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The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting
Audio Book
Business GeneralGeneral GamblingGeneral Political Science
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Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: Aug 4 2026
Language: English
An investigative narrative revealing how smartphones, deregulation, and pandemic isolation turned America's pastime into its newest addiction.
The House Always Wins traces the rise of legal sports betting from a fringe hobby to a $120-billion-a-year industry, reshaping how Americans watch, wager, and lose. Economist and health policy analyst Roger Bate explores how pandemic isolation, relentless digital marketing, and permissive state policy created a perfect storm of opportunity and risk. Bate draws on original surveys, field interviews, and international case studies to reveal how betting moved from racetracks to smartphones--and how a culture built on self-control began to mistake speed for freedom.
From suburban bars to billion-dollar platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel, The House Always Wins uncovers the moral and economic contradictions of a market built on human weakness and where over 95 percent of participants lose, some catastrophically. Bate argues that the challenge isn't whether people should gamble, but whether a democracy can manage risk at the speed of an app. Combining investigative reportage with humane insight, this audiobook exposes the hidden arithmetic behind America's newest public-health crisis.
2 different editions
Also available
The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting
Bate, Roger
Paperback
The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting
Bate, Roger
Audio Book
Also from
Bate, Roger
The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting
Bate, Roger
Paperback
The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting
Bate, Roger
Audio Book
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