jesus, i knew shit was getting wild with sports gambling, but i did not know that ESPN seems to have basically merged with one of the big platforms (draftkings).

as a not-a-gambler, ive long felt like an outsider to the phenomenon of sports gambling. when i cut-the-cord with cable and switched to streaming and digital library development, i just kinda lost track of sports along the way. live event shit has come a long way, but it was a different area of the platform than i cared about mostly. then all the CTE shit hit and my understanding of college athletics as a corrupting influence grew. i just stopped even trying to stay current after that.

it was definitely an area where i felt a growing divide between my expectations for myself and the expectations of performing masculinity. like i stopped knowing who was contending for what bowl or what the brackets and matchups looked like.

the thing is, when i would talk to friends still into that world, they were all implicitly acknowledging it was boring and frequently expensive (finding a way to watch a specific teams games). and they were mitigating the boredom of staying current by forming fantasy leagues and making wagers. "it makes the games more interesting." god i heard that a lot.

meanwhile, im just like, why should i have to do all this just to maintain some expected level of engagement, when I'd honestly rather spend the sunday afternoon watching a documentary about concrete.

anyway, gambling addiction is fucked and so grim in the current political economy.