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3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting

The House Always Wins: The Business, Politics, and Human Cost of Sports Betting

Paperback

Business GeneralGeneral GamblingGeneral Political Science

Publisher Price: $19.99

ISBN13: 9798895652886
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: Aug 4 2026
Pages: 312
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.20
Language: English
An investigative narrative revealing how smartphones, deregulation, and pandemic isolation turned America's pastime into its newest addiction.

The House Always Wins traces the rise of legal sports betting from a fringe hobby to a $120-billion-a-year industry, reshaping how Americans watch, wager, and lose. Economist and health policy analyst Roger Bate explores how pandemic isolation, relentless digital marketing, and permissive state policy created a perfect storm of opportunity and risk. Bate draws on original surveys, field interviews, and international case studies to reveal how betting moved from racetracks to smartphones--and how a culture built on self-control began to mistake speed for freedom.

From suburban bars to billion-dollar platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel, The House Always Wins uncovers the moral and economic contradictions of a market built on human weakness and where over 95 percent of participants lose, some catastrophically. Bate argues that the challenge isn't whether people should gamble, but whether a democracy can manage risk at the speed of an app. Combining investigative reportage with humane insight, this book exposes the hidden arithmetic behind America's newest public-health crisis.

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