The Guy Who Reviews Sports Books: Review of “Everybody Loses”
Danny Funt’s Everybody Loses is a sharp, deeply reported examination of how America’s sports‑betting boom took hold — and who pays the price. Through policy history, industry insight, and wrenching personal stories, Funt shows just how risky the nation’s wager on legalized gambling truly is.
Title/Author:
“Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports
Gambling” by Danny Funt
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
As any sports fan can tell you, it’s now impossible to watch
a game — in person or on television — without being bombarded by ads for
betting apps and sportsbooks. Why this explosion happened, who pushed it
forward, and how it’s reshaping lives across the country are the central
questions of Danny Funt’s excellent, deeply researched book Everybody Loses.
Right from the start, Funt makes clear that this moment
didn’t arrive by accident. It came from what he calls “an extraordinarily risky
gamble: that a nation of sports fans would be better off as a nation of sports
gamblers.” The rest of the book is a meticulous, often unsettling exploration
of that gamble’s consequences. Funt weaves together stories of addicted
bettors, interviews with current and former sportsbook employees, and a close
look at how FanDuel and DraftKings have effectively become a duopoly controlling
the vast majority of the industry. Every thread reinforces the central idea:
this is a wager with enormous human and societal stakes.
One of the most compelling sections examines how sportsbooks
treat their two most valuable customer groups — the consistent losers and the
rare big winners. The former are courted relentlessly, especially those who
lose heavily and often. The latter, labeled “VIPs,” are showered with perks
that border on fantasy fulfillment. If you’re a baseball fan whose team just
reached the World Series and you’ve wagered at least $5,000 a week, you might
find yourself whisked to the Fall Classic on the company’s dime. But if you
start winning too much, the tone shifts quickly: frozen accounts, revoked
bonuses, vanished VIP privileges. Funt makes clear that the system is designed
so that bettors, no matter how savvy, rarely come out ahead.
Importantly, Funt doesn’t place all the blame on the
sportsbooks themselves. He traces how professional leagues — once staunch
opponents of gambling — reversed course when they realized how much money was
being left on the table and how widespread betting already was. He also details
the political and legal forces that accelerated the industry’s rise, most
notably the Supreme Court’s 2018 Murphy v. NCAA decision, which opened
the door for states to legalize sports betting at a rapid pace.
These examples represent only a fraction of the ground Funt
covers. Everybody Loses is comprehensive without ever feeling dense, and
accessible without sacrificing nuance. Whether you’re interested in the human
toll of gambling addiction, the political machinery behind legalization, or the
inner workings of the industry itself, this book delivers an informative,
balanced, and highly readable account of how sports gambling became a defining
feature of modern American fandom.
An excellent read — and an important one.
