defector-com-3tadhg.txt (21421B)
1 [1]Skip to Content 2 [2]Defector home 3 [3]Defector home 4 [4]Subscribe[5]Log In 5 [6][ ] 6 Menu 7 [9][ ]Search 8 Search 9 • [11]Crosswords 10 • [12]NFL 11 • [13]NBA 12 • [14]MLB 13 • [15]NHL 14 • [16]WNBA 15 • [17]Soccer 16 • [18]Podcasts 17 • [19]Arts And Culture 18 • [20]Politics 19 20 • [21]About Us 21 • [22]Send Us A Tip (News) 22 • [23]Send Us A Tip ($) 23 • [24]Merch Shop 24 • [25]How To Pitch Defector 25 • [26]Defector Freelancer Policies 26 • [27]Crossword Submission Guidelines 27 • [28]Books By Defectors 28 • [29]Defector Hall of Fame 29 • [30]Masthead 30 • [31]How To Comment On Defector 31 • [32]RSS Feed 32 • [33]Terms of Use 33 • [34]Manage Your Account 34 35 [35]Log In[36]Subscribe 36 37 • [37]Defector Twitch 38 • [38]Defector Bluesky 39 40 [39]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement 41 [40]Gambling 42 43 Why I Got Out Of The Gambling Business 44 45 A 46 By Anonymous 47 48 9:01 AM EDT on March 25, 2026 49 50 • [41]Share on Bluesky 51 • [42]Share on Reddit 52 • [43]Share on WhatsApp 53 • [44]Share on Email 54 55 A hand holding a phone with a tapeworm coming out of itIllustration by Mattie 56 Lubchansky 57 [45] 58 341Comments 59 60 There are broadly speaking two types of gamblers: valuable and not valuable. 61 All are referred to as customers. The latter group are dilettantes. These 62 people deposit maybe once or twice, usually to take advantage of a first-time 63 deposit promotion, but rarely or never again after that. Maybe they don't care 64 much for sports, or are turned off by the way betting on sports makes watching 65 sports miserable. Or maybe they tried the slots, and the slow drain of money 66 down to zero left them feeling empty. Whatever the case, they don't have the 67 itch. These customers are not valuable. 68 69 I learned to sort gamblers into these categories during the years I worked for 70 an online sportsbook. I worked in customer service, at first directly with 71 customers and later in a more behind-the-scenes role. These jobs required a 72 little bit of detective work, and I often found myself wading through piles of 73 extremely detailed personal information about our customers. Names, addresses, 74 payment history, net losses, geolocation, remarks left during previous customer 75 service interactions; all of this was there for me to review any time there was 76 a problem with a customer that needed to be solved. Through this process I got 77 intimate looks into the lives of strangers. 78 79 What I came to understand while doing these jobs is exactly what kind of 80 customer is most valuable to an online gambling company. All gamblers fall 81 somewhere on a spectrum from habitual to compulsive to addicted. Addicts may be 82 technically valuable customers in that they deposit regularly, but they are not 83 desirable customers. You don't want your customers killing themselves or losing 84 all their money. How then could they continue to deposit? 85 86 All companies have varying levels of safeguards in place to weed out this type 87 of customer, but most of these safeguards come into action when it is already 88 too late. Customers don't set limits on their accounts until after they have 89 done something bad, if they ever set limits at all. Customer service agents are 90 trained to recognize signs of addiction when players reach out, but most 91 customers never actually reach out to customer service, and therefore their 92 addictions can't be caught this way. Using too many different credit cards in a 93 row might trigger a temporary lock on your account, but this type of control 94 can't be too tight, lest it begin to interfere with the not technically 95 addicted but still habitual depositors. This all raises the question: How do we 96 separate the addicted from the habitual, ideal customer? 97 98 Maybe this ideal customer deposits 10 percent of his monthly earnings, and 99 still keeps up with his house and car payments. But he and his family will 100 suffer from that loss of income. And when an emergency comes, it will hit 101 harder and reverberate longer. Like tapeworms, these companies prefer a 102 consistent supply over time, and a dead host is no good at all. But the person 103 is still parasitized, and is weaker for it. Are these people not addicts? 104 105 The more time you spend thinking about these questions and watching and 106 interacting with gamblers, the clearer it becomes that the "ideal" customer, 107 who deposits every day, week, or month, is suffering from a compulsion of some 108 kind. 109 110 And we haven't even gotten to the darkest part of it all: the bonusing. All the 111 mobile gambling operators award bonuses in the form of free bets or bonus 112 money, which requires a certain amount of play-through before it can be 113 converted to real money and withdrawn. There are a number of psychological 114 tricks being employed here, all for the purpose of keeping the player feeling 115 like they are getting to play for free. The ideal amount of bonus per player is 116 a certain small percentage of their net losses. The calculations used to 117 determine the right percentage and the methods used to award the bonuses vary 118 from company to company, but each aims to keep their customers' wagering steady 119 with the least amount of capital expended. 120 121 I never worked on the backend, so I can't say exactly what lizard-brained 122 reward mechanisms any of these companies' algorithms prey on. But you can be 123 sure that they are extremely effective, and only get [46]more effective with 124 time. There are people at every one of these companies whose sole job is to 125 refine these systems, and they get paid the big bucks. 126 127 And now, thanks to the miracle of mobile computing, we can carry these 128 parasites with us in our pockets. Not only can we, we must! If you want to talk 129 to your family and friends, use GPS navigation, or "authenticate" yourself for 130 your job or to visit your doctor, you will need a cellphone. As long as a 131 cellphone is a requirement for life, there is no complete escape. You will 132 always have a device on your person which can instantly transport you to a 133 casino, and it will beckon relentlessly. 134 135 In the course of my job, I had to review many customer accounts, and certain 136 patterns emerged. I examined the type of gambling customers did, the amount and 137 frequency of their depositing, and the kind of neighborhood they lived in to 138 get an idea of how underwater they were. I could look closer and see if they 139 wagered first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the night, and see if 140 they had a history of setting and removing "responsible gambling" limits from 141 their accounts. I could see how often payments were declined, and how often the 142 individual came to customer service to try wheedling a bonus out of a 143 sympathetic agent. I could see the history of disturbing remarks they had made, 144 and how many chargebacks had been threatened and carried out. I could see the 145 remarks they made when closing out their accounts, and what they said when they 146 begged to have them reopened. With a little googling, I could put together an 147 even clearer picture of a life outside of the app. Obituaries, social media 148 accounts, and local news all contain a lot of information about individual 149 tragedy, pain, crime, and bankruptcy. 150 151 Many of the gamblers I dealt with stick with me, but two especially. The first 152 was an old friend of mine from high school whom I had not talked to in years. I 153 saw he had dropped about $10,000 in a few years before making a comment to 154 customer service that got him mercifully banned from the platform. I could see 155 from his geolocation pings that his location would move quickly from a gas 156 station to a parking lot while wagering. He gambled while driving, it seemed. 157 158 The second was a young man I had never met, a decade younger than myself. He 159 had a history of saying genuinely disturbing racist and threatening comments to 160 customer service agents, and had eventually been banned for it. He had a 161 distinctive name; a quick Google search led me to a news report of his recent 162 arrest, and a social media account. The account had a history of sports betting 163 talk interspersed with racist and sexist comments. But many years before this, 164 when he would have been in middle school, there was an indication that he had 165 lost both his parents. A set of public obituaries basically confirmed it. I 166 could feel in my gut that this man, whom we had happily drained of what little 167 money he had before kicking him to the curb, had really never stood a chance in 168 this life. 169 170 I've heard all the arguments both for and against legalizing online gambling. 171 What I think is missing from that conversation is the fact that it's not really 172 just gambling online that has been legalized. What has been legalized is 173 extraction, and the new methods of extraction that are possible using the 174 internet and mobile devices. These companies have identified a group of people 175 with a monetizable compulsion, and we have legalized the tools needed to 176 industrially harvest money from them. 177 178 Our state governments are happy to comply as long as [47]they get their cut, 179 and this "windfall" comes without having to tax the billionaires and their 180 conglomerates who already own most of the country. It all functions like a 181 privatized tax, where people pay based on how bad they have the "itch," with 182 most of the revenue going to corporations. With mobile gambling, these 183 companies have not only been allowed to insert themselves into our sports 184 leagues and news organizations, but also into our homes. Formerly, gambling 185 executives had to build great temples to which the willing made pilgrimage, and 186 from which they were able to leave after taking their beatings. Now these CEOs 187 are in our living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and cars. They sit on 188 your hip wherever you go, with a hand waiting over your wallets and purses. And 189 we have let them do it. 190 191 In a given year, around 15 out of 100,000 deaths in the United States come from 192 suicide. Among gambling addicts, this rate is multiplied 15 times, [48] 193 according to studies. DraftKings reports [49]4.8 million users, and FanDuel 194 [50]reports 4.5 million. Among those millions of customers are a significant 195 number of customers whose lives are being steadily worsened by gambling, and 196 among those customers are people at high risk of suicide who might never have 197 been put in such a precarious position had they never had a portable casino put 198 in their pocket. Perhaps our gambling tech overlords have factored this in as 199 the cost of doing business, or perhaps they don't think about it all. I don't 200 know if any former customers of the company I worked for killed themselves, but 201 I do remember days when gamblers frustrated over a disputed payout or a bad 202 beat would threaten suicide, necessitating a quick locking of their account 203 followed by a call to their local police department for a wellness check. All 204 the cases I followed up on ended with police reporting an embarrassed and 205 annoyed but physically unharmed person. Knowing it was inevitable that one of 206 these cases would eventually have a much darker ending became too much, and so 207 I quit. 208 209 Though the damage I did while at the company cannot be undone, I can sleep a 210 little easier now knowing I am no longer a part of that rotten business. I 211 encourage everyone else working at these companies to do the same as I did, and 212 quit. The job can be walked away from; the casino, on the other hand, follows 213 you everywhere. 214 215 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 216 217 If you have experience working in the gambling industry and would like to tell 218 us about it, email [51][email protected]. 219 220 Recommended 221 222 [52]Journalismism 223 [53] 224 225 How Bill Simmons Went All In 226 227 [54]264Comments 228 [55]Danny Funt 229 January 21, 2026 230 [56][Simmons-Fanduel-1] 231 [57]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement 232 233 A referral from a trusted source is the #1 way that people find new things to 234 read. So if you liked this blog, please share it! 235 236 • [58]Share on Bluesky 237 • [59]Share on Reddit 238 • [60]Share on WhatsApp 239 • [61]Share on Email 240 241 Read More: 242 243 • [62]fl, 244 • [63]Online Gambling, 245 • [64]phones, 246 • [65]sportsbooks 247 248 Stay in touch 249 250 Sign up for our free newsletter 251 252 [66][ ]Email 253 Sign up 254 More from Defector 255 256 [68]NFL 257 [69] 258 259 Florida Picks A Stupid Fight Over The NFL’s Rooney Rule 260 261 [70]129Comments 262 [71][ska] 263 [72]Samer Kalaf 264 April 1, 2026 265 [73]James Uthmeier speaks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington 266 D.C. 267 [74]Soccer 268 [75] 269 270 Oops, Italy Did It Again, Again! 271 272 [76]71Comments 273 [77][Ima] 274 [78]Luis Paez-Pumar 275 April 1, 2026 276 [79]Players of Italy reacts at the end of the FIFA World Cup 2026 European 277 Qualifiers KO play-offs match between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Italy at 278 Stadion Bilino Polje on March 31, 2026 in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 279 [80]Minor Dilemmas 280 [81] 281 282 Rejoice, Tired Parents! Defector Will Raise Your Children Now 283 284 [82]270Comments 285 [83][DSC] 286 [84]Justin Ellis 287 April 1, 2026 288 [85]A silhouette of a baby with Minor Dilemmas written over it 289 [86]NBA 290 [87] 291 292 A Basketball Team Can Be Sold, But Who Owns Its History? 293 294 [88]127Comments 295 [89][rat] 296 [90]Ray Ratto 297 April 1, 2026 298 [91]Houston Rockets Kenny Smith (C) gets squeezed out on a screen play by 299 Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf (R) as his teammate Gary Payton (L) dribbles 300 past during game one of their Western Conference semifinal series on May 4 in 301 Seattle. 302 [92]The Machines 303 [93] 304 305 Go Ahead And Use AI. It Will Only Help Me Dominate You. 306 307 [94]170Comments 308 [95][R1b] 309 [96]Hamilton Nolan 310 April 1, 2026 311 [97]An ad for Claude by Anthropic 312 [98]MLB 313 [99] 314 315 C.B. Bucknor Fucking Up All Over The Place 316 317 [100]108Comments 318 [101][IMG] 319 [102]Tom Ley 320 April 1, 2026 321 [103]C.B. Bucknor stands with his arms crossed 322 [104]See all posts 323 [105]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisementClose 324 [107]Defector home 325 [108]Defector home 326 327 Stay in touch 328 329 Sign up for our free newsletter 330 331 [109][ ]Email 332 Sign up 333 The last good website. 334 335 • [111]Send Us A Tip 336 • [112]Advertise With Us 337 • [113]Support and General Questions 338 • [114]Press Inquiries 339 • [115]Hall of Fame 340 • [116]Masthead 341 342 The last good website. 343 344 • [117]Send Us A Tip 345 • [118]Advertise With Us 346 • [119]Support and General Questions 347 • [120]Press Inquiries 348 • [121]Hall of Fame 349 • [122]Masthead 350 351 Follow 352 353 • [123]TwitchDefector Twitch 354 • [124]BlueskyDefector Bluesky 355 356 • [125]Privacy Notice 357 • [126]Terms of Use 358 359 © Copyright 2026 360 361 Made in partnership with [127]Lede 362 363 364 References: 365 366 [1] https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business#main 367 [2] https://defector.com/ 368 [3] https://defector.com/ 369 [4] https://defector.com/products 370 [5] https://defector.com/login?destination=%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 371 [11] https://defector.com/tag/defector-crosswords 372 [12] https://defector.com/category/nfl 373 [13] https://defector.com/category/nba 374 [14] https://defector.com/category/mlb 375 [15] https://defector.com/category/nhl 376 [16] https://defector.com/category/womens-basketball/wnba 377 [17] https://defector.com/category/soccer 378 [18] https://defector.com/category/podcasts 379 [19] https://defector.com/category/arts-and-culture 380 [20] https://defector.com/category/politics 381 [21] https://defector.com/about-us 382 [22] https://defector.com/tips 383 [23] https://defector.com/tip-jar 384 [24] https://defectorstore.com/ 385 [25] https://defector.com/how-to-pitch-defector 386 [26] https://defector.com/freelancer-policies 387 [27] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vsMt8kzQug6h9qe9B2LObcxUFt0T-ESp/edit 388 [28] https://defector.com/books-by-defectors 389 [29] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame 390 [30] https://defector.com/masthead 391 [31] https://defector.com/how-to-comment-on-defector 392 [32] https://defector.com/feed 393 [33] https://defector.com/terms-of-use 394 [34] https://defector.com/?pn=manage_account 395 [35] https://defector.com/login?destination=%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 396 [36] https://defector.com/products 397 [37] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia 398 [38] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com 399 [39] https://defector.com/products 400 [40] https://defector.com/category/gambling 401 [41] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 402 [42] http://www.reddit.com/submit/?title=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 403 [43] https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?text=Check%20out%20this%20story%3A%20Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 404 [44] mailto:?body=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business&subject=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business 405 [45] https://defector.com/why-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business#coral_thread 406 [46] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460323000217#ab010 407 [47] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/12/sports-betting.html 408 [48] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/13/problem-gamblers-at-15-times-higher-risk-of-suicide-study-finds 409 [49] https://ir.aboutdraftkings.com/overview/default.aspx 410 [50] https://licensinginternational.org/news/78283/ 411 [51] mailto:[email protected] 412 [52] https://defector.com/category/journalismism 413 [53] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in 414 [54] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in#coral_thread 415 [55] https://defector.com/author/danny-funt 416 [56] https://defector.com/how-bill-simmons-went-all-in 417 [57] https://defector.com/products 418 [58] https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20-%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 419 [59] http://www.reddit.com/submit/?title=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 420 [60] https://api.whatsapp.com/send/?text=Check%20out%20this%20story%3A%20Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business%20https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business 421 [61] mailto:?body=https%3A%2F%2Fdefector.com%2Fwhy-i-got-out-of-the-gambling-business&subject=Why%20I%20Got%20Out%20Of%20The%20Gambling%20Business 422 [62] https://defector.com/tag/fl 423 [63] https://defector.com/tag/online-gambling 424 [64] https://defector.com/tag/phones 425 [65] https://defector.com/tag/sportsbooks 426 [68] https://defector.com/category/nfl 427 [69] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule 428 [70] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule#coral_thread 429 [71] https://defector.com/author/samer-kalaf 430 [72] https://defector.com/author/samer-kalaf 431 [73] https://defector.com/florida-picks-a-stupid-fight-over-the-nfls-rooney-rule 432 [74] https://defector.com/category/soccer 433 [75] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again 434 [76] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again#coral_thread 435 [77] https://defector.com/author/luis-paez-pumar 436 [78] https://defector.com/author/luis-paez-pumar 437 [79] https://defector.com/oops-italy-did-it-again-again 438 [80] https://defector.com/category/advice/minor-dilemmas 439 [81] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now 440 [82] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now#coral_thread 441 [83] https://defector.com/author/justin-ellis 442 [84] https://defector.com/author/justin-ellis 443 [85] https://defector.com/rejoice-tired-parents-defector-will-raise-your-children-now 444 [86] https://defector.com/category/nba 445 [87] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history 446 [88] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history#coral_thread 447 [89] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto 448 [90] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto 449 [91] https://defector.com/a-basketball-team-can-be-sold-but-who-owns-its-history 450 [92] https://defector.com/category/the-machines 451 [93] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you 452 [94] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you#coral_thread 453 [95] https://defector.com/author/hamilton-nolan 454 [96] https://defector.com/author/hamilton-nolan 455 [97] https://defector.com/go-ahead-and-use-ai-it-will-only-help-me-dominate-you 456 [98] https://defector.com/category/mlb 457 [99] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place 458 [100] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place#coral_thread 459 [101] https://defector.com/author/tom-ley 460 [102] https://defector.com/author/tom-ley 461 [103] https://defector.com/c-b-bucknor-fucking-up-all-over-the-place 462 [104] https://defector.com/all 463 [105] https://defector.com/products 464 [107] https://defector.com/ 465 [108] https://defector.com/ 466 [111] https://defector.com/tips 467 [112] https://defector.com/advertise-with-defector 468 [113] https://defector.com/other-stuff 469 [114] https://defector.com/other-stuff 470 [115] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame 471 [116] https://defector.com/masthead 472 [117] https://defector.com/tips 473 [118] https://defector.com/advertise-with-defector 474 [119] https://defector.com/other-stuff 475 [120] https://defector.com/other-stuff 476 [121] https://defector.com/defector-hall-of-fame 477 [122] https://defector.com/masthead 478 [123] https://www.twitch.tv/defectormedia 479 [124] https://bsky.app/profile/defector.com 480 [125] https://defector.com/privacy-notice 481 [126] https://defector.com/terms-of-use 482 [127] https://joinlede.com/