Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
Pushkin Industries
Recent Episodes
Michael Lewis heads to Las Vegas to explore the way sports betting used to work, up until the day it was rapidly legalized by states around the country. We meet the betting sharps who figured out what others couldn’t and set the odds for other bookies. That is, up until everyone seemed to have a casino on their smartphone. But the new online casino differs from the old ones in an important way: It doesn’t take all bets.
For further reading:
Edward Thorp’s Beat the Dealer
“Cigars, Booze, Money: How a Lobbying Blitz Made Sports Betting Ubiquitous” by
Eric Lipton and Kenneth P. Vogel
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We get a sneak-peek of the next part of Michael Lewis's reporting on the rise of sports gambling: it involves a trip to Vegas to meet odds-makers and pro-gamblers, and a scheme that will have his producer betting tens of thousands of someone else's dollars.
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As the US election nears, Michael Lewis sits down with Nate Silver, co-host of the Pushkin podcast Risky Business (along with the writer, psychologist and professional poker player Maria Konnikova). They talk about why people bet on elections, the problem with sports gamblers in the United States, and Silver’s new book, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.
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Is there a difference between fandom and religion? In Pittsburgh, it can be hard to tell. Fans of the city’s football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, seem to have a cradle-to-grave devotion, complete with a golden relic, the “terrible towel.” Michael Lewis talks with sociologist Marci Cottingham, a native of Steeler Nation, about her work studying the religious overtones of fandom, and why the positive experiences of sports fans should get more scholarly attention.
For further reading: Marci Cottingham’s Practical Feelings: Emotions as Resources in a Dynamic Social World
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It may seem like sports gambling got legalized overnight in the US. But it was in fact a winding road to get there. Michael Lewis speaks with legal historian and University of Chicago professor Alison L. LaCroix about all the factors that led to the Supreme Court overturning, in 2018, a federal law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. And they explore why, in some eras of US history, the Court tends to lean towards “states rights” arguments.
For further reading: Alison LaCroix’s The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms
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