The Dangers of Pervasive Sports Betting; the President Again Ignores the Whole Checks-and-Balances Thing–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Sept. 28, 2026

Indy Digest: Sept. 28, 2026

Business took me to Las Vegas over the weekend, and two under-construction buildings are yet again revamping the city’s skyline: the gigantic guitar-shaped tower of the Hard Rock Las Vegas, and the new stadium that will become the home of the Las Vegas Athletics.

While the guitar-shaped tower is more impressive, the rise of the baseball stadium where the Tropicana once stood left more of an impression on me, for two reasons: One, I am a baseball fan, and two, I am a Nevada native who at one point thought big-league pro sports would never come to my home state.

Yep: Several decades ago, it was widely believed that Vegas would never get a major professional sports team, because of the whole gambling thing. But that belief, of course, was wrong. Back in 2016, after the National Hockey League announced that Las Vegas would soon be the home of an expansion team, CBC News explained what changed:

Sports organizations have long avoided Sin City over fears related to its vice-fuelled economy. The biggest concern has always been the gambling industry, and fears of match-fixing and other corruption. …

But with each year that argument holds less and less merit. In 2001 Nevada lifted a 40-year-old ban which barred sports books from taking bets on teams based in the state. The change meant residents could place bets on University of Nevada-Las Vegas Rebels games, but a lot didn’t actually change. Everyone was already betting on UNLV games.

“There’s always been gambling on basketball in (Las Vegas) and there’s always been gambling on Rebel basketball, it just hasn’t been above board,” Mike Olsen, president of the Las Vegas Silver Bandits, a team which at the time played in the International Basketball League, told ESPN at the time. “Now it’s legal, so at least now it can be monitored, which means they’ll have an easier time of catching point-shavers by tracking the unusual betting cycles at the sports books.”

The rise of internet betting only made that it easier for Nevada residents and again, there was no evidence of match-fixing or other results-oriented corruption at the school.

The repeal of the ban against Nevada sports books from taking bets on Nevada teams was indeed a big deal—and it eventually paved the way for that aforementioned NHL team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, to start play in 2017. The National Football League’s Raiders moved from Oakland to Vegas in 2020, and the Athletics are slated to start playing in Las Vegas in 2028. The only one of the four major North American sports leagues not to have a Vegas presence is the National Basketball Association—although Vegas does have a WNBA team (the Las Vegas Aces), and it’s widely believed that it’s only a matter of time before the NBA arrives in Sin City.

Meanwhile, sports betting has expanded well beyond Nevada—heck, in 32 states, you can legally bet via an app on your phone. (You technically can’t in California—although the “prediction market” apps do allow sports betting here, with questionable legality.) Additionally, every league and many individual sports teams have cozied up with the sports-betting industry in exchange for cold, hard cash—ethical, moral and practical concerns, be damned.

And there are definitely BIG, ethical, moral and legal concerns. Major League Baseball’s playoffs start tomorrow—and we’ve already seen sports betting compromise a recent playoff game, albeit it a small way. If you aren’t familiar with the Emmanuel Clase case, here’s the lede of a Sept. 19 ESPN piece:

Federal prosecutors have identified 18 pitches, including one from a 2024 playoff game, that will be the focus of their gambling case against Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase, which is set for trial in November, according to court documents filed Friday.

In the documents, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York included a list of the individual pitches that Clase threw in 17 games spanning from May 19, 2023, to May 28, 2025. Clase is accused of sharing advance information about the pitches with bettors, who allegedly placed wagers on the result and velocity of the pitches.

Clase’s first pitch to Matt Vierling of the Detroit Tigers in the ninth inning of an Oct. 5, 2024, American League Division Series game was on the list. The pitch, a 93 mph slider, was out of the strike zone. The Guardians won the game 7-0.

Make no mistake: It’s only a matter of time before a betting scandal somehow tarnishes a major sports championship. Gambling is too pervasive; the stakes are too high; and greed is a fundamental part of humanity.

But the even bigger problem with sports betting being so prolific these days is that it’s hurting people—a LOT of people.

I know first-hand how addictive gambling can be. A loved one of mine, who has since passed away, was so addicted to gambling that he’d sneak away from caring for his sick wife to go play video poker for hours—and this was after he and his wife at one point filed for bankruptcy due to gambling debts.

When this loved one wanted to gamble, he had to actually get in his car and drive somewhere to do so. I can’t imagine how he’d have fared if all he had to do to gamble was open an app on his phone. And to make things even scarier: While the companies behind those apps pay lip service to the problem of gambling addiction, there’s evidence that they’re actually doing all they can to keep people betting more and more and more.

On Saturday, ProPublica published a piece headlined “I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.” Here’s a snippet

I approached $4,500 in losses in 24 hours, transferring money from my bank directly into my DraftKings account, the company seemed to clock the problem, sending me an in-app notification.

“Take a loss? Now take a beat,” it read. This felt right after the tear I’d been on. To date I’d blown about $12,500 in total on DraftKings. That’s the equivalent of six months of mortgage payments in as many weeks.

I followed the prompt to the site’s “responsible gaming” center, where I opted to limit myself to just two hours per day on the app and barred myself from depositing more than $100 in a 24-hour period. That pause is an essential part of DraftKings’ seemingly paradoxical business model—to make as much money as possible from the nation’s growing ranks of sports bettors without encouraging gambling addiction. The company says these limits are a cornerstone of that strategy. 

Yet 30 minutes later, the company pushed me in the other direction. My phone buzzed with the first of four promotional alerts that day. Betting opportunities, they said, were waiting.

The pervasiveness of sports betting everywhere terrifies me. When it comes to gambling—sports betting included—that old cliche is undeniably true: In the long run, the house always wins.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• CNN’s Daniel Dale has spent a decade fact-checking Donald Trump (God help him!). To, uh, celebrate (?) the occasion, he recently wrote a piece chronicling 15 things he’s learned while covering all of the lies. A snippet: “Like a bad poker player, Trump has tells that indicate he is likely lying. If he delivers a story featuring an unnamed person calling him ‘sir,’ it’s often fiction. So are many of his stories about burly working-class men crying in his presence and a good portion of his stories involving one of his critics supposedly having come to him begging. What do these colorful but dubious tales have in common? They position him as a dominant figure to whom others—even large dudes—genuflect.”

• The Trump administration has, yet again, raised a figurative middle finger to the concept of governmental checks and balances, by cancelling spending approved by Congress. The Associated Press says: “President Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives. Trump’s Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on ‘the most harmful government spending.’ Most of the cuts are focused on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally. The administration says the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably. Also targeted for cuts were a Department of Education program for migrant students, a Department of Justice office focused on reducing racial tensions, a business development initiative for minority entrepreneurs, housing counseling services from the Housing and Urban Development Department and a series of grants from the Health and Human Services Department that the administration called ‘outright harmful and blatantly ideological.’”

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been victimized by a very bad data breach. The New York Times reports (gift link): “The theft by a criminal hacking group of reams of sensitive personal data involving potentially tens of thousands of former and current FBI employees is emerging as one of the worst breaches of sensitive government information, leaving the bureau rushing to protect its personnel as an uncertain deadline loomed. Nearly a week after the group, known as ShinyHunters, revealed it had pilfered intimate details about bureau personnel from the agency’s jobs portal and threatened to leak them online, FBI investigators are still piecing together how the breach took place and the total damage. The hack appears to have swept up home addresses, Social Security numbers, secretive job assignments and much more, according to a New York Times analysis of some of the records. Some are already comparing it to China’s breach of more than 20 million records from the Office of Personnel Management over a decade ago, considered so catastrophic that officials and lawmakers vowed to never let something like it happen again.”

• We’ll close with two pieces of recall news. First up, today’s recall news involves … blood pressure meds! USA Today explains: “More than 25,000 bottles of blood pressure medication have been recalled for improper dissolution, which can impact the effectiveness of the drug. Inventia Healthcare Limited, based in India, has issued two recalls for more than 25,000 bottles of its chlorthalidone tablets because the medication failed dissolution specifications, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means the medication does not dissolve or break down at the correct speed in the body, which can affect how the active ingredient is absorbed. Chlorthalidone is a diuretic, or water pill, that reduces the amount of water and salt in the body by increasing urine flow, which helps to lower blood pressure, according to the Mayo Clinic.”

• And finally … all of these recalls—the ones involving food especially—are becoming a big issue in this year’s elections. CBS News says: “The summer was marred by a massive foodborne outbreak that sickened scores of people and the recall of tens of thousands of pounds of imported meat, turning the safety of the U.S. food supply into a topic of national conversation and a political cause. Late-night talk show hosts joked about symptoms that included explosive diarrhea. As a precaution, chain restaurants such as Chipotle and Taco Bell yanked lettuce, jalapeños, and other suspected products from menus. Some food safety scientists blamed the outbreaks on federal cuts to public health. These dynamics collectively have raised questions about whether it’s safe to order a salad or burger. Democrats have come out on the offensive, saying voters worried about the safety of the U.S. food supply should oust Republicans in the midterm elections. The Trump administration has countered by accusing Democrats of scaremongering over food safety to score political points. The political fracas reflects the toll that large-scale outbreaks have had on the public psyche. Midterm voters have long cared about pocketbook issues such as grocery prices, but the spate of recalls has them worried about whether the food they’re buying is safe to eat—and political leaders are paying attention.”

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