11on the fi eld or court but on a hand-held
device. We see one man’s eyes widen as
he watches his smartphone, indiff erent to
the game of pool he’s playing with friends.
Another plants a celebratory kiss on his
phone’s screen. Another swivels restlessly
as a barber takes a comb to his hair. Place
your bets, the ad suggests, and even the
salon might become a site of enrichment.
But the commercial also rests on the sur-
prising assumption that sports are often, in
and of themselves, boring. We see two spec-
tators at a baseball game grow cartoonishly
long beards, as FanDuel promises to ‘‘make
America’s pastime feel like less of an end-
less passage of time.’’ The pro golfer Jordan
Spieth appears, ready to sink an easy putt:
‘‘Make golf more... ’’ our narrator begins,
before politely trailing off in deference. The
solution to this boredom — sports’ failure
to satisfy our diminished attention spans or
the modern expectation that we somehow
be involved in everything we watch — lies in
the gamifi cation of ‘‘every drop, jab, hook,
hit, steal, save, knuckle, meat,’’ as the narra-
tor proposes, pitching a degree of interac-
tivity greater and more remunerative than
fantasy sports ever could.
These platforms’ infi ltration of our
experience of sports goes beyond ads.
Only six such spots, for instance, are per-
mitted to air during individual telecasts
of the N.F.L., which was an outspoken
opponent of legalized online betting until
2018, when the Supreme Court overturned
a federal ban that prohibited the practicein most states. Last year, though, the league
announced partnerships with three diff er-
ent sportsbook companies, all while taking
pains to reassure skeptics of the game’s
integrity. (In March, the wide receiver Cal-
vin Ridley was suspended for the upcom-
ing season for betting on N.F.L. games.) On
N.B.A. pregame shows, experts now advise
gamblers on their wagers; increasingly,
betting lines appear onscreen during the
telecasts themselves. For a time, Uber Eats
off ered gift cards for placing bets with Cae-
sars. And every Thursday, you can stream
Fan Duel’s half-hour show ‘‘More Ways to
Win,’’ in which the week’s spreads and
moneylines are parsed for optimal value.
The studio setup looks familiar, but
the operation itself is spiritless, bearing‘It’s a stupid,
bad habit. I have
a problem.... But
the problem
is when you can’t
afford it. I can
afford to gamble.’— Charles Barkley,
who appears
in a new FanDuel
ad, in a 2006
ESPN interview