Ohanian favors peer-to-peer markets over house-edge gambling

Transcript

From the transcript TBPN publishes with the episode.

1. 1:08:40

   How are you last question since we're out of time. Mhmm. How are you processing just the explosion of sports betting as I was and and kind of how it's driving sports and live events and providing a lot of funding, but at the same time, I was watching, you know, watching the the McGregor fight, if you could call it that, on Saturday. And like, they don't even do betting exclusives anymore. It's every single ad is for a different sports book or prediction market.

2. 1:09:10

   Mhmm. And and and so yeah, it's like I I've never had like the sports betting bug. Mhmm. I I've at points been like, gotta give this a good shot. Like, it seems like a lot of people really like doing this. I like it. I gave it a shot. I I

3. 1:09:27

   watched you I watched you lose $200 and it was one of the most entertaining things that Yeah. So it

4. 1:09:33

   was wildly entertaining. It was wildly entertaining for John. For me, I was like, that's it. Maybe

5. 1:09:38

   He's down to his last 4¢. Let's see what he'll do now. Yeah. Will he make a play? Did get

6. 1:09:43

   4¢ and then I was like, I'm gonna make it all back in one trade and that's a good man. A hell

7. 1:09:48

   of a parlay. Like 20 different legs. Yeah. I I, look. I one of the things we've said around here is we wanna invest in things that we know can make, you know, generational size returns, but also be things we're proud to tell our kids about. And so I have again, I have no beef with betting or gambling. Yeah. I think I think in models where the house always wins, that does not stir my cocoa because now you're just you're just weaponizing sort of, slot machine tactics to bring someone back who probably shouldn't be investing that next dollar or gambling that next dollar. I think prediction markets are unique in that it is peer to peer, and I I feel less distaste around, hey. Someone made a better decision than you did today.

8. 1:10:31

   Sure. Right? That feels more like any market. But I do think overall, the worst toxicity that I've seen on the Internet when I when I get and it's it's I mean, was jarring when I first started dating my wife. The worst toxicity that I would get was from psychopathic racists on the Internet, and it was tied to sports betting. Woah. Yeah. And and so it's and tennis is a unique sport where there's actually always been a lot of sports betting women's sport, where there's actually always been a lot of energy around it. And so even just anecdotally, it feels like athletes carry a disproportionate weight from it. And it might be easy to say, well, don't don't check social media. But like, you I mean, we all get our It's hard. We all get our hate.

9. 1:11:11

   Yeah. But like, if you're an athlete, like, you're literally just trying to do your job every day in front of everyone. We don't have to our board meetings are not broadcast to the world. We don't you you already have to live every workday in front of every person on the planet. And if if a downside of a shadow of sports betting and its rampant growth is even more toxicity for the athletes, like, feels bad.

10. 1:11:33

    And then there's the it was like Holland's teammate who, you know Yes. Had a clear had a clear should have passed it. But he's in the moment, you know. He's he's gonna be a hero. And and yeah, he had more you know, he just lost the World Cup, you know, not or not lost, but you know, lost in the in the quarters and he had like, you know, double the amount of comments as likes on on his last post. Yeah. Most of almost all of them saying like

11. 1:12:05

    yeah. It's just very different when you're a fan, you're passionate about a team. Yes. You are upset about your favorite player Yeah. Or Yeah. But it's different when people have money on the line, they are more incentivized to go crazy online and and send the aggressive message, which is never fun. Never

12. 1:12:20

    fun. And I and I and I also just think from a health standpoint of our society, right, we know young men are more likely right? We're risk takers biologically, and that's a great thing when it pushes us to go take an entrepreneurial risk. It is a less great thing when we invest our last 100 on a parlay that's never gonna pay off, and then it leads us into a cycle of addiction and problems. And so I I hope we can have a good conversation as a society about this.

13. 1:12:45

    I know we're in a very, like, let's say, deregulatory time in America right now. Yeah. And I hope when that switches, I hope it doesn't lead to a hyperregulatory period. Yeah. But, like, I hope we can have a reasonable conversation because I also I the the part that worries me the most is we know we're gonna continue to see more growth and acceleration for folks who are connected and plugged in, that's gonna be a great thing. It's gonna give us lots of good stuff. If the folks who aren't feel even more disenfranchised and even more left out that there's this almost like, and you see parts of it flare up in crypto for sure. Right? You see this sort of dystopian world of people willing to do anything to make a buck.

14. 1:13:21

    That that that from a societal standpoint makes me very, very, very uneasy. And and I I like, it's it's becoming more and more obvious how big a role betting is, in particular sports betting is. And I just feel like we haven't had the conversation, and I don't know if we have the folks equipped to have the right one.