Episode 6: VIP
Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
Pushkin Industries
4.6 • 9.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it mean to be a “very important person” in the world of online sports betting? Not necessarily what you think. We hear from recovering gambling addicts and state regulators frustrated with some of the perverse incentives to keep people on a losing streak. Meanwhile, our show’s own producers hope for a VIP night at the concert of the year.
For further reading: Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake by Charles Fain Lehman.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:10.6 | Hi, I'm David Axelrod, CNN's senior political commentator, former senior advisor to President Obama, and host of the Axl Files podcast. |
| 0:20.0 | Join me each week as I interview key figure shaping our world from politics to the arts, |
| 0:25.3 | to sports, and beyond. |
| 0:27.3 | Listen on your favorite podcast app or ask your smart speaker to play The AxeFiles with |
| 0:32.8 | David Axelrod. |
| 0:33.8 | Thank you. So as I'll run. |
| 0:49.0 | So as I explained last episode, we've created this experiment. |
| 0:54.7 | My producer, Lydia Jean Cott, has partnered up with one of the world's smartest sports gamblers. |
| 0:57.2 | Rufus Peabody is his name. |
| 1:02.8 | Over the past 15 years, Rufus has made many millions of dollars betting on sports. |
| 1:08.6 | He's had the occasional losing week, but never a losing month, much less a losing year. |
| 1:13.1 | Unlike all but a handful of sports gamblers, Rufus Peabody has always had an edge. The deal was this. Rufus would turn L.J. into one of his mules. He'd |
| 1:21.0 | send her money and the bets he'd like to make, and she'd make them, on sports that she knows |
| 1:25.9 | nothing about, like golf. |
| 1:28.8 | She'd just open as many accounts with sports gambling companies as she could |
| 1:32.3 | and get as much money down as they'd take. |
| 1:35.6 | I didn't have the first clue how this would work out. |
| 1:38.6 | I started to think it wouldn't work out at all, |
| 1:40.5 | especially after Draft Kings froze LJ's account after just two bets, |
| 1:44.3 | and Fandul came in right after and refused to accept anything but small bets. |
| 1:50.1 | But there are right now dozens of these gambling apps. |
... |
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