Bryce Harper FanDuel Controversy: VIP Video, Gambling Rewards & Responsible Play
Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast is joined by returning co-host Darren to discuss the controversy surrounding a Bryce Harper video that was later used by FanDuel for a VIP bettor who allegedly lost $1.5 million.
Justin and Darren react to the early media coverage, criticize misleading headlines, and discuss Harper’s statement that the video came from a Cameo request, that he had no FanDuel affiliation, and that he would have declined the request if he knew about the bettor’s alleged gambling problem.
The conversation then expands into online gambling, sportsbook marketing, VIP programs, responsible gambling, and the tension between gambling rewards and consumer protection. Justin and Darren discuss responsible gaming tools such as deposit limits, wager limits, time limits, reality-check popups, self-exclusion, income verification, and account restrictions.
They also discuss the broader debate around VIP gambling rewards, including whether perks, hosts, gifts, and promotions encourage more play while sportsbooks publicly promote responsible gambling.
The episode references a lawsuit alleging “unreasonably dangerous micro betting” and VIP hosts “feigning friendships,” while also arguing for personal responsibility, informed decision-making, and better understanding of the risks involved.
Justin and Darren also share practical best practices for points-and-miles gamblers and online bettors, including starting small, staying disciplined, diversifying across sites, understanding terms and limits, avoiding chasing losses, tracking results, and more.
Timestamps
00:00 Podcast Intro Theme
00:35 Bryce Harper FanDuel Controversy
04:16 VIP Video
06:13 Responsible Gambling Tools
10:31 VIP Rewards Versus Safety
13:26 Personal Responsibility
16:51 Lawsuit And Regulation Talk
20:01 Show Announcements Break
22:24 Steve Fezzik Critique And Winners Being Banned
27:55 Listener Questions And Best Practices
37:13 Wrap Up And Outro
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Rough Transcript:
Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world at low cost. Controversy rages on surrounding Philadelphia Phillies player Bryce Harper recording a video that was later used by FanDuel and sent to a VIP FanDuel player who allegedly had a gambling problem, allegedly having lost $1.5 million.
Returning co-host Darren joins me [00:01:00] today to talk about the developing story, online gambling, responsible gambling, and much more. I’ve featured gambling content surrounding miles and points on my podcast and YouTube channel, so this is a fitting conversation and interesting news. On with today’s episode, recorded July 13th, 2026.
Welcome back to the show, Darren. Thanks, Justin. Like Justin, I’m an experienced casino gambler, and I think this is a interesting topic from a lot of perspectives. As Justin said, one, the unfair headlines maybe is the right way to say that, or maligned, I’m not sure the right term there, for what’s been happening, and of course the post first, ask questions later type approach.
Looking forward to talking more about how we can use this example as something that our listeners can learn from. Yes, I’ve been promoting gambling for many in the miles and points space, gambling responsibly, [00:02:00] gambling intelligently, and here we have what seems to be unintelligent gambling, but is still something to talk about and very interesting.
I think many media sources are either confused about gambling, they’re looking for clicks in a bad way, what’s new, or they’re heavily biased against gambling, and I think Bryce Harper suffered due to a lot of these media headlines portraying him in a bad light. Some of these initial headlines were, “FanDuel sent a personal message from Phillies star Bryce Harper to a customer with a gambling addiction.”
Here’s another one, “Phillies star Bryce Harper declines to comment on FanDuel video to bettor who had addiction.” Even months ago, our good friend Dave Ramsey called FanDuel, quote, “a portal to hell.” Reading recent headlines like this about FanDuel, readers may assume Harper knew the gambler had a gambling problem and that Harper was working with FanDuel.
[00:03:00] Side note, I really don’t like the word addiction because it’s overused and it’s quite a range from excessive chemical substance use with major impairments on everyday living to someone using the term glibly like, “He’s addicted to using his phone. He’s on it all the time.” Darren, when we spoke about this recently before recording, this Harper situation, I mentioned that the media reporting was pretty bad.
They unfairly ran with headlines, and we don’t even know basic facts like Harper’s affiliation with FanDuel, if any, and what Harper knew about the gambler. It’s now July 13th, a few days later, and just hours before recording, who would’ve guessed it? I called it. Harper came out saying the video was a Cameo request, not a request from FanDuel directly, and he would’ve denied the video had he known about this alleged problem gambler, and he didn’t know FanDuel would use this for, quote, “a VIP promotion.”
Harper also stated that he had no affiliation with FanDuel [00:04:00] whatsoever The plot thickens, Justin. And like you said, who would’ve guessed that more information would come out in this post first, get the facts correct later sort of news cycle that we’re in? It’s frustrating. Journalism another topic for another time certainly.
For those that don’t know, Cameo is an online platform in which people can request short videos from stars, baseball stars, basketball stars, football stars, movie stars, music stars, right? Short videos in which they, pay to have those done.
Based on Harper’s statement today, it sounds like he was asked to do a video by the VIP host for the gambler but did not necessarily disclose that the host worked at FanDuel or that once Harper delivered the video, according to Harper, that FanDuel then added the FanDuel logo to [00:05:00] the video-
which then was circulated and certainly some folks thought reflected poor on Bryce Harper. This is a mess, Justin, and I think it’s one of those things where, folks are pointing fingers early and blaming the athlete, right? How could they do this and how could they do that and without necessarily having all the facts.
So nice to see the statement from Harper, and again, hopefully that’s what’s proven presumably what’s gonna be in a court of law. It sounds like attorneys are involved, which is okay. There’s gonna be more to come out, I am sure of that.
And no mention of the 1.5 million. There wasn’t a message saying, “Hey, because this player lost a certain amount of money that we want you to make a video.” There certainly was no mention about that. He didn’t know who it was. And with Cameo, you’re not given the life history of the person who it’s for. It’s “Hey-” sports star.
Can you send Johnny a video saying happy birthday? In this case, it was have a good Thanksgiving, I [00:06:00] believe. But we don’t know much about the person on the other end if we were to receive a request like that. So very unfair reporting on this and putting Harper in a bad light unfairly. But let’s move on to responsible gambling and VIP status as this is part of the story.
I know from personally interacting with FanDuel and wagering heavily in many online casinos, I regularly see pop-ups, emails, messages, and more about responsible gambling. Set a budget, reality check, you wagered X amount in the last 30 minutes, and so on. At one point, I’ve had accounts locked, and I had to fill out forms for income verification, affirm responsible gambling, all of this stuff, multiple sites, and of course, I haven’t lost $1.5 million.
When a customer hits some sort of internal volume, they get more of these responsible gaming messages, and especially early on, I got messages stating specific amounts I played. [00:07:00] Oh, you’ve deposited X amount of money and acknowledge this, and you have to click affirm or OK to get past the window.
You can’t just go in and wager. You see these messages, and you have to acknowledge. These are more of the reality check messages. FanDuel customers can also set limits on their accounts, and this is the case with most, if not all, regulated online gaming sites in PA and New Jersey that I’ve dealt with.
You can deactivate your account. You can set time limits, loss limits, breaks from play, self-exclusion, and much more. There are tons of paths towards responsible gambling and self-awareness, and if customers keep playing and losing, I don’t know what else can be done. Does FanDuel just have to close accounts if people lose too much, and then that person just goes to another online casino or maybe an in-person casino where probably nothing is monitored, especially if that person doesn’t have a player’s card or use one?
Anyone could just go in an [00:08:00] in-person casino, dump hundreds of dollars into slot machines, lose all their money, and what is the casino going to do about that? After all, we let adults make decisions, and this is one decision. This guy kept going back and gambling. He’s losing all this money. He’s getting these rewards, but ultimately, it’s him logging in every time, continuing to play.
Yeah, I don’t think any of us think that he made good decisions here, Justin, right? Early reports would suggest that he took multiple loans against his house and ended up losing that money too.
If all of a sudden casinos are allowed to deactivate accounts after you lose a high percentage of your deposit, that would be frustrating, right?
And that’s part of the responsible gambling, setting limits. And if you’re going through these points and miles plays that we talk about, like using credit to buy prepaid cards and gift cards, my idea is to play through funds once and withdraw the money, whether I’m up, down, [00:09:00] or even for that session. And it’s important to think about the long run as well, rather than getting so wrapped up in one day and, “Oh, I’m down $100, so I need to keep playing and get even,” because that often doesn’t go well.
It’s about the long-term thinking. It’s about self-awareness, and I think all this can be cultivated for people who have that discipline and awareness, and that’s an important part of being an adult, after all. And if you can’t have that discipline, then you shouldn’t play at all. But should we blame the casino sites just because people don’t have the discipline?
I don’t think that’s fair. I agree, Justin. I think the important thing here for our listeners l- people may be asking, sure, it’s an interesting story, and maybe I like baseball, or maybe I’m close to Philadelphia.” There probably are some Philadelphia listeners, and so you’ve certainly heard this story in the local news, certainly as it involves Bryce Harper, one of the stars of the Philadelphia Phillies.
But I think for the rest of the folks or even by and large, the main point here is if you’re getting into online gambling as a [00:10:00] creative spending opportunity, come with this in mind. That you’re just playing through what you load. The goal here is to do some creative spending, rack up some points and miles, and travel for free or at low cost, Justin. Isn’t that how the song goes? Yes, that’s how it goes. Yeah. Travel at low cost I like better than free, because usually there are some costs, taxes, and fees.
The effort to generate these, it’s a little bit more complicated than travel for free. Freely, I like the app TravelFreely. That’s a- Yeah … a good one and a good way to put it, I think.
But let’s play devil’s advocate as there could be a clash between these VIP rewards programs, the casino hosts, the casino representatives, and this idea of responsible gaming.
We’re willing to send you a video from a famous sports player because you’re active with us, and we see that you’ve lost money, so we’re gonna send you more incentives to continue playing.
“Oh, here’s a complimentary hotel night. Here’s a $20 or [00:11:00] $50 food voucher.” Again, my volume is not as such of this gambler, but I’ve received many offers. And, “Oh, hey, we’ll offer you a complimentary cruise for getting MGM Gold Status, or an- another cruise for MGM Platinum Status.” This is giving me more incentive to come back.
This is a rewards program, after all. Whether it’s your local coffee shop incentivizing you to come back, whether it’s casino programs, reward programs, and loyalty are everywhere. But there could be this clash between responsible gaming because the rewards may incentivize you to play more. Certainly will encourage you To go back to Harper, he says he doesn’t approve of how the video was used, and he wouldn’t have consented to it if he knew all the details.
So he would draw the line there, but FanDuel definitely did not. Surely, VIP rewards increase on average the more a person plays. I get deposit and play bonuses on [00:12:00] FanDuel based on my play. I see reward meters based on my play. I have now level four casino status, and this is giving me better benefits compared to players level one through three who don’t play as much.
I’m getting deposit bonuses, play bonuses, usually something like 15 or $20 a session. Then there’s some weekly bonuses I’ve seen as high as 200, 300 dollars, and this is giving me more reasons to come back and play. But I’m still maintaining the responsible gambling. I’m playing through my funds once and withdrawing win, lose, or draw.
That’s definitely one way to stay disciplined and have realistic expectations going in. But these players allegedly losing one point five million, where do we draw the line with this responsible gambling and the rewards, especially when the online operator can see that this person has lost this amount of money compared to the in-person casino where they don’t necessarily see that, especially if the player is [00:13:00] without a player’s card.
Did FanDuel send this player responsible gambling messages and alerts like I see? I suspect yes. So is all the blame on FanDuel? I think not
I agree. We don’t have all the facts here. I think that’s important to highlight, and as we already saw, there’ll be more information that’s coming out. What did FanDuel do or not do? What did Bryce Harper do or not do? What did the VIP host, et cetera, et cetera. But it’s like a lot of things, right?
I get in my car, which is not a Mustang or a Ferrari, Justin. It’s a minivan ’cause I have family, right? And the speed limit the speedometer I should say, does not stop at the speed limit, Justin. In fact, it goes up to 120, right? Oh, you could be like a Vince McMahon speeding and crashing his car, right?
I could. I could. I… Probably not, but I could. So- Make sure to enthusiastically decline ambulance. That- … that’s one thing he did in that video. If listeners have not seen the video, Vince McMahon [00:14:00] body cam speeding is one way you’ll find it on YouTube. It’s classic. Yeah. But the point here is that as adults, as what we think are responsible adults, people are often provided opportunities to do things that are not necessarily in their best interest, not necessarily legal.
People drive faster than the speed limit. You can buy, Justin, this may shock you, you can buy more than two beers at a time. Even in Pennsylvania, which historically has had some of the most restrictive beer laws, you can only buy two six-packs at a time, but then you can come back and buy two more six-packs.
Anyway, that’s a topic for another time again. But the thing here is-
Just because one person had a bad experience doesn’t mean that the limits FanDuel set, that the actions Bryce Harper took are necessarily flawed. People make bad decisions with their time, with their money, and [00:15:00] sometimes that’s gambling, and sometimes that’s, investing poorly in the stock market or investing poorly in a business or, going out to eat when folks don’t have the money to do that either, right?
We know that, and that’s why casinos make lots and lots of money, and people enjoy, at least some people enjoy gambling.
But I don’t necessarily know that this is going to be, or that we should stop gambling any more than we should prevent cars from driving more than 65 miles an hour or ensure that people can only buy two beers at a time. We’ve tried that before. Maybe some other things are more reasonable. I’m not necessarily in favor of a lot of regulation, but, temporary loss limits or deposit limits, which I think deposit limits, Justin, you and I have both experienced.
Temporary loss limits not so much, but things like that I think would be more reasonable and maybe help prevent some of the large losses here from someone that necessarily can’t [00:16:00] afford them, giving them time and space to separate themselves from the, neurobiological impact of gambling and make better decisions.
I don’t know that we can protect everybody from that. For goodness sakes, we can still smoke tobacco in this country, Justin, and no one thinks that’s a good idea. Yes, education, personal responsibility, self-awareness, these are the things that are important, whether that’s in elementary school, high school, college, wherever it is.
Any day we can just make destructive decisions, things can get out of control, so let’s try not to have that happen. And at the same time, I’m not an advocate for just saying all gambling bad, no one should gamble. All alcohol bad, no one should drink alcohol. I don’t think these methods are effective.
They’re not realistic. So encouraging moderation is definitely important, along with other things that we’ve mentioned. Let’s return to this $1.5 million number. We have a lawsuit from the Public Health Advocacy Institute alleging, [00:17:00] quote, “unreasonably dangerous micro betting” and, quote, “unreasonably dangerous products that are intentionally designed to maximize addiction.”
The lawsuit claims the same gambler became addicted, and it’s blaming online gambling sites. No responsibility here, Darren, for personal choices. The lawsuit is also naming VIP hosts, these are perhaps the marketing arms of the online sportsbook, alleging, quote, “feigning friendships,” there’s the alliteration there, “and using gifts, promotions, and betting credits to continue betting even after signs of addiction.”
Personally, I don’t think this lawsuit will be successful, as responsible gambling tools are in place, unless we could see the companies bypass these tools in some way. There’s a lot of negativity and blame surrounding these sportsbooks, and I think the solution is informed choices, accountability for our decisions, whether [00:18:00] it’s credit or gambling.
I also think the cat’s out of the bag, and gambling’s not going to stop. Even if certain sportsbooks somehow went out of business here in the States, the regulated sportsbooks in PA, New Jersey, and other states, people are still going to gamble anyway. They’ll take their action elsewhere. They’ll even go to unregulated offshore sites or maybe even local bookies.
We saw how the war on drugs went, that you make things illegal, then you have an underground market, crime, and people keep using anyway
Yeah, we’ve seen examples of, government making strict regulations to try to remove something from the public for public consumption. Prohibition of alcohol currently is the probably the most famous example, right? All that did was turn legal bars and liquor sales into underground speakeasies often run by, organized crime that enriched and empowered them at the cost of normal citizens, right? It made, I think the famous saying, [00:19:00] right? It made normal citizens suddenly criminals. And we were talking earlier, Justin, before this came on about bookmakers maybe not being the oldest profession famously, that’s a different kind of work, but probably top five, right?
Or first five, right? Probably- Yeah. Yeah … folks have often wanted to wager on the outcome of whatever, a war, a, an election whether, somebody’s cow was gonna have a bull or a heifer, right? Yeah. Like, all sorts of different things. There’s your veterinary background.
Yeah. You’re welcome, folks. If you’re excited about cow knowledge, hit me up. It’s been there. It will likely, it will be there and really the question is how can people engage in it responsibly? And what role does the casino have in that?
And then most importantly, I think, for purpose of this discussion what’s the personal responsibility of folks that are getting into this as a way to creatively earn and increase points and miles? While gambling responsibly, and we’ll get [00:20:00] into that after the break. Some short announcements. This show is free for listeners with no paywall.
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we’re talking about controversy surrounding Philadelphia Phillies player Bryce Harper, online gambling on
fanDuel, responsible gaming, and much more. Thanks again for joining me today
Happy to do it, Justin. It’s some of my favorite topics here, baseball, points and miles, little online gambling, perfect trifecta. We have some responses to this. Steve Fezzik Sports on X, formerly Twitter. That’s F-E-Z-Z-I-K. He was also on Gambling With an Edge podcast, highly recommended to listeners.
He wrote or tweeted, “Once someone loses six figures, don’t you think they should look in and see if they can afford this? However, should someone win 10K, bells, whistles, alarms are going off everywhere. Internal investigations are immediately put in place. These companies say they are committed to responsible gambling, yet normal non-billionaires can [00:23:00] lose fortunes, not just no questions asked, but send them VIP perks.
But anyone who gets CLV,” that’s closing line value for listeners, one way to find an advantage in sports betting, “gets tossed out.” So Fezzik is critical of casinos limiting people, banning people for winning, but then when people lose a lot of money, then they’re getting rewards, they’re getting the red carpet.
There’s definitely a clash there, and certainly we’ve faced some back-offs as well because we weren’t very profitable customers, or we’ve had too many payment methods, too many promotions, whatever business decision happened to be the case. Yeah, a lot of business decisions in our online casino portfolio, Justin.
That’s why the regulations and pop-ups and things we’ve talked about are an important part of online gambling. And again, if you’re listening to this from a points and miles perspective, it’s like everything else. We’re gonna do things [00:24:00] in a responsible way that Justin talks a lot about, whether on this podcast or in person at Willow Grove.
Let’s make sure that we’re using this tool in our creative spending toolbox to our advantage and not spending extra money with casinos.
Now, there’s certainly variance, and some folks win, and most folks over the time will lose, with some exception. Be responsible when you’re getting into this.
Make sure you’re not chasing your losses. Really use this as a tool like you would any other of your creative spend, because it is spend in the end. Yes, people might be reselling, and usually the idea is to liquidate and not speculate.
We have an item, perhaps this coin is coming out from the US Mint, and people are thinking, “Oh look, I can sell it when it comes out. There’s a buyer lined up who’s giving me a certain rate, but what if I hold onto it? Maybe the value will go up in a month or two months, and wow, what if I miss out?” But it can go horribly, go the other way, [00:25:00] too.
Even when I was reselling physical products, I was ordering from Best Buy, Walmart, other places, and reselling items. I had some extra insurance through return policies that I could generally return things within 30 days if it didn’t work out.
I would originally list items a little bit high, and then if there was no movement on the item, I would lower the price and try to move it. Even if I ended up breakeven-ish on the sale, it was better than just holding onto something and praying and hoping that the value would go up in the future. We certainly can’t control that.
So the theme of knowing what you’re getting into, have some safeguards to prevent yourself from losing a lot of money and having a problem and selling your house and all your possessions and taking out all these loans that you can’t afford or they’re charging very high interest on. It can get pretty bad, so it’s very important to come in with a plan.
But let’s return to Fezzik. It’s interesting how the casinos are tossing people out who are winners, but then the losers get a lot [00:26:00] more latitude. That definitely is a problem, and we see some ethical dilemmas there, and perhaps some hypocrisy when it comes to this responsible gambling idea that, oh you do have customers who are gambling responsibly.
Maybe they’re not losing too much. Maybe they’re winning a bit and you wanna throw them out. But I suppose the sportsbooks would say, “Hey, we’re a business. We’re here to make money. We’re not just going to welcome in everyone who’s making money, and we have the legal right to back you off.” They do. And we have the personal responsibility to make sure we’re, just like we’re using our credit responsibly, we’re using our gambling responsibly.
Just like we want to earn and burn miles and points because we know those things will devalue over time, we always wanna be liquidating on the casino side, too. This is not an investment. We’re not gonna retire on our casino winnings. At least I’m not going to. So if a listener knows how, reach out.
I’d love to get that secret. Yes, it’s some steady [00:27:00] winning, and we’re trying to find some arbitrage or opportunity. The classic example would be buying a prepaid card at Staples. Five times points using Chase Ink Cash credit card. So even if we’re losing about a half to 1% in blackjack, we’re still up about 4% there or more if we’re valuing the points at more than a cent per point.
We can lose a little bit on the gambling side. We’ll get a little bit of bonuses here and there, some incentives. No personalized videos for me just yet, but overall, it’s a very good proposition that we can continue and reliably make some points, make some cash back, fuel rewards, groceries, whatever the case might be.
So that’s a winning proposition for us. Certainly not a get rich quick thing, but it’s just incremental value over time, creating a good source of income and making it worthwhile
let’s move on to listener questions and comments.
You can support with a [00:28:00] YouTube membership or through subscribestar.com to have your questions and comments addressed, and this is going into what we were just talking about. Michael Trager from Travel Zork, travelzork.com, also a supporter of the show, says, “Main broad question, if someone is new to online gambling and sports books and their intent is playing with an advantage or even getting an advantage through credit card rewards, gift cards, prepaid cards, et cetera, what should they do or not do to safeguard with the understanding that casinos are weird with how they decide to restrict players?”
There’s only so much you can do, but what are best practices for what you should not do, especially if establishing and starting out? I think diversification is definitely something that helps. You’re going to have multiple websites to use prepaid cards and gift cards on, rather than just attaching all your hopes to one operator That way you’ll be spread out, you’ll be de-risked, you’ll be [00:29:00] able to liquidate cards in many different spaces rather than just relying on one website that suddenly shuts you down, and your accounts will be seasoned.
You’ll start small, and you’ll build up over time, and you’re going to practice away from the tables should you decide to play blackjack or practice video poker and training apps if that’s your route. Also, using the training apps for blackjack, strategy sheets, strategy cards. Don’t go out and just buy $5,000 in gift cards and then, “Hey, what do I do?
How do I use these things?” You wanna start small, build up over time, use a bank account that’s not related to credit cards, mortgages, and other things, because the banks one day might decide they don’t like gambling or the volume in your account. And yes there’s not much we can do about being restricted or backed off of some of these online casinos.
I’ve even gotten messages like, “You’ve used too many promotions on your account, and we’re taking away your ability to use promotions.” And I thought, “Oh, that’s [00:30:00] special,” because they keep emailing me about, “Hey, bet $50 on MLB and we’ll give you a $10 free bet.
Oh, if this team is ahead by seven points, then your bet automatically wins.” So I’m getting all these incentives because they’re emailing me them and offering me. And, “Oh no, we saw that you used too many of them.” There’s a lot of silliness from these sites, or they don’t expect you to use their own promotions, or people aren’t paying as much attention.
In time, they will probably designate you as not as profitable, and that can lead to the shutdowns. Everything that happened before, Justin, in the situation, that’s what dictates that. You know the situation. Yes, and it is unfortunate to be shut down or restricted on some sites, but the way I looked at it is that I wouldn’t be playing with a disadvantage, so I wouldn’t be using these sites anyway.
So did I really lose too much? Probably not
It’s interesting, I can think back to my early points and miles days and when folks were [00:31:00] liquidating gift cards in store and I know some folks still do that I was nervous to do 500 at a time and some seasoned folks would say I’m not even stopping at a store if I can’t do 5,000.”
And I was like, “5,000, wow.” And it’s kinda the same thing, right? Like online casinos, I guess I’ll play through a couple hundred if that’s all I have, but really my goal is at much higher deposit levels than that to make it worth the while
yeah, it’s a matter of valuing your time and seeing what that expectation is. I have one store that it’s just a 500 daily limit, but there’s consistently a good deal and it’s right on my route anyway, right near Panera, where the Unlimited Sip Club will no longer be unlimited. It will be a different name and 30 drinks a month, which is still a fantastic deal, but having the routes, making stops on the way of going to a location makes sense.
And there’s also [00:32:00] the entertainment side of this, that some people will come into gambling and say, “Hey, I just have fun betting and I’m comfortable setting a budget and, oh, I can afford to lose $100 if the Phillies don’t win today. I’ll just bet $100 on the Phillies,” and they have more excitement watching the game.
They’re probably not giving up too much house edge, especially if they have something like an odds boost or a bonus if they bet something. And I can see that, as some people might think, “Oh, it’s entertainment going to a Michelin star restaurant,” and they’re spending like 300 or $400. Some people value that.
That’s an idea of a good time for them, and I think people can have the same attitude about gambling, that, “Oh, look I like the Phillies. I watch the games, so I’ll place a bet.” And they’ll be okay with doing that. People are more engaged when they have something else involved in the game. The more engagement that the leagues get from their fan base, the more people are [00:33:00] watching the games, the more perhaps they’re actually wagering on the games
we’re wondering, yeah, where do they draw the line? Does it just keep going on and on? What happens if a person gets to 2 million in losses, 2.5 million in losses, and they say, “Oh, I have this money from a business,” or, “I have this from working, investments.”
I’ve seen this at the poker tables in the decade or so that I played, that there would be people coming in I’d never seen before.
They would just be playing like maniacs. They would really have no clue about what they’re doing, and losing lots of money. It was years ago where an elderly person had come in and just consistently kept losing. It got to a point where they were in the casino for such a long time, and I saw this happen where security or someone in a suit came to the table and explained to the person that they had to leave, that they were staying in the casino for too long, and they had to go home.
That’s the only time I’ve ever seen that. They won all this [00:34:00] money from a lawsuit, is my understanding of what happened, and they decided, “Oh I got all this money, so I’m just gonna go to the casino and have fun.” So should that person just be banned because they lost a certain amount?
What are the circumstances? Hopefully, the online casinos would do the income verification, as I’ve seen these messages, as I mentioned, and they would go with this responsible gambling.
Yeah, checks and balances, right? I think the casinos have some obligation here, as does the gambler, as does the host and so forth and so on.
Setting that budget, as I mentioned, that you’re comfortable losing funds, going into it, that’s probably going to happen. You’re maybe giving up a little bit that you’re comfortable with. And of course, if you could find some ways to get an advantage, then all the better, and there are a lot of resources out there that can help you do that, so you can get the best of both worlds.
But the responsible gambling, the responsible credit use, the responsible everything is definitely [00:35:00] something. I don’t think it’s right to just say FanDuel bad because one person lost all this money, or some people lose money, and we hear this Dave Ramsey narrative about the banks and the credit card companies, “Oh, these people pay interest.
They overspend. The banks are bad.” We have all these tools, and the question is how are you going to use these tools? And if you can’t use them responsibly, then back away 100%, Justin. I think that’s the great analogy about having a variety of tools that’s not just for points and miles, that’s for life, right?
If you’re just getting into this, keeping track of your spending, of your creative spending, and how you’re faring on whatever casino game you choose to play is really important.
And if not, if you’re depositing 1,000, but every time you do, you play 1,500, that’s probably something that you should reflect upon and decide this isn’t the right tool for you. There are certainly plenty of other good creative spending tools out there. [00:36:00] And I’ve said many times, I use a click counter when I play.
So if I were to deposit 1,000, and because America loves math, if I were to wager $25 a hand in blackjack, I would set the click counter at 40, and then for doubles, splits, I would also move the counter. And once I get to the $1,000 played, then I stop my play, unless the last play necessitates more splits or doubles, but it’s not beginning other hands.
And that’s one way to stay within the responsible gambling boundaries. And you could also use the tools the websites provide and set deposit limits, play limits, time limits, and much more. We even see these tools with parental controls that you can limit your son or daughter’s smartphone use or gaming use or really anything.
As gambling, video games, substance use, anything can get out of [00:37:00] control, so hopefully you have that self-awareness and don’t allow that to happen, that you have that discipline, and you’re thinking about what you’re getting into before you’re getting into it
I agree 100%. Very good. Anything else as we reach the end of the episode? Online news sources maybe being a little quick to blame people that without all the facts
good place to stop, I think. Bryce Harper probably vindicated. We’ll see what happens, and we’ll see if anything comes out about what FanDuel knew or didn’t know, how far this gets, if anywhere. Sometimes these just end up being settlements. Who knows? But stay tuned for more, possibly here, and definitely in the news.
Thanks everybody. Have a great day. Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between shows, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel [00:38:00] Podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips, and posts.
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