OT: MSU abruptly ending $9M partnership with Caesars Sportsbook
“Initially, it was a good thing, but I don’t think it’s in our best interest moving forward,” MSU athletic director Alan Haller said.
A university taking $1M a year to push crack cocaine online gambling onto over 50,000 students was a “good thing”? How many young addicts did this partnership help create over the last 16 months? It seems it is only ending because Congress and the American Gaming Association banned all sports betting advertising and marketing on campuses (under age 21 audience) as of July 1, 2023.
Up next... the Spartan Dawgs 4 Life pet grooming initiative.
This was a totally stupid idea from the start. Typical staee move - them and LSU got into bed with Caesars - go figure!
Reading this as I’m trying to delete all the junk email from Caesars from my university inbox. 👍
I'm all for legalized sports betting but their advertising campaigns are just relentless. Why do they need to sponsor literally (figuratively) everything on the planet?? This comment brought to you by Fanduel. New users get a no-sweat-first-bet up to $1,000. Refund issued in site credit. Terms and conditions apply.
Have you been to MLive lately? I stop in once a day to scan the headlines and see the latest local sports scores. You have to wade past the online gambling stories written by staff writers. DraftKings, BetMGM, Ceasars Online, WynnBet - all listing the promo codes and best deals to get started betting with these sites.
Talk about prostituting yourself for the almighty dollar.
Not surprised, M Live is a worthless rag.
Unfortunately, while it is relatively easy to make a lot of money off of these sign up bonuses, most people don't. It also sets many up to start off with a wager much larger than they would probably make if not "risk-free" (which isn't really risk free), so they set themselves up for using a higher wagers than they would/should/or can afford in the future.
Of course the advertising campaigns are relentless.
(1) Sports gambling is a huge business, (2) the industry will eventually consolidate (like most industries) to a few dominant players and (3) if you become one of those dominant players in the industry, you have a license to essentially print money for decades to come.
Gin up some VC to fund the advertising and marketing and hope for the best.
I'm there. I already hold shares of Phillip Morris, Dupont and Monsanto, Exxon/Mobil, drug companies that make opioids, Twitter and Facebook, small arms manufacturers, and Massey Coal.
I thought they were signing a contract with little Caesars to make sure they had a bowl game to go to.
And on the job training....
Good choice, even if they came to it late.
Maybe Waste Management would be a good stadium sponsor. Could be a great partnership given the trashnodo issues.
So MSU is taking a moral victory lap over a decision that was essentially made for them? Sounds about right.
I was reading that "article" and confused at the mental gymnastics to somehow make this a noble decision and yet not that big of a deal. Got to the bottom and saw that it was written by Graham Couch, who closed the piece with "MSU tried something and the world wasn’t quite ready for it. Let’s just not act like it was completely out of bounds."
SMH
lining your hamster cage with Graham Couch article printouts is still cruelty to animals.
I was initially in favor of gambling legalization, but now I think it was a big mistake. These companies are rapidly becoming a cancer on society. It's insane that you can download an app, connect it to your bank account within seconds, and wager every dollar you have with no regulatory restrictions. Calls to gambling hotlines in Michigan have gone up 171% since 2020. It's not going well.
I don't generally disagree, but can you not also download an app, connect it to your bank account in seconds, then start making absurd "investments" on Robinhood or buying a plethora of invented digital currency on Coinbase?
That's another way to legally gamble, yeah. It's so equivalent that I'm not sure if even an attempt at a point was made.
The stock market is pretty regulated. Not saying its perfect, but it is regulated at the Federal and state level quite a bit and there are protections in place.
One thing I hate about this gambling thing is the hypocrisy of the NFL and the Lions' situation. The NFL has online gambling advertisements plastered ALL over - commercials, in stadiums, etc. I'm not sure if there are official sponsorships, but I wouldn't be surprised. So then the NFL bans players from online gambling at all while on team property, despite the fact that team properties and venues are plastered with online gambling ads. Make it make sense? I get it, they broke the rule. But it is a dumb rule, especially given the landscape.
Sure, and both of those things can be bad.
Gambling was once illegal for damn good reasons.
Cant wait for all the future businesses that are going to come out of this sports betting boom
Do you have crippling sports gambling debts? Struggling to pay your bills? Call us to consolidate all of your gambling debts into simple monthly payments!
Were you or a loved one hurt by sports gambling? Call Smith, Smith, Smith & Smith to get the compensation YOU deserve
Actually, legalized sports wagering has generally removed "actual" gambling debts for anyone with any amount of self control - you can only wager what you have pulled from your checking account. This is opposed to old school bookie action where you frequently paid after you lost or got paid after you win, with no way to verify if you (or the bookie) actually had the money in question. The downside is some places will allow you to use a credit card with a cash advance, so I can't honestly say it has been eliminated.
Yup same guys that can negotiate with the IRS or get you out of your timeshare.
MSU is cutting off a big gambling controversy at the pass. College kids gamble and can be enticed to influence outcomes. Having a bunch of Caesars folks with access to college athletes was always a terrible idea.
Its refreshing to see MSU has lawyers who might actually have a conscience for once.
Pretty sure Caesars cut off the relationship because it is now illegal and MSU is taking a victory to make themselves look better
Banned now. And all pre-existing relationships have to be wound down by July 1st.
Good for them for moving away. Maybe it is because of the above mentioned rulings, or maybe this was already happening. I am a casual sports gambler, and I love sports but don't think we should have as much gambling as we do here in the US. This is going to continue to be a huge challenge in the future.
"MSU tried something and the world wasn’t quite ready for it. Let’s just not act like it was completely out of bounds." Is this a Couch burn?
But let's not pretend partnering with a sportsbook was an entirely unsavory idea.
I mean...being a college with a prominent athletic department and partnering with a sportsbook because you like money and don't care that it clearly gives more credibility to gambling is sort of the definition of an unsavory idea. Yes, people will still gamble with sports even if MSU isn't affiliated with these books. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to have it on campus and implicitly endorse it going forward for young people who oftentimes are experiencing real personal and financial independence for the first time.
But also, fucking this guy for these two bugnuts paragraphs.
So perhaps universities shouldn’t be seen as promoting sports betting — though it is an activity as legal in many places as drinking beer, buying a lotto ticket or charging people $25,000 a year to go to school and live on campus, leading some of them to take out loans they’ll be saddled with deep into adulthood. Talk about a gamble.
Sports betting can be addictive. Not done in moderation and with discipline and an understanding of one’s limits, it can be a problem. It can ruin lives. And young people tend to be more impressionable. They also usually have less money to lose. Perhaps better to learn a hard lesson at 21 than 41.
I'll refrain from getting into the politics of student loans but from a pure mathematical calculation here are some numbers that I'm sure Graham didn't want to deal with because he's a putz.
- MSU has an 81% graduation rate within 6 years (for comparison UM's is about 93%).
- College graduates earn between $630k to $900k than those with just a HS degree.
- Professional sports gamblers (i.e. the best of the best) shoot to win 55% of the time; for casual gamblers (i.e. basically everyone else) it's well below that number; I've seen it range from around 35-40%.
So assuming Graham's $25/yr debt times 6 years (again, probably an outlier but let's go with it) you get $150k total debt (at whatever interest rate we're talking about, but seems to be around 4.5%) and you're 81% likely to "win" and get a degree that'll net you at least $600k. Or you can gamble some (relatively) small amount of money and lose it 60% of the time. But as he noted, many of these young gamblers don't have a ton of money so relative can still be a lot, especially if that leads to them going into debt via credit cards, high-interest loans to pay off losses, etc.
So yeah, college isn't perfect and absolutely needs to reform its economics but fucking stumping for a sportsbook because you have to be a contrarian about everything looks stupid.
^ nailed it ^
"Unsurprisingly, legalized gambling also exacerbates problems with gambling addictions. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission found that having a casino within 50 miles doubles one's likelihood to become a problem gambler. That suggests that the new DC-adjacent Maryland casino could create major addiction problems here in the District.
But as with the liquor industry, much if not most of the gambling industry's revenue come from addicts. Grinols estimates that 52 percent of revenue at the typical casino comes from problem gamblers, while an Ontario study put the figure at 35 percent and a Louisiana one at 42 percent."
If someone's proximity to a casino is defined by having a phone with gambling apps, then it would stand to reason that the ease of gambling combined with saturation marketing is going result in a larger number of gambling addicts than would be the case if those two factors weren't in existence.
For that reason alone I think no university or college should endorse or participate in any relationship with casinos or gambling entities.
Its times like these where I can safely say I am glad I don't care about gambling, and I don't think I ever will. Not bashing anyone who does. What you do with your money is your business, but I've never found any real joy or fun in it. Its set up for you to lose.
Not saying I've never gambled before. I've been to Vegas a few times and played a few rounds each time I was there, but I just looked at it as some idle entertainment with friends while we were waiting for dinner or a show, and I went in saying "When I lose this $100, and I will, I'm done for the night." If I never sat at a blackjack or roulette table again in my life, it wouldn't bother me an ounce.
These are businesses designed to take your money, and now with these apps, you don't need to go all the way to Vegas or AC for them to get to you. If you go into this actually thinking you're going to win or that you've got the system figured out, you're a damn fool, and you've lost before you even place your first bet. And if you do actually win anything of consequence, collect your winnings, walk out of that casino and never walk into another one again. Because it ain't happening twice.
I mean....what do you think Las Vegas was built out of? Hard work and elbow grease? As Cousin Eddie told Clark, "Its people like you who come here and blow the family nest egg that built this town."
Both my parents had zero interest in any kind of card games, let along gambling; I never once saw either of them with a playing card in their hands.
Both grew up in very straitlaced households regarding "sins" like alcohol and gambling, and while they bent on alcohol as adults, both of them continued to look at gambling as a stupid exercise where the average player is far more likely to lose than to win. Since neither came from any money, the idea of losing hard-earned cash in games of chance was literally unthinkable.
While I've occasionally played poker with friends since my junior high days, it was always nickel ante stakes. The few hands I've won at poker didn't fill me with any kind of high or unusual pleasure. The idea of spending an evening at a casino has no allure whatsoever.
I've only been to Vegas once, and that was only a quick evening en route on a road trip to CA. I went into one casino on the Strip and played a slot machine; after putting in about three quarters I won $2.50. I stopped right there, knowing that if I continued to feed the slot I was not going to come out ahead. It was such a piddly amount of money that I didn't bother cashing the slip. It's still pinned to the bulletin board in my office.
I'm the same way. Even the couple times I was playing a round and found myself up $50-$60, I wasn't really enthused by it, nor did I find any semblance of joy or ecstasy. I just chose to walk away at that point, because I knew if I kept playing, I was going to lose.
That's what these casinos bank on. There are countless suckers out there who start playing a few rounds, go up a few hundred bucks, but they won't walk away because human beings are inherently greedy, and they start playing mind games with themselves of "if I just play a few more rounds, I could be up by $2000. That's my next mortgage payment, or seven to eight car payments all taken care of!!"
Then they have three straight bad hands, and now they're down $300. But then the next mind game of "I can get it all back in 2-3 really good hands" comes seeping in, and before you know it, you're down a grand.
Boom. House wins. You lose.
I've always suspected that my very quick "win" at that particular slot machine was specifically designed to get me thinking "hey, winning at slots ain't that hard!" which would then result in me putting in $50 or $100 in a futile attempt to win big.
Counterpoint: I like to bet on sports a fair amount. I also like to drink, smoke weed, and masturbate regularly as the opportunity presents itself, sometimes with porn and occasionally without. I drive very fast when I feel it's safe. If I find a 20 dollar bill I'm not going out of my way to find out who dropped it. I steal large rocks from my neighbor's seasonal residence. I say fuck a fair amount in front of my kid. I dislike self-righteousness.
You do you, pal. Sure isn't my business to tell anyone what to do with their money or how to live their life. That said, I don't think any of what I said makes me self-righteous, and I don't think anything of what I said is untrue. Casinos thrive on people's greed. They thrive on people not knowing when to walk away. That's how they make their money. This is their business, and they're pretty damn good at it.
I don't judge anyone for gambling on sports. Or gambling in general. Again, your money is your money. Spend it how you want as long as you're not causing problems for anyone else. But I don't gamble myself because I don't find any real joy or entertainment out of it, and I also don't like playing a game that is essentially geared for me to lose. The deck is stacked against you the minute you sit down at that table.
I don't know how that could possibly be in dispute.
Your virtue and foresight are a beacon in these uncertain times
“Initially, it was a good thing, but I don’t think it’s in our best interest moving forward"
Classic Sparty. Because no one could've foreseen how poor that decision was.
I can think of at least one more MSU decision that quote would apply to.
The only way I've ever "gambled" was by trading the stocks of companies who supplied gambling equipment to the Vegas (and Reno and Indian) houses.
My interactions with casino execs taught me to always "bet on the house" as it *literally* controls the payouts/odds, every day, in every way. They make fortunes by facilitating gambling.
In other words, I bet that gamblers would gamble and lose and that the houses would get their planned profits and buy certain stuff in order to make more profits. Worked ... well.
Right, because college students dont engage in vice unless its directly marketed to them.
Im sure none of them already had DK or FD accounts, but immediately started pumping money into Caesars once they got a look at that signage.
"Advertising doesn't affect college students" is a weird argument to make.
It certainly is, which is why Im wondering you you felt the need to create that strawman out of whole cloth and then assign it to me?
This is such an absolutely classic Sparty move. Love it.
As long as we still get hit over the head with gambling ads and stats during every TV timeout and blaring in-game graphic, amirite?
Okay champ why was it “initially” a good thing?