Having sports bettors pay $20 a month for the “opportunity” to earn more money on bets they will almost never win has been called a naked scam and a brilliant strategy. Like all controversial decisions from multibillion-dollar publicly traded companies, there’s a fine line between these two interpretations.
We can’t tell if the DraftKings+ subscription, which is being experimented on a limited group of New Yorkers, will succeed or fail. But it reinforces the surprisingly symbiotic American sports betting reality that sportsbooks want bettors to place parlays – and bettors are eager to do so.
Entertainment is entertainment
I have finished each year since 2018 losing more money betting on sports than I have won.
In that time, I spent more money at bars and restaurants than I received. I spent more on Netflix than I earned from it. I left each movie theater with less than I walked in with.
Do I regret those decisions? I do not (a ticket for "Megalopolis" aside). I knew what I was paying for: temporary entertainment without expectation of financial gain.
i collected every megalopolis funny moment i could remember so that no one ever has to watch it again, and also so that people will believe me when i try to explain how insane it is pic.twitter.com/uVq9B4D2yl
— Kil Zanderz (@schwartzhawke) November 17, 2024
Gambling, of course, offers the potential to return more money than you started. Gambling is also an addictive entertainment form that must be treated as such. But for myself, and most bettors, it’s nothing more than a temporary diversion.
Now in our seventh year of legal U.S. sports betting outside Nevada, we know a growing percentage of these entertainment-seeking sports bettors would prefer to risk a little for the minuscule chance they might win big. Most bettors understand these bets won’t win. That hasn’t stopped them from seeking more props and opportunities to wager.
Not coincidently, the two sportsbooks that have grown to generate two-thirds of all sports betting revenue in the country are the best at offering these convoluted, multi-leg parlays. DraftKings’ new boosted odds subscription service makes this business model stark: We want you to stack together as many bets as possible, and we want to make even more money off our customers when doing so.
With clear exceptions, this is not a bad development. Customers want a product, and companies are fulfilling that desire.
Understanding betting and bettors
The difference between GE and DraftKings is that a person has a threshold on their willingness to purchase washing machines but a seemingly limitless capacity to place sports bets. It doesn’t matter financially that a small number of DraftKings parlay subscribers are giving $140 a year to a multibillion-dollar company; they are now identified as the bettors most willing to part even more money on 13-legal Bulgarian table tennis parlays they will never hit.
This, like the industry overall, must be analyzed and regulated. The relationship between gambling and advertising has been scrutinized by dozens of state regulatory bodies and within the halls of Congress. The relationship between a sportsbook and its most lucrative customers – one where full-time staff are hired to “support” customers using their product – has not yet been fully addressed.
But the majority of the avid parlay placers that will sign up for this service understand $20 a month is just another form of ephemeral entertainment.
Is a parlay boost subscription service a good investment for the bettor? Obviously not. But neither was money spent on restaurants and movie tickets. The addictive nature of gambling aside (no one except maybe Francis Ford Coppola went bankrupt because of "Megalopolis"), it is simply a temporary pleasure. These passing distractions compelled our first occupations and will exist until the day all industry ends.
Imagine telling your wife when she asks what this monthly subscription cost is on the card it’s for better Draftkings parlay boost odds.
— Joey Knish (@JoeyKnish22) January 3, 2025
Until that day, would it be great if sportsbooks offered low-vig lines and posted limits on point spreads and moneyline bets? Of course. And I’m sure it would have been a thrill to bet on Notre Dame from a line Lefty Rosenthal drew up in a back room on a chalkboard. It’d also be great if a Coors Lite on the Strip didn’t cost $14.98 (before tip).
That’s not where gambling is now. Most of the millions of U.S. legal sportsbook customers aren’t grinding data sets to determine an advantage on Tuesday night’s Citadel-Western Carolina game. They want to bet on Overs, favorites, and nationally televised games because they want to see scoring, expect better teams to win, and like to gamble on games they’re already watching.
They also like the thrill, however small, that $5 could turn into $100. Or more. It’s the same model the modern U.S. lottery has implemented for the better part of a century and Revolutionary War-era lotteries used to fund American independence. The nation, for all its shortcomings, still stands some 248 years later.
The neighborhood convenience store clerk selling lottery tickets isn’t sending push notifications to add more legs to your Sunday Night Football bet. Again, this needs to be monitored. But the average New York bettor that signs up for the DraftKings subscription wants to stay up until the fourth quarter to see if the final leg of that latest parlay hits.
Done responsibly, who am I to judge? I’ve paid for beers at Las Vegas Strip casinos.
And a ticket to "Megalopolis."
