New ProPublica report on online sports betting

So for the audience's benefit, Jake, what are the red flag behaviors? Right. So, there are some telltale signs that my panel of experts pointed to me time and again, the foremost among them is something in the business called lost chasing, which is exactly as it sounds. When you start to lose, you make subsequent bets that are bigger and at longer odds to try and make up the ground that you've lost. It's sort of trying an attempt to dig your way out of the hole. I sort of gradually put myself on an escalation trajectory, where I increased my time on the app. I played late into the night. I upped my betting size and frequency 10x. I really got into more exotic betting products, like parlays and micro bets. These are what's called the slotification, sort of like playing-- the closest you can get to a slot machine on the apps. And cumulatively, all of this, 10 weeks in, eight weeks in, according to my panel, was unambiguously somebody who was having a really hard time controlling themselves with the product. How much did you lose? Well, nobody's story is straight down. I was net lost $10,700. At one point, I was down much more. I was in the $20s, and like a good New Yorker, I went big on the Knicks, expecting them to disappoint, as they usually do. They did not, obviously. And so I won big, and my luck extended into the World Cup, before I cratered back to Earth. But, all my experts say that winning can actually be the most dangerous thing for a problem gambler, because it gives you this unearned validation of your betting strategy. And, as one of my experts always says, as long as you keep playing, you're going to give it back. If you don't withdraw your winnings, if you keep going, it's math. You will send that money back to the house. 15 seconds. Was it any fun or was it a drag? Listen, I get the appeal. It's popular for a reason. But at a certain point, in my position, I had to get writing, and I had to stop betting.

It's always good when you have to get writing. That's that solves a lot of things in life, causes other problems, but it solves a lot of things. Jake Pearson, ProPublica, I appreciate it.