Energetic reporting exposes the underbelly of an industry that always wins, no matter who’s playing.
Care to wager? Yes, America says, to the tune of billions.
For decades, Funt writes in this insightful work of journalism, sports executives agreed that betting was “evil” and would undermine competitive integrity if made broadly legal. But in recent years, pro leagues have done a 180, inking lucrative partnerships with companies that offer round-the-clock betting. Since a 2018 Supreme Court decision enabled states to legalize sports gambling, Americans have bet hundreds of billions of dollars. Funt’s interviews with 300 industry employees, gamblers, athletes, and others illuminate what’s been lost in the process. Along with game scores, adults with smartphones can bet on the stats of stars and second-stringers alike, exposing both pro and college players to threats from aggrieved gamblers. Easily replenished spending accounts and misleading promotions have fueled gambling addictions; one schoolteacher’s 18-month tally: “100K blown.” Meanwhile, watching live sports now means enduring an onslaught of betting commercials. Funt, who’s chronicled some of the above for the Washington Post, goes deep on the industry’s dark side. Gambling companies employ so-called hosts, who woo “VIP” bettors—gamblers who place big, unsuccessful wagers—with game tickets and personalized gifts. The goal, says a former host, is to “keep them losing.” College and pro sports had numerous gambling-related scandals long before 2018, and observers worry that young sports fans “are being groomed to gamble for life” and that a superstar player may eventually get caught. “That would kill the league,” an NBA agent says. Funt’s book isn’t overtly prescriptive, but he offers a helpful summary of proposed legislation to rein in some of the industry’s excesses. This is an intelligent overview of an increasingly powerful economic and social force.
Energetic reporting exposes the underbelly of an industry that always wins, no matter who’s playing.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781668062029
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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