Irishman Posted April 21 Author Posted April 21 With the Blackhawks missing the playoffs yet again, I think I can root for the Sabres. Why, you may ask? Here is one good reason 1 Quote
Muda69 Posted April 30 Posted April 30 Sports Jeopardy! coming to Disney+ and Hulu: https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/espn-jeopardy-coming-to-disney-and-hulu/ar-AA21qqn3 Quote The Jeopardy! universe continues to grow. Sony Pictures Television has given the green light to ESPN Jeopardy!, which will stream on Disney+ and Hulu. Deadline is reporting the new game show, hosted by Joe Buck, is for sports fans. It will feature topics from the ESPN world and will have the sports channel's talent, according to its description, squaring off and experiencing: The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in a new arena: the Alex Trebek Stage. The ESPN talent contestants will duke it out in a tournament-style event for the grand prize of $500,000 donated to the charity they represent and will be crowned ESPN Jeopardy! champion. No word on when the show will debut. This series joins the mothership along with Celebrity Jeopardy! Pop Culture Jeopardy!, and Jeopardy! YouTube Edition, which debuted last month. This might be worth a watch, maybe for a few times. 2 Quote
Coach Nowlin Posted April 30 Posted April 30 I LOVED: Stump the Schwab !!!!! That was fantastic. I watched the Weekly Wrestling Jeopardy this week on the Y T algo ...that finishes my evenings..... usually make it about an hour then ZZZZZZZZZZZ on wherever the Algo takes me 1 Quote
Sparty Posted May 4 Posted May 4 42 minutes ago, Bash Riprock said: Knock out the beers, and it’s very reasonable lol Quote
Muda69 Posted June 9 Posted June 9 Another reason why sports gambling is a stupid activity: https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2026/06/09/sports-betting-sportsbooks-rigged-against-bettors/90035631007/ Quote Sportsbooks want your attention and money. They're succeeding. Americans wagered over $166 billion on sports in 2025. You might assume that such a popular industry would at least be somewhat profitable for its users. That assumption would be wrong. For all the cash that Americans throw at sportsbooks, there’s very little that they make in return. For your average bettor, it’s a lofty goal to break even. Sports betting presents a special set of problems that other gambling counterparts don’t. Namely, it’s easily accessible to underage and at-risk users and has ultra-thin margins between winning and losing. It’s a lucrative industry that needs reining in. Sports betting soared after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, leaving legality up to each state. In Indiana, sports betting launched soon after in September 2019. Hoosiers wagered over $22 billion on sports between 2020 and 2025, with an overwhelming majority of bets placed on online sportsbooks. With the advent of legal online sportsbooks, wagering on sports has become ridiculously easy. Gone are the days of needing a bookie or a casino; today, all you need is a device and an internet connection. A survey commissioned by the Indiana Problem Gambling Awareness Program, or IPGAP, showed that about 89% of adults in Indiana had engaged in some form of gambling in the past year, and a little over 23% of Indiana adults had participated in sports betting. The widespread popularity of sportsbooks is surprising when you consider the odds are stacked against users — and those odds are often changing. A losing bet for most Sports betting is a skill that few can master. It requires complex models and algorithms that track lines and odds — tools that are inaccessible to the average bettor. Another problem is that sportsbooks dislike profitable users. If you consistently make successful wagers, sportsbooks limit the amount you can bet. As with most gambling, there’s usually an amount that the house — the casino, or in this case sportsbook — receives. Known as the vig or vigorish, it’s about 4% to 5% for your standard sports wager. To break even, bettors need to win about 52% of their wagers. Once you factor in taxes, that figure is likely closer to 55%. That’s just how often you need to win to make sure you don’t lose money. Nate Silver, a statistician and election forecaster with over $1 million in poker winnings, ran an experiment. He bet just shy of $2 million over an NBA season with the help of a player-rating model he created called RAPTOR. He made a profit of about $5,000, a meager 0.3% return on investment. Even that put Silver in the upper echelon of sports bettors. People gamble for the thrill and prospect of making a few quick bucks, but sportsbooks only make it easy if you lose. DraftKings CEO Jason Robins once said that profitable players are not the type that the sportsbook wants. He later had to clarify that he actually meant that the sportsbook didn’t want professional bettors. How sportsbooks keep people playing Sportsbooks are raking in profits because of the growing popularity of prop bets, parlays and microbets. Prop bets are wagers on outcomes other than the final score of a game. Microbets are rapid in-game wagers on granular outcomes such as the next pitch or play. Parlays combine multiple bets into a single wager with long odds and potentially huge payouts. Parlays account for anywhere from half to two-thirds of revenues for sportsbooks. In Indiana last year, Hoosiers bet an average of about $159 million per month on parlays. A small fraction of bettors bring in the most revenue for sportsbooks. Some estimates show that 10% of bettors make 80% of profits, while one Wall Street Journal analysis found that half a percent of users had brought in more than 70% of revenue at one sportsbook. Bettors lose money — with some going into significant amounts of debt — while sportsbooks make incredible profits. 'Training wheels' for children The nuances of sports betting are many, and not all bettors understand them. For underage users, that lack of knowledge is especially dangerous. Sportsbooks are adamant that they prevent underage users from betting. But Lisa Hutcheson, the vice president of prevention and policy at Mental Health America of Indiana, told me that it doesn’t take much to circumvent the age-verification measures in place. “You do not have to be a mathematical genius to skip right through that verification,” Hutcheson said. “And while some sportsbooks might have more verification where you might have to take a photo of your ID or whatever, you can easily borrow an ID from someone. You can easily ask a parent or an older sibling or a friend to log in to games for you. You can ask them to bet for you.” A recent study found that over a third of boys between the ages of 11 and 17 had gambled in the U.S. in the past year. About two-thirds of American adults gambled before the age of 21. Indiana University Prevention Insights’ youth survey found that gambling rates for middle and high schoolers ranged from a low of about 32% to a high of just under 39%. Anywhere from 3% to 5% of middle and high school students had used an online sportsbook. Kids are exposed to gambling everywhere. Hutcheson described things in online games like loot boxes as “gambling with training wheels” for children. “Our brains aren't fully developed until we're around the age of 25,” Hutcheson said. “Any gambling that happens, any substance use that happens while our brains are still developing, impacts our brains and those dopamine responses.” Ads without guardrails Youth and adolescents are at a much higher risk of developing gambling disorder, making exposure to gambling even more concerning. Compared to adults, they are two to four times more likely to develop problematic gambling behaviors. Another problem is that adolescents — and even some adults — don’t entirely understand how odds and probabilities work. When sportsbooks advertise incessantly, especially on youth-friendly broadcasts, it doesn’t seem like the industry is taking many precautions. “We know that young people are susceptible to advertising, particularly young men,” John Holden, associate professor at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington, said. Holden is a legal expert on the sports betting industry and among those who advocated for additional research prior to the legalization of the industry in the U.S. “A lot of people like myself suggested that before we go around legalizing this, we should really learn from what's happened in the UK, what's happened in Australia,” Holden said. “Both those jurisdictions have said, ‘Hey, there's a huge problem with advertising.’ ... And they did something about it. "For whatever reason, U.S. regulators, perhaps because of the influence of the gambling industry, (were) basically like, ‘We're going to wait and see what happens here.’ And that was a huge mistake in my opinion, because we know what happens.” A tobacco-sized problem Advocates have a few ideas for regulation. Some compare the gambling industry to the tobacco industry. While Holden isn't an expert on the tobacco industry, he thinks something similar to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement could bring real change to the sports betting industry. “I think that is a very possible path forward here,” Holden said. “That brought a lot of change by the companies basically coming to the table with the government and agreeing to a lot of restrictions.” Some problems just need stronger enforcement. Consider athlete harassment. As sports betting grows, harassment and threats towards athletes by bettors also have increased. States have considered legislation to protect athletes, but existing laws already prevent criminal harassment. “When you've got harassment happening and athletes being threatened, those are crimes,” Holden said. “We could do something about that. We could have investigations. But the reality of it is, is that there just isn't a lot of resources to do that.” While sports betting remains unchecked, those who choose to wager should do so wisely. Financial literacy and an understanding of how probabilities and odds work are a must. It’s a game rigged in the sportsbooks' favor. The only way to really win is to quit when you’re ahead. No, the only way to really win is not to play. Much like a game of Global Thermonuclear War. Quote
Muda69 Posted June 10 Posted June 10 Anarcho-Tyranny is Killing College Sports: https://mises.org/mises-wire/anarcho-tyranny-killing-college-sports Quote College athletics, particularly in the South, has long been one of the great institutions of this country. While the terminally anti-social may be quick to dismiss popular sports as “sportsball” and the latter half of “bread and circuses,” the reality is that popular sports have long served as an important connection in civil society, creating multi-generational stories of success and defeat, and providing valuable lessons about grit, hard work, and determination. Unfortunately, college sports have been under constant assault from political institutions, serving as a striking example of the devastation that can be wrought by anarcho-tyranny—the state-driven phenomenon of criminalizing the enforcement of basic civic norms while increasingly restricting the liberties of law-abiding citizens. In the case of college athletics, the perpetrators have been America’s judicial class, while the admittedly-unsympathetic entity that has attempted to police the space has largely been the NCAA—an organization that has earned a reputation for inconsistency and bureaucratic stagnation. The true victims, however, are the average college sports fans watching an institution they love be destroyed around them, while the cost of their fandom continues to increase. As Bill Anderson and I have discussed previously, many of the challenges facing college sports are the byproduct of their success. The changing entertainment consumption patterns of consumers have resulted in significant increases in college athletic revenue, particularly from the largest and most-beloved conferences and teams. As the balance sheets of athletic departments expanded, the more untenable the historic norms of college players only being legally eligible for scholarship compensation became untenable for the modern American judicial system. The result was a major change to college athletics resulting from legal rulings, the creation of the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) era, which has quickly escalated into a system of college players becoming yearly free agents, with rapidly-eroding guidelines handling eligibility. The result is college players becoming increasingly older, and even professional athletes entering college athletics after failing to achieve stardom in their respective professional counterparts. It is worth noting, however, that the original sin of this judicial unraveling of collegiate athletics is the poisoned fruit of the labor theory of value. It is perhaps understandable, at a superficial level, to look at the rising financial valuations of college programs and see the exploitation of free college labor as driving the returns as an injustice that had to be fixed. That ignores, however, that the appeal of college athletics is driven by the logos on a player’s helmet, not the athletes themselves, as demonstrated by the fact that there was historically only a minor correlation between the most profitable teams in college sports and new championship trophies in school award shelves. Consumer demand drives television ratings, television ratings drive TV deals, and, in 2025, even the dysfunctional Auburn Tigers attracted more eyes than the eventual national champions from Bloomington, Indiana, during the regular season. The market alternative to judicial tyranny, in this case, would have been the creation of a competitive professional league targeting college-aged talent, paying them for their participation. The lack of interest in such an arrangement is understandable, as startup football leagues have struggled to financially perform against the established brand loyalty of teams with over a century of tradition and consumer investment. A freshman five-star athlete who accepts an offer from the Texas Longhorns becomes a big man on campus; the same athlete playing for the UFL’s Houston Gamblers becomes a sports trivia answer. Additionally, if we are to pretend that there was a sincere interest in the NCAA to allow revenue-producing sports to legally create a pathway to player compensation without state intervention, pre-existing civil rights laws created additional unavoidable issues. Title IX rules require state universities to provide equal opportunities to female athletes, despite the fact that male sports—particularly college football and basketball—overwhelmingly drive revenue to college programs. As such, laws trying to legislate “fairness” and “equality of opportunities” require ignoring basic economic reality, a dynamic that continues to plague college programs trying to adapt to the new state-imposed NIL era. As the new era of college athletics provides athletes with the ability to point to actual financial compensation connected with their play, most restrictions on their eligibility have faced escalating challenges in enforcement. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, for example, was able to document a NIL deal estimated at between $5-6 million when arguing that NCAA restrictions on his eligibility created unavoidable harm to his earning potential. The result is a Mississippi judge granting him a sixth year of eligibility to play during his age-24 season. True absurdity came from the bench this Monday, with a Texas judge granting an injunction against the NCAA’s attempts to ban Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby from the sport after admitting to a laundry list of gambling-related offenses, including numerous bets on his own team and using third parties to place bets to avoid sportsbook restrictions. Regardless of one’s opinion about the normalization of sports gambling, the interests of both sports and gambling have in creating a firewall between active gambling by in-game participants is obvious. Despite this, the judicial system has prevented the most basic rule enforcement, and no longer meaningfully exists. In doing so, they highlight one of the clear issues with the state’s near-monopolistic control over the adjudication of issues: resource restraints. After all, the won injunction does not mean the end of the case legally, only that Sorsby has received short-term protection from the NCAA’s long-established punishment of ending a player’s eligibility for violating rules of conduct, rules which every D-1 athlete signs to uphold. The NCAA will appeal this ruling, but the timeframe of the judicial system could prevent it from being considered until after the season ends, at which point Sorsby could drop his lawsuit entirely, having secured his season of play and the compensation connected to it. The slow wheels of the judicial system are not unique to sports, as the state-managed legal system faces a broader tragedy-of-the-commons problem. The fact that collegiate sports—with many of their problems deriving directly from the increase in their revenue—cannot access a quicker process for adjudication is an illustration of the broader inadequacy of systems controlled by government monopolies. In contrast, professional sports leagues do not face this same issue because of private arbitration structures that are the byproduct of their collective bargaining agreements between labor and management. Many point to this as the obvious solution to collegiate athletics and, therefore, dismiss complaints from the NCAA or other figures within the sport that refuse to adopt this change, which would require codifying athletes as employees under a broad labor union. Again, though, this legal change would require implementing a number of additional government-required obligations and responsibilities to these athletic programs, including broader questions related to Title IX equality rules, as interpreted by the Department of Education. As such, college athletics finds itself in the position of being undermined from all sides by the state. Legislation to promote “gender equality” passed in the 1970s, as interpreted by the executive branch, could demand irrational compensation splits over fifty years later, if college athletics embrace athletes as employees. Without this change, the judicial system has neutered any ability for the collegiate sports industry to govern itself, even in cases involving explicitly agreed-upon student conduct rules that address issues involving the integrity of the product. One can acknowledge this reality without having a position against player compensation, as it is these layers of state control that make the player-payment system such a needlessly-complex issue. The complete absurdity of this government-created fiasco has forced conferences like the SEC to consider full secession from the broader national sports ecosystem, with the belief that an individual conference would find it better able to impose rules without having the judicial system erase them under the guise of anti-trust protections. Whether or not this would be successful is an open question. Additionally, both Congress and the White House have discussed various legislative fixes to the problem, with different legislative priorities. While some may dismiss Washington having a role in “fixing” sports, it is clear that Washington itself is to blame for many of the issues that plague college athletics. Whether Congress can actually function to address such a problem is a secondary question, as anything involving the political system quickly becomes its own form of clown show, dealing with issues that have nothing to do with meaningful questions at hand. What is not open to debate is that college athletics, and the fans whose passion has made them such profitable entities, are watching one of their favorite pastimes be eroded year after year. Just another of the countless illustrations of how government forces undermine the well-being of those who just want to enjoy life’s simple pleasures that have long been embedded in the American experience, such as rolling Toomer’s Corner in Auburn. Quote
Irishman Posted June 11 Author Posted June 11 Walked him off the course during a round. Golf Digest has the story behind a paywall, but I am catching bits of the story, like being escorted off the course. Quote
Irishman Posted June 12 Author Posted June 12 These next few weeks are going to be a treat. Just reading the perspectives from several visitors here for the World Cup is great. 1 Quote
Irishman Posted June 14 Author Posted June 14 All these foreign fans are going home in a month 20-30 pounds heavier. lol 2 Quote
23andCounting Posted June 14 Posted June 14 45 minutes ago, Irishman said: All these foreign fans are going home in a month 20-30 pounds heavier. lol My biggest take after visiting Eastern Europe was that everyone looked healthy. You had to look hard to find someone overweight, and obesity didn't even seem to exist................for now. American culture is rearing it's ugly head over there. 1 Quote
Irishman Posted June 14 Author Posted June 14 These people are going to have withdrawals when they get home. With the food they are eating here, additives are in these foods that are banned in their countries. Quote
Irishman Posted June 17 Author Posted June 17 The fans are more of the story of this World Cup than the games….and I love seeing it. 1 Quote
Irishman Posted June 18 Author Posted June 18 If you have friends or family that root for any team from Cleveland, they will LOVE this. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1dG773AoXz/ Q: What's the go to game time snack? A: Cigarettes......it's used to be glass. 🤣 Quote
Bash Riprock Posted June 19 Posted June 19 15 hours ago, Irishman said: hard to argue with that logic 1 Quote
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