‘Gamble On’ 196 Highlights: ‘No Goals! As Few Runs As Possible!’

Podcast features honest admissions from Phil Mickelson, Jason Robins, and Darren Rovell
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Over the course of nearly four years and nearly 200 episodes, Gamble On has established itself as the leading gaming industry podcast, delivering news and analysis as well as interviews with the most influential names in gambling every week.

Episode 196, posted June 9, 2022, features an interview with sports betting business reporter Darren Rovell, who created his own lane at ESPN and is now one of the faces of The Action Network. Rovell has thrown himself into the world of sports gambling, and he revealed on the podcast that his favorite type of wager is one most bettors hate.

“I love to bet unders,” Rovell said. “The [in-game betting] algorithm, being predictive, believes that people want to bet overs. I feel like there’s value every single day in unders. My kids know this because they invariably ask the question that people ask, which is, ‘Daddy, who are we rooting for?’ And I say, ‘No goals! As few runs as possible!’

“People say life is too short to bet the under. I think life is too short to lose your money, so if the under is the better bet, you make that.”

Listen to “196: Mickelson’s gambling, California ad wars, the business of sports betting with Darren Rovell” on Spreaker.

Rovell’s money quotes

You’ll have to listen to the full podcast to hear how this story ends, but Rovell said buying a Zed Run horse didn’t go over too well on the home front: “I went deep, I bought $93,000 in these digital horses. I bought the best of the best. The highest gene pool — seriously. It was very strange. And I was walking around my house, and my wife was like, ‘Are you cheating on me?’ And I said, ‘Why?’ ‘Well, because you’re walking around the house, you’re closing doors, you never use Airpods, you have Airpods in your ears. Something is going on you don’t want me to hear. What is it?’ And I’m like, ‘Uh, I bought $93,000 in digital horses.’”

Rovell on the challenge of giving up his sports business beat at ESPN to take a shot at covering the business of sports betting for Action: “The hardest part for me was actually the emotional part of it. How, after all these years of covering sports business in general, could I spend 80 percent of my time covering gambling? The move required me to believe that there was going to be enough for me to talk about, and also that my relevance wouldn’t be sacrificed.”

Rovell on hustling his way to a job at ESPN fresh out of college, and then hustling to keep it: “I was just a confident little squirt, and I was trying to have a vision and make it happen. … I was working, like, 20-hour days. I would go from like 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the office, I’d go back for dinner, and then because there are always like 500 cars in the parking lot, I’m like, ‘Ah, people are here anyway,’ I’d work from like 8 to 2, Monday through Friday. … I acted every day like someone was going to steal my job.”

‘Lefty’ lets it ride

Podcast hosts Eric Raskin and John Brennan analyzed golf superstar Phil Mickelson’s much-publicized gambling predilections, which included his recent admission to Sports Illustrated that his gambling became “reckless and embarrassing.”

“The most interesting thing to me about all of this is the question of whether Mickelson has or had a gambling problem,” Raskin said. “He pretty much admits that he did, but he also insists he only lost money he could afford to lose, which is a common rationalization from someone reluctant to admit just how bad the problem was.”

Brennan, who follows golf closely week in and week out, noted that Mickelson’s interest in gambling has never been a secret. “I’ve seen Phil during tournament play,” he said, “waiting at a tee, and someone in the crowd will ask him who he likes to win the Super Bowl, World Series, whatever. And Phil loves gambling so much that, in the middle of events where he’s trying to win more than a million bucks, he’ll have a back and forth with fans until he’s cleared to tee off. He’s one of a kind, that’s for sure.”

As for Mickelson’s falling out with the PGA Tour and defection to the controversial new Saudi-backed LIV tour, Brennan crystallized it in two sentences: “The PGA Tour is very conventional. And Phil is very unconventional.”

Gamble rambles

  • California’s tribes have formed a group called the Coalition for Safe, Responsible Gaming, and that group has now started running ads on social media using children staring at cellphones to try to make the point that mobile betting is dangerous and should not be legalized in the Golden State. Raskin said their strategy “puts the onus on the digital sportsbook operators to get their message out there — that, actually, it’s safer with regulation, that kids can gamble online now anyway, but it’s really hard to do so on these regulated sites.” Brennan offered a bold take about the commercials and their impact on two sports betting measures headed for the November ballot in California: “I think this pitch is effective enough that it might kill both measures, ironically.”
  • DraftKings founder and CEO Jason Robins is at it again, saying the quiet part out loud, talking about how his sportsbook doesn’t want sharp bettors. But Brennan says Robins is more concerned with the message he’s sending to investors than with the one received by customers. “Remember, DraftKings is not exactly winning the day in terms of their bottom line,” Brennan said. “So, they need more than anything to try and convince investors and potential investors that they’ll make money someday. So in that narrow respect, I think [his quotes] are winners.”
  • While much of the golf world is focused on this week’s LIV event in London, Brennan is getting in some early wagers on next week’s U.S. Open. Two of his value plays to potentially win: Matt Fitzpatrick at 30/1 and Sungjae Im at 66/1. Meanwhile, Raskin likes a boxing underdog this weekend, backing Roamer Alexis Angulo to beat Edgar Berlanga by decision at +600.
  • Closing thoughts: Brennan wrapped up the podcast with a commentary on why all gambling industry reporters should meet up in person with at least one recovering compulsive gambler and get a feel for that darker side of the business, in order to provide context for everything else they’re writing about.

Photo: Kim Klement/USA TODAY

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