hey, I bet on you, blah, blah, blah.
02:19But you wouldn't say what you would say online.
02:26You're an asshole.
02:27You're an asshole.
02:28You suck.
02:29You should die.
02:31Go kill yourself.
02:32All the horrible things that people write every day to athletes.
02:36They should be banned.
02:38They should be.
02:39But how do you do that across the board?
02:42Like, how do you police this?
02:45Because you're going to take this player and you're going to 86 this player's ability to bet everywhere.
02:52How?
02:52How are you going to stop them betting offshore?
02:55How are you going to stop them betting in prediction markets?
02:57How are you going to stop them betting on the DFS sites and the grouping of bets, the parlay sites?
03:05Like, how are you going to stop that?
03:07You're not going to stop this.
03:09It's not going to happen.
03:11So I get the idea of like a strongly worded letter and like, let's get on this.
03:16But for the most part, if somebody wants to get a bet down in the world, they're going to get
03:21a bet down.
03:22And if they want to bet against you or on you as a player prop perspective, there is some book
03:28in the world that's going to take your action.
03:30Even if it's 10 bucks, there's a book that's going to take your action.
03:35So that's the problem for all of these different teams and leagues.
03:41When they start talking about the bad actors, it's more about educating the public.
03:45I think that it is about banning the player or threatening to ban the player.
03:50Because every player that bets knows if I got to get down, I got four or five ways to get
03:55down.
03:56I can go to my local bar.
03:58I can go to my barber shop.
03:59I can go around.
04:00I can find a book in some form or fashion to go and bet at.
04:05So it's not about banning somebody from a sports book.
04:08It's more about educating people about holding yourself accountable, making sure you're responsible, making sure you're not being stupid with
04:17your money.
04:17Because the anger that people have about losing bets often comes from the times when you are betting more than
04:26you're supposed to and you are stretching yourself too thin.
04:30And thus that loss is causing you a major life problem.
04:34Your girlfriend leaves you.
04:36Your car gets repossessed.
04:38Your apartment evicts you.
04:39That's when you start to go after somebody because you're angry that you bet on that player to do something,
04:47right?
04:47It's not just about the money.
04:49It's not just about anything else that goes on.
04:51It's about everything else that goes around your life south because of the bet you made.
04:58So you won't take personal accountability for the bet that you made.
05:03And thus you're going to blame somebody else.
05:06You can't blame yourself.
05:07You're going to blame somebody else.
05:10And while I don't agree with the behavior, and I think it's reprehensible and disgusting, I don't think you can
05:17stop.
05:18You can ban somebody and you could sit there and go, all right, well, this player is a VIP at
05:24DraftKings.
05:25And so like Emerson just put out an amazing video.
05:29If you haven't seen, go watch the Emerson video on his socials where they went to, they took all the
05:34VIPs from DraftKings and they went to Pebble Beach.
05:37And they played at Spyglass and Pebble Beach in two days.
05:40Incredible, right?
05:41So like maybe that's a perk you lose if you were to be kicked out of DraftKings, you would lose
05:45that perk.
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