From the long list of possible vices, gambling was never going to be my vice of choice.
Oh, I'm still capable of yelling 'wanna bet?' when some factoid is in question - and I'm 100% sure I'm right. Of course, other than the small smug satisfaction of winning the bet, nothing material ever materializes. But other than buying an occasional lottery ticket, betting has no appeal to me whatsoever.
I've been to casinos, but my limit was always a roll of quarters for the slots - or whatever the electronic equivalent is these days. But once that ten bucks is exhausted, I'm out. In my twenties, I went a couple of times to the track (Narragansett, Suffolk Downs) with friends, where I'd make a couple of two-dollar bets on some nag, based on whether I liked its name or the jockey's colors.
But gambling to me is one big meh, and I'm about as likely to get sucked into playing one of those betting apps as I am to go skydiving. Is there a probability that's less than zero?
Gambling, however - whether micro wagers on Fan Duel or other sports betting apps, or in the 'when's the next forest fire' prediction makets - has become a huge industry. And what it's doing in the process of growing the businesses, the industry, is getting a whole lot of folks ensnared in gambling. I.e., becoming addicted. And their lives can be pretty much ruined when they go into big, hideous debt.
One ruinee is a fellow named Terry Thompson, whose road to financial perdition was via FanDuel.
He began innocently enough, betting on the Philadelphia Eagles to win, but soon found himself "placing microbets, which are in-game wagers on something as small as whether the next play would be a pass or run."
Soon enough, he had wagered $18.5 million on the app. This figure does not, of course, represent total losses. Thompson was making his bets, rewagering his winnings, and (mostly) covering his losses. While FanDuel was taking their cut.
Meanwhile, having been identified as a Big Spender, Thompson started getting comped. Tickets to Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers games. A couple of fully paid for trips to the Supoer Bowl with perks like invites to swank parties and pregame field access.
Thompson was assigned a FanDuel relationship manager, Bryttanni Morgan, his VIP host for events like the Super Bowl. She also stayed in contact with Thompson via text, pretending to be his friend - with convos about family, etc. - while always turning the encounter around to urging Thompson to place more bets.
But the house always wins, and the losses were getting steeper.
Thompson was losing big time, mortgaging his home. Mortgaging it again. Selling share in a business he ran. He was desperate for the funds to keep fueling his addiction.Then, one afternoon [in November 2024], he flicked open his phone and received a FanDuel reward that momentarily distracted him from his debts: a personalized video message from Philadelphia Phillies superstar. (Source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
Bryce Harper is a very big deal. He's a future Hall of Famer, playing his way through a $300M plus multi-year contract that nets him about $25M a year. He has a ton of endorsements as well. But there's never enough money, and if you can earn some extra coin by making a bunch of personalized video calls for your fans while you're sitting around with nothing to do but Scrooge McDuck count your money, why not add to the pile o' lucre?
So Harper recorded a video that Morgan sent Thompson that name checks Thompson's son, thanks Thompson for his support (support for Harpef? for FanDuel?), and wishes him a Happy Thanksgiving.
The video was made through Cameo, the outfit that sells celebrity greetings. You can get an Englebert Humperdinck vid for $345. (Didn't know he was still alive. He's 90, and will be performing in the Boston area in December. Who knew?)
Red Sox great (and Hall of Famer) will give you a shout out for $600. And the price for Kevin O'Leary, Shark Tank ahole supreme, starts at $1,500.
So Harper wasn't doing directly promotional work for FanDuel. It was via Cameo. But:
Harper mentions that he was reaching out at the request of Thompson’s VIP manager, “your host Bryttanni at FanDuel.”
So he kinda shoulda known that Thompson was a pretty big gambler to have a FanDuel "host" looking out for him.
You'd think so, no?
Anyway, Thompson ended up owing over a million bucks and spending time in "a psychiatric facility to undergo treatment for gambling addiction."
He's suing FanDuel and Morgan, and I hope he wins big (and that the winnings go into a trust that someone else manages for him). Sure, there's such a thing as free will, but these rotters knowingly prey on those who've become addicted to gambling.
As for Harper, he's not named in the suit, but he's getting some heat for working with a betting outfit. He's blah-blah-ing about not doing anything directly with FanDuel, but since his message mentions the company, it's not as if he should be "shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in here," as Inspector Renault famously says in Casablanca, while accepting a bag of loot from the croupier at Rick's.
Oh, FFS. Nothing he did was illegal, but we're sure on the border between ethical and unethical here, no?
I can understand the lure of doing Cameo videos. It's almost free money. And I looked on the site, and a lot of the videos are offered for lesser lights than Bryce Harper. Plenty of them are for "celebrities" I never heard of. And I can understand why fans of celebrities would get a kick out of receiving a "personal" video, even if they know it's hooey.
But especially for the rich folks making these vids, why don't they do it through a charity? Let the Make a Wish Foundation, Saint Jude's Hospital, Habitat for Humanity make some money peddling these videos. They need the money more than Bryce Harper does.
Sheesh.
Meanwhile, if it's okay wish best of luck to a gambler, best of luck to Terry Thompson.
As for Bryce Harper, why not pay closer attention to what you're doing in your free time to make even more money than you'll ever possibility need.
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