Cavan Klinsky

“We are offering half cash, half stock, and we have the ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done," says $GME CEO @ryancohen on offering a bid for @eBay. Watch the full interview: cnb.cx/4n9TB4w

Playing the role of @mckaycoppins apologist. The main criticisms seem to be: 1) Nitpicky technicalities like "no, books don't balance their action". True, and maybe could have been a bit better researched, but doesn't change the point of any of it. 2) "He bet like an idiot". He played props and SGPs. He wildly fluctuated his bet sizes for no apparent reason. He bet with his fandom. He tailed Sean fucking Perry. But that's the whole point! He experienced betting from the perspective of a newbie. Newbies do stupid things. Newbies overestimate their abilities. Newbies get lured by flashy ads and scamming touts. Newbies don't know any better. Anyone who thinks the average American's betting journey is more like ours than like McKay's is crazy. 3) "He was betting someone else's money". Yeah, he was. And in fairness it is reasonable to question how much of his decision making was influenced by that. I'd like to know what he would have done next if his Patriots bet had won. Hopefully he'll tell us. It would have been great to give this assignment to a journalist who was willing to put up his own money (and without any religious objections). I have no idea if the Atlantic had access to such a person. 4) "His plan all along was to go broke because it would make a better article as a cautionary tale". Maybe...but nothing in the article read as anything but genuine to me. Combined with everything I know about devout Mormons (admittedly not all that much), my prior is pretty low on his approach to this being so cynical and disingenous. I could be wrong. 5) "It's a hit piece on the industry". Yeah, it kind of is. So is @dannyfunt 's book (which I also thought was good). So are the other articles that have been written recently about betting. But you know what? I don't find any of it unfair. The marketing of recreational books is pure psychological warfare in a way that sets it apart from booze, cigarettes, etc. It takes advantage of evolutionary weaknesses in the way the human brain reasons, to make people think it's easier to win than it actually is. My own father, who is very much NOT a stupid person, had me put a bet down for him on Indiana -8 in the CFP championship because "they're a much better team and they'll kill Miami". If you're following me and reading this, there's a good chance that you either were born with or acquired the ability to think probabilistically. You are in the minority. For the rest of the population, it's like handing an AK-47 to a chimpanzee and asking him to use it responsibly. I'm not saying we should abolish sports betting or gambling in general. I am saying the way it's currently being done has some bad societal consequences that are being ignored in the pursuit of profit, including regulatory capture by lobbyists which IMO is one of the most evil aspects of the current lawmaking environment.

After @McKayCoppins’s first bet on an NFL game, he was up $20. By the end of the season, he’d lost $10,000 and was checking DraftKings in church. Inside his season as a gambler—and what it taught him about how gambling is suffusing American life: theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…

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