Think you can beat the game? Don’t bet on it

Trying to watch sports on television these days means accepting a basic and deeply annoying reality: the game itself is no longer the main event.

No, the main event is the endless parade of ads for gambling apps marching across every commercial break, crammed into every spare inch of space not occupied by actual hockey players.

And man, are these ads terrible. Not morally — well, yes, morally too — but we’ll come back to that. I mean esthetically. These things are obnoxious.

If you’ve watched any amount of hockey lately, you know the drill: betting on games can turn you into a legend, a hero, the life of the party.

Forget the players. The real star is some shlub at a bar or sitting on his couch who parlayed a Mitch Marner goal, MacKinnon winning a faceoff, Vegas killing a penalty and John Tortorella loosening his tie into a winning bet. That guy’s epic. And that guy could be you.

Not the team. Not the city or the fans they represent. You. You, with your brilliant insight, insider’s perspective, sense of derring-do and willingness to put your money where your mouth is — or at least where your phone is.

Heck, if that guy isn’t you, apparently, you’re doing sports wrong. In the world of gambling apps, the only suckers are the people who don’t bet, and these ads make sure you know it.

The worst ones are the celebrity ads. Evidently, Jon Hamm needs whatever he’s being paid to flog this crap more than you need the money you’re pumping into it.

Depending on where you’re watching and on what channel, you might even see athletes, both present and former, shilling for gambling apps. LeBron James, Shaq, Derek Jeter, Connor McDavid and Wayne Gretzky have all struck deals with sportsbooks. Uh, fellas? Shoeless Joe Jackson would like a word.

These ads promise you the rush of being the smartest person in the room. Of possessing some special insight or just being a lucky son of a gun. Of course, there’s always the obligatory and barely audible reminder to “always bet responsibly,” but why let that sober advice spoil the good times and get in the way of your dopamine hit?

It’s that hit — that quick stimulus to the pleasure centre of your brain — that betting apps rely on. And increasingly, it comes through in-game betting. It’s no longer enough to bet on the outcome of a game; now you’re encouraged to bet on every tiny outcome within it. Faceoffs. Goals. Assists. Penalties. You name it.

And every extra side bet lowers your odds of winning. Sportsbooks call this “adding legs to a parlay,” likely because calling it “building your own sucker bet” was deemed too on the nose.

As anyone who’s ever run a three-legged race can tell you, once you start tying enough legs together, somebody’s going face-first into the dirt.

Look, it bears repeating in the face of this relentless onslaught of gaming apps: THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. Always. No exceptions. That one time you came out ahead is a single drop in an ocean of profit.

The casinos of Las Vegas were not built by lucky gamblers playing hunches. There are no 12-step meetings for devastated sportsbooks. For every loonie you drag out of an online betting app, they’re making enough to fill a million socks to wallop a million punters.

What’s most depressing is how effectively these companies have managed to transform fandom itself. Watching sports used to be enough. Now every power play, every third-down conversion, every at-bat arrives wrapped in the insinuation that if you aren’t gambling on it, you’re somehow missing the point.

Don’t worry about the team. Worry about your bet. Worry about your payout. Worry about your little slice of the action.

Everything becomes personal gain. We’re no longer fans, we’re customers.

It’s all deeply unpleasant and historically weird. Sure, it’s hardly a revelation to note that sports gambling has been around as long as sports itself. Yet it wasn’t so long ago that betting was considered detrimental to the integrity of the game. Now it’s a business partner.

On the plus side, now it’s all out in the open, fewer marks may lose their thumbs to angry bookies. On the downside, that’s because modern sportsbooks know you need those thumbs to keep betting with your phone.

Watching sports and cheering on your team is supposed to be a communal experience. Gambling apps need you to feel isolated. When you’re isolated, you’re easier to influence. You’re easier to scare with the idea that you might be missing out on some higher high than simply watching your team succeed.

Sports fans already pour money into jerseys and tickets. Gambling apps are parasites that entice you to give even more while making the entire sports experience feel smaller. The isolated individual becomes commodified, an account to be drained.

I’m tired of feeling like a commodity. I want to feel like a person, and to be a person is to be part of a community. One of the greatest feelings we can experience is coming together with other people in an act of solidarity. One of the most popular ways to do that is by cheering together for a common outcome.

Watching sports can be a joyous distraction from the pains and ills of the world. It gives strangers, even those separated by space, something to share. Think of the whiteouts, the street parties, the fans gathering at Portage and Main after Canada won gold in 2002 and 2010. Whether there in person or watching on TV, we feel connected. Think of the dreams and hopes and highs and lows, the shared elation and pain. Think of how these moments are always better as something we experience together.

Not everything needs to be transactional. If you watch sports, marvelling at the skill on display or cheering for your team should be enough without being inundated by ads for gambling apps that literally and figuratively make us poorer.

Enough already. Just let us watch the damn game.

Scott Montgomery is a TV writer and comedian living in Winnipeg and the co-creator of Apple TV’s Camp Snoopy. You may also have seen his work on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Beaverton, Office Movers, Young Drunk Punk, Odd Squad and The Ron James Show.

arts@freepress.mb.ca