Tag Archives: casino

Exploring the Shift: Sports Betting from Casinos to Your Couch

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As technologically savvy as I like to think I am, I have a confession. I don’t have a single sports app on my iPhone.

No DraftKings. No FanDuel. No betting app of any kind.

When I was younger and more competitive, gambling didn’t do much for me. I couldn’t win enough to make me happy, and I couldn’t lose enough to make me angry.

A man sitting at a casino table with a concerned expression, wearing a baseball cap and a light sweater, in a vibrant casino environment with digital screens in the background.

What kind of entertainment is that?

My last bet was a hand of blackjack at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, shortly before its new owners razed the place. That was an appropriate ending to my gambling career. I lost the casino, and the casino lost its building.

Gambling hasn’t changed, but gambling is now more accessible.

From the casino to the couch

I remember sitting in old casino sportsbooks.

I liked the Flamingo.

A wall of televisions showed different games. Baseball here. Horse racing there. Basketball on another screen.

My fantasy Buttheads Baseball League made pilgrimages to Vegas. A few Buttheads gambled heavily. I placed a few bets and enjoyed hanging with my friends.

Today, you don’t have to travel to Sin City to enjoy that experience. You don’t even have to leave the couch.

Modern televisions can display four games on one screen. Add another big screen, a tablet, and a smartphone, and turn your living room into a casino sportsbook.

Except you don’t have to tip a cocktail server.

The smartphone provides the betting window. You can check the score, look up the odds, and place a wager without getting up.

A cartoon depicting two men watching a baseball game. One man, visibly anxious and holding a phone, asks how to watch without betting money. The other man, relaxed with a drink, humorously replies that he prefers to lose for free.

The transformation accelerated in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal law that had prohibited most states from authorizing sports betting. The decision allowed states to decide for themselves, and online wagering spread rapidly.

Professional sports leagues, which once treated gambling as a threat to the integrity of their games, have embraced partnerships with betting companies.

The NFL has partnered with DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics. Casinos like MGM have joined the online action. The NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA have also established relationships with sportsbook operators.

At one time, casinos wanted you to visit their establishment.

Now the casinos want to come home with you.

The sports year used to have a rhythm.

Now the seasons overlap. The sports calendar is like the 24-hour Denny’s menu.

Baseball stretches from spring into fall. The WNBA occupies the warmer months. Football begins in September. Hockey and the NBA arrive in October.

I have YouTube TV and discovered that I now get a cricket channel. I tried to understand the game when I went to South Africa for a movie project.

I’ll never figure out the T20/Limited Overs statistic.

All leagues always play on weekends.

Tuesday? There are NBA games.

Wednesday? Any sport except NFL games.

Thursday? Another football game.

Friday? More games, but I don’t think you can bet on high school football.

You’d better have stopped at Costco for snacks.

A minority with a lot of money

Most Americans don’t bet on sports online.

A couple sitting on a couch, with the woman looking at the man holding a tablet, expressing confusion about quality time together. They are watching a football game on TV, emphasizing their shared sportsbook account.

Pew Research Center reports that in 2025, about one in ten U.S. adults had placed an online sports bet during the previous year. The percentage was higher among younger adults.

Despite few sports bettors, gambling has become a multibillion-dollar business.

The American Gaming Association reports that in 2025, gamblers accounted for $17 billion in U.S. commercial sports-betting revenue. That’s the money sportsbooks retained after paying winning bets, not the total amount wagered.

You don’t need every sports fan to gamble. You need a small group of customers who place bets frequently enough, and in large enough amounts, to support a very profitable business.

Broadcasters get more ways to hold our attention. The rest of us get to watch the games, whether we bet or not.

That’s the irony. The gambling minority has financed a business that influences the sports-watching experience of millions of people who never place a wager.

Multiscreen America

This is where technology has changed how I watch sports.

A man sitting on a couch watching multiple sports games on a large TV while using a tablet and a smartphone to place bets. A cat is resting nearby, and there are snacks on the coffee table.

I like NFL RedZone.

RedZone solved one of my least favorite Sunday football activities: channel surfing.

I used to spend Sunday afternoons with the remote in my hand, searching for another game during commercials. Now the two-minute timeout equals five minutes of TV ads.

I’d switch channels just in time to see a replay, or the announcer explaining what I’d missed.

RedZone does the searching for me. It jumps among games and shows scoring opportunities across the league.

I can see a key play in Cleveland without missing a touchdown in Kansas City.

Now I can watch the Broncos on one multi-view screen and RedZone on another. Baseball plays on the third screen, and news on the fourth.

The old casino sportsbook had a wall of televisions because bettors didn’t want to miss anything. Now we can reproduce that convenience in our living rooms.

The difference is that the casino provided the televisions. Now, we have to buy our own.

The smartphone lets us carry the betting window in our pocket.

The gaming transformation fascinates me, even if I have no intention of joining the betting public. I’m interested in the technology, the economics, and the way a business can change an entire viewing culture without requiring most viewers to become customers.

I don’t need to bet

For all this technology, I can still enjoy a Yankees game without having 20 bucks riding on the outcome. I can get emotionally invested in a Cleveland Browns football game without consulting the point spread. I can watch a spectacular catch, an acrobatic interception, or a last-second field goal without calculating what it means for my betting account.

Football trading card featuring a player in a red uniform with the number 20, representing the Kansas City Chiefs.

I prefer sports pools that are based on the luck of the draw.

I once won $2,500 on a progressive football pool at the Stockgrowers Bar in Lander, Wyoming. Patrons chipped in $5 a week for the entire season.

There were weekly winners, but the bar reserved the big prize for the last game. I sat at home and watched the Chief’s DB Deron Cherry intercept a pass, stalling what would have been the Vikings’ game-winning drive.

My numbers hit.

When my birthday falls on Kentucky Derby Day, my upstairs neighbor from Kentucky runs several horse-race pools. I’ll buy a $2 chance.

Over my life, I’ve learned there’s freedom in not having to watch every game. I missed the Browns game yesterday, but my dashboard screen showed live updates from Google.

A group of people engaged in a discussion around a table with brown paper bags marked with numbers. A woman in a black hat is displaying an object, while others watch and interact in a casual setting.

I made it home in time to see Andre Szmyt kick a game-winning field goal as time expired.

I don’t need to know every betting line. I know enough betting jargon to have a conversation with my gambling friends.

When I gambled in Las Vegas, I had to go to the sportsbook. Now, if I choose, the sportsbook can come to me on my 65-inch, four-screen setup.

I still won’t download a sports-betting app on my iPhone. Some vices are better left out of the house.

Last meals – eat drink and be merry!

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erik weight of water

Erik Weihenmayer negotiated the Colorado River while not being able to see where he was going.

After stopping in Fort Collins for the Boulder International Film Festival screening of Michael Brown’s “The Weight of Water” documentary at the Lincoln Center, I ventured up to Laramie for a cooperative community workshop led by Yana Ludwig at an intentional community there – Solidarity House Cooperative.

Do Mother and Father Nature plan for weather to drastically change at the Colorado / Wyoming state line?

I got on the road fairly early, but didn’t know how conditions would be. After driving o30 miles over black ice, blowing and drifting snow from the state line to Laramie, I was reminded about “last meals.”

What’s your “last meal” – you know the one you’d eat if you are on death row and your date finally comes up.

It’s not my driving that worries me as much as the bad drivers who think that a big, heavy, 4×4 makes them invincible. There were a few cars that had spun off. The guy behind me towing a top heavy trailer fish-tailed. The driver pulled out of it, which was a sight to see.

I thought about Erik Weihenmayer kayaking the Colorado River rapids through the Grand Canyon.

When I walked into the Coal Creek coffee shop, I was stopped by a patron asking me if I had a Jeep. She and her husband pulling a white tandem-axle trailer ended up in the ditch. “We were only going 35,” she rationalized. The rig was still stuck when I returned later in the afternoon.

While it wasn’t as harrowing a drive as it could have been, it was a reminder that I should have one of my “last meals.” I stopped at Vern’s Place in LaPorte and had their  prime rib. Since being resurrected from death bed in 2014, I eat my last meals as often as possible. I don’t want my actual last meal to be hospital food or cold Pizza Hut at an Econo-Lodge.

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This story was originally written December 19, 2015.

eggs verns

It’s a toss up for my “last breakfast”. I had eggs over easy, bacon and tomatoes at Vern’s Place. I got on the tomatoes at breakfast thing while in South Africa.

I spend quite a lot of time on the road traveling around mostly to other towns in Wyoming.

I haven’t had any death-defying driving experiences nor any close calls other than a couple 360 degree black ice spins.

I was driving back from Riverton and made a stop in Rawlins for snacks and gas.

The clerk informed me that I-80 east and west were both closed due to snow and blowing snow.

It was calm, sunny and warm in Rawlins, but I was stuck at the Econo-Lodge there for the night. Even as Econo-Lodges go, this one was desolate.

Might as well make the best of it.

IMG_2881

My “last lunch” pork noodles at the 20th Street Cafe in Denver.

I cruised around downtown which has improved over the years. I had a chili relleno at a small Mexican place and went back to the room, if that’s what you want to call it. The Econo-Lodge was more of an Econo-Fridge. The heater hadn’t been on for quite some time.

Closed roads are a growth industry in Wyoming.

The interstate was closed down because there was no more room along the route to accommodate any more trucks, let alone passenger cars.

Pizza Hut advertises on the room keys, bored, I decided to order my “go to” Canadian bacon and mushroom thin crust with extra cheese. I was able to eat half of it. The cable was pretty good in Rawlins – there’s not much to do there in the middle of the week in the dead of an early snow storm.

I stopped at this Tex Mex place in downtown Rawlins. I was impressed with the offering of TopoChico agua mineral.

I stopped at this Tex Mex place in downtown Rawlins. I was impressed with the offering of TopoChico agua mineral.

At 2am, the REEEEE REEEEE REEEEE! screeched out on the cable TV. The roads were open. I would still wait to get out around 10am when the sun is higher.

I gobbled the rest of the cold pizza and downed a warmed over cup of yesterday’s coffee before getting on the road.

It was a bumper to bumper parking lot from Wolcott Junction to Laramie. Traffic was stopped by an accident on the westbound lane. It took three hours to go 90 miles.

I-80 was officially closed when I was driving back from Riverton recently. White knuckle driving is an art form in Wyoming.

I-80 was officially closed when I was driving back from Riverton recently. White knuckle driving is an art form in Wyoming.

Wyoming winter driving takes some getting used to. If you can successfully drive in Wyoming during even a small snowstorm, you can drive anywhere.

Riverton, like most other Wyoming communities, is centrally isolated from just about every place else when the weather gets nasty.

I grew up in Cheyenne and let me tell you, if you’ve never experienced a blizzard in southeast Wyoming, it’s quite the experience. During certain times of year, it’s so windy, there’s no Final Net on any story shelf.

I always felt lucky about living in Lander and now Boulder along the front range foothills.

It’s so nice to wake up, look out the window and notice that the snow has fallen into neat little piles on tops of fence posts and not rudely strewn about in seven-foot- high drifts.

I’ve met several people in my travels who have been to Wyoming. Besides having visited Yellowstone Park, the second most frequent comment is, “Oh, yeah, one winter during the War, my train was stranded in Cheyenne at the depot while going to California.”

Midway was probably a fonder memory than Wyoming.

Icky John C'Hair explains the traditional Northern Arapaho bison uses to Wind River Reservation students.

Iggy John C’Hair explains the traditional Northern Arapaho bison uses to Wind River Reservation students.

I was in Riverton to document a traditional Northern Arapaho bison ceremony. This was my third trip to the Wind River Indian Reservation in three weeks.

It was a successful hunt and ceremony, which is the subject of another post. I was anxious to get back on the road but didn’t check the road reports.

Hmmm.

Under most circumstances, I’m a calm and collected driver, but when the interstate suddenly disappears in a puff of white, it’s quite a different story.

Luckily, I didn’t get stuck on the interstate and it closed behind me. I’ve been stuck back in the days before cell phones and GPS.

Back in those days, it was cassette tapes and Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra tunes soothing me while my car pounded through invisible snow drifts and crept around several 18-wheeler convoys near Elk Mountain.

White knuckles.

Disgruntled travelers examining their jack-knifed u-Haul trailer and contorted semi-truck silhouettes in the media strip made me realize how out of control these drives can be.

I can’t imagine being killed by a wild and crazy trucker or freezing to death knowing my last meal was cold pizza and day-old coffee.

My romanticism has me eating bacon, eggs over easy with a pancake for my last breakfast at the Red Willow in the Wind River Casino; pork noodles from the 20th Street Cafe as my last lunch; and steak and lobster from Svilar’s in Hudson, Wyoming.

I better get with eating, drinking and being merry.