SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " betting " 1,229 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
What you should know about hidden science behind sports betting apps
Sports betting apps use behavioral science to keep users engaged, often outpacing state regulations and rules.
Ohio policymakers wrestle with prediction markets as wagers on sports and politics explode
With tens of millions of dollars staked on political and sporting contests, prediction markets are fueling anxiety among policymakers in Ohio and around the country.
Ohio policymakers wrestle with prediction markets as wagers on sports and politics explode
With tens of millions of dollars staked on political and sporting contests, prediction markets are fueling anxiety among policymakers in Ohio and around the country.
Nonprofits warn online sports betting initiatives put vulnerable Nebraskans at risk
The Open Door Mission hosted Gambling with the Good Life this morning to speak out against Initiatives 440 and 441, two measures that would amend the Nebraska Constitution to legalize online sports gambling.
Bose Is Buying Skullcandy. It’s Not as Weird as It Sounds
By keeping Skullcandy in Park City, Utah, Bose is betting that skate cred and budget pricing will reach listeners it’s been missing.
Chickasaw-owned gaming company expands into Wyoming with racing acquisition
Chickasaw Nation-owned Global Gaming Solutions has expanded into Wyoming with the acquisition of Wyoming Horse Racing. The deal adds 13 Horse Palace gaming and off-track betting venues, more than 1,500 historic horse racing machines and live racing operations at Sweetwater Downs in Rock Springs, Wyo. The company announced the completed acquisition Oct. 20, following Wyoming […]
BTA Sports Expands into Prediction Markets With AI-Powered Analytics
The fourth quarter rollout pairs independent probability modeling with “Ask BTA” to help users assess sports event contractsHORSHAM, Pa., Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BTA Sports, a subscription-based sports analytics and decision-intelligence platform, today announced its expansion into sports prediction markets, bringing the data and insights used by its sports betting subscribers to users evaluating sports event contracts. The offering, available in the fourth quarter as part of Version 2
Grading Phoenix Suns' Decision To Extend Oso Ighodaro's Contract
Phoenix secures a versatile defensive anchor by locking down the Marquette alum with a high-value extension, betting on his elite rim protection and playmaking to solidify their future.
Sundar Pichai: Google’s Frontier Imperative, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products and Businesses
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has little patience for doubts about Google’s willingness or capacity to compete at the frontier of AI. His company’s latest Gemini 4 Argon model — long-promised and recently delivered — beats OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest public models on coding, math, science, and knowledge-work benchmarks and has placed Google’s AI back among the world’s best. Amid chatter that Google was fine with good-enough lightweight ‘Flash’ models, Pichai pushed back hard against any suggestion that company is limiting its research ambitions. “We won’t do it any other way,” he told me in a Big Technology Podcast interview recorded this week at Google’s Mountain View headquarters. Pursuing cutting-edge research is costly for Google, requiring compute and chips that otherwise could be sold at a high markup by its cloud business. But Pichai said allocating resources to frontier AI development is “ground zero” for Google. “Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development,” Pichai told me. In our conversation, we discussed Argon (which Pichai says processed three times as many tokens as Gemini 3 in the 72 hours after launch), AI’s role in developing better models, the AI interface of the future, competition with OpenAI, Google’s partnerships with Anthropic and Apple, data centers in space, and the nature of his optimism. You can read the full conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, below, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice. Alex Kantrowitz: Google is back at the frontier with Gemini 4 Argon, which beats OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s public models on benchmarks spanning coding, math, science, and knowledge work. The conventional wisdom was that Google had given up on the frontier to focus on fast, good-enough models for its products. That was wrong? Sundar Pichai: Very wrong. Look, we are so committed to being at the frontier. It’s in our DNA. We won’t do it any other way. We’ve been thinking about the AI frontier for well over a decade now. The frontier is very dynamic. It’s very competitive. It’s very exciting. I couldn’t be more pleased with how Argon has come together. We took our time with it. We made sure we tested it safely and deployed it carefully. We took a bit longer than our other models, given its capabilities. Across the board, be it for agentic work, knowledge work, coding, creative tasks, Argon is one of the really good frontier models. The first 72 hours since we launched, it’s almost up to 25 trillion tokens used, which is about three times what Gemini 3.0 had in the first 72 hours. And we are capacity constrained as we are serving it. Excited, but there are always areas….. You know, the frontier is very dynamic, and you have to keep evolving the models. There are areas which we can see we need to improve as well. We’ll be at work on all of that as well. Which areas? On any given model, Argon would be across the board better at everything if you just look even two months back. But the space is so evolving. Even on coding, for example, there are pockets where we know we need to do better, and there’s clear feedback. We’ll make it better. The argument for standard models is that they’re already good enough to build great products, with the frontier valuable only for certain tasks. Meta built Muse with good models rather than the best, and Google could put standard models into Maps, Gmail, and Search. Why isn’t that sufficient? It’s definitely not how I have thought about it at all. We are deeply committed to driving the state of the art and actually pushing where this technology can go, all the way from transformers. That’s a journey we’ve been on. You will see us continue to do that. When you’re at the frontier, you get an earlier look into the emerging capabilities, earlier than others, which helps you better prepare for the future. We are fortunate to have a wide set of opportunities across consumer and enterprise. Some of our cloud customers, for sure, want the model at the frontier. The frontier models will be better at developing the next set of models in an era of recursive self-improvement. I would argue it matters there. Internally, we have definitely seen a steep point of inflection by deploying Argon to our developers. It definitely tackles problems which our previous models could not do. Being at the frontier puts you at the innovation frontier and helps you drive that as well. There is room for models of all sizes and capabilities. That’s why we did Flash, Flash-Lite, etc. I agree with you that you can develop very good product experiences with not necessarily the most frontier model, because they tend to be slower and more expensive too. But we care about the Pareto frontier, and we’re committed to doing all of that. You said developing frontier models gives you a look at what’s coming. What do you see on the horizon? What makes this moment so exciting is you build something which you think is a culmination of months of work, and you put it out. You already see clear headroom ahead. We’ve all been working on these agentic, long-horizon capabilities, but clearly the frontier is going to have multiple of these agents working together to do things. That’s an example of an exciting paradigm underway. It’s also clear to me that users, both in consumer and enterprise, will have access to some multi-agent framework for them, working all the time doing things. It feels like a moment of infinite possibilities. Sergey Brin said one of Argon’s core innovations was relying more on the model to help develop the model. Yet incidents involving OpenAI’s bots breaking containment and Google’s bots accessing a site they shouldn’t have suggest these systems still aren’t perfectly aligned. Isn’t there reasonable cause for concern about accelerating toward recursive self-improvement? There are three parts to your question. Let’s first talk about RSI itself. You’re right, Sergey mentioned RSI being a critical contributor as we are developing Argon. But to be very clear, today, in a continuum, we are pretty far from the end state of RSI or something like that. The right way to describe it is you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. You almost have agents helping AI researchers in some automated way work together to build these models. It’s good to at least understand where we are today, and it’s super exciting. I expect that continuum to keep making progress as we go into next year. The second question is around safety. Security comes from defense in depth. You’re talking about alignment, obviously. We all are doing a lot of work to make sure the models are as aligned as possible. But it’s an active area of research, and there are clear gaps. That’s not the only thing we rely on. You have the work you do on alignment, but beyond that, we put a lot of effort into real-time monitoring as these models are working. Making sure you have good telemetry into what’s happening so that you can intervene in real time if you see unexpected behaviors. How you do that, the architecture with which you do that, how you make sure it’s all sandboxed and isolated in a way that it can continue doing its job during real-time monitoring — these are all areas of investment. Obviously, when we deploy these models, giving customers, enterprises, control, both with real-time monitoring, but their ability to decide where they deploy, what type of data which models ever have access to, etc. All that work is very, very important, and we are doing a lot of that. As an industry, we need to constantly up our game and take the time to do all this stuff, including dedicating the compute required to make sure you can safely deploy these models. The third part is: Is it all enough? This is why there are a lot of conversations in the industry, and I think it’s reasonable to be worried. The right way to approach something you worry about is early on thinking about what more we can do. As an industry, you’re definitely seeing increased levels of work on alignment, testing for safety, etc., as we deploy these models. The next step would be developing better standards so there are cross-industry standards of how we do these things, including the ability to evaluate using independent evaluators. If you look at areas like financial controls, we have accounting standards, we have independent auditors. Those are all the next natural steps for us as an industry to work toward, and regulation will end up playing a role as we go through all of that as well. Google pursues both language models and world models, while some other AI companies like OpenAI have focused more heavily on LLMs as the path to AGI. Why is world-model research important to you? As humans, you obviously perceive the world around you, and you’re taking all those inputs. Making sure these models are able to understand the laws of physics, simulate the world in high fidelity. All that, I think, are key enabling blocks for intelligence. We are working across all possible applications of this. Take an area like robotics. It’s not an accident: If you look at embodied reasoning benchmarks, Argon is state of the art. That all comes from our experience building world models. Inherently, I would expect there will be architectures which will converge all of this in the future. But for us, we view this as, today, this jagged frontier that is intelligence. We want to be at the frontier of all the possible approaches, and that will help us both drive better research, better insights, and develop a much better AGI model, is how we think about it. Some people argue Google should focus on selling its computing resources rather than using them for AI research. Cloud wants to sell compute at a high markup, while researchers need a very big computer to build the best models. How do you balance those demands? Ground zero for us is making sure we are investing in the compute that’s needed to be at the AI frontier. In 2015, I set the company to be AI-first. AI is that key horizontal ingredient across everything we do, all the way from Search to Cloud to Waymo. That is ground zero for us, making sure both for research and developing the models that we have enough compute needed. Beyond that, we have these independent businesses which each have their own long-range plans. They’re using those long-range plans to project forward, and we plan for compute for all of them. The cloud team, they have a business and they have a projection and they have demand signals. They have committed contracts. With that help, we can plan on a long-term compute trajectory for them. We’re fortunate to have this wide set of opportunities. There’s no company in the world which isn’t making trade-offs at any given moment in time. But the first principles we operate on is making sure we have enough compute to invest in the frontier, and that’s non-negotiable, and everything else works on top. Remember, we are building our own compute, our own data centers. There are long lead times. The compute we have today is a function of decisions I made in 2024. Even if you think back to a year from today, last year the agentic coding takeoff hadn’t happened. Today, obviously, when you sit and look at anything, everyone is short—not just us, other companies—and everyone wishes you had two times what you had planned for. That comes with the territory. At any given moment in time, we are planning for what we would need two to three years out in the future. You’re going to find some decisions you make may look suboptimal two years out, depending on where the state of the art is. I don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The way I think about compute allocation is making sure Google DeepMind, both for research and frontier model development, is cutting edge in terms of compute access. After that, we plan for all our businesses. It’s great we can provide our compute to other people too, like we have done. It allows us to scale that up, get real tests for it in the widest application set possible, test it in the real world, and make sure we are at the cutting edge of technology at every layer of our AI stack as well. Ben Horowitz relayed on a podcast that Andy Jassy had said compute was sold out until 2028. Are you seeing the same thing? If today a customer is coming out and asking us for compute in ’27, that is incredibly difficult to do. Even last year we went out and leased some short-term compute to accommodate some customers and help them out. But yes, we are all dealing with similar timelines. Every major technology shift seems to involve overbuilding, from railroads to fiber. Do you think that’s happening here? It depends on the time frames you’re looking at. This level of build, if I take a long enough time frame, it makes complete sense to me. We are at early stages of the most consequential technology ever, and this is not like fiber. It’s not dark. We are using it. We are capacity constrained on a daily basis. The applications, the underlying technology is improving rapidly. But running a company, the way I work through the moment is you look at your demand signals. You look at your committed revenue opportunities that you’re getting in the form of contracts. You balance that with the underlying technical capability, or internally you balance how we are using it internally, the model trajectories. Based on all that, you take a disciplined approach—a confident, aggressive, but disciplined approach—to plan out compute. But when you talk about the broader economy as a whole, you’re having people operate with various levels of risk. I focus on what I can control as a company and plan through it. If your question is, can there be an overbuild? Yes, because you can have some constrained components. Remember, what matters is a set of everything you need to build out that compute. Memory, electricity, electricians…. Land. Like 2,000 components or more. You could get constrained at some point. There could be things which cause bottlenecks, and then you could have overbuilds. There could be external shocks to the economy. There are macro risks. All that is possible at any given time. But am I confident that the compute we are planning for, we will have uses for it given enough time? Absolutely, yes. I was in the room when you said AI would be as profound as fire and electricity. If you believe that, shouldn’t you give researchers the biggest possible computer, even at the expense of today’s cloud profits? We’re all doing some form of that. Our cloud business is at any given moment in time forgoing short-term revenues because we are making compute trade-offs to support frontier AI development. What you’re seeing is true already. But you want to be thoughtful. Even our AI researchers have some constraints, which are also good. That’s what inspires creativity. That’s what helps you come up with a more efficient algorithmic breakthrough, maybe to use less memory. What we are committed to is to invest what’s needed to stay at the frontier. OpenAI President Greg Brockman told me a few months ago that the ideal AI product might have no interface at all—just as natural as conversation. What do you think the interface looks like in the age of AI? Computing historically has been humans adapting to computing. With AI, it’ll be the other way around. The technology will adapt seamlessly to how humans live and go about their day-to-day life. You want to be able to speak to that AI when you want to. It has context. It can be persistently running somewhere, give you continuity. You’re not dealing with a lot of complexity. It’s natural. All that makes sense to me. That doesn’t mean it won’t have any interface, however. Nowadays, even on my phone, Gemini voice models are so good. I can just press the microphone button. I can just ramble. That’s why we call it Rambler. I can ramble. It intelligently corrects with my personal context. Even my friends’ names, weird names, it gets it right, even if it first guesses it wrong. It’s amazing. I’m not going in, backspacing, editing once I finish saying it. It’s remarkable how good it’s gotten. But there are going to be moments you will need an interface. You may want to entertain yourself. You may want to watch a video. You may ask your AI to create something, and you want to watch it, consume it. The way I think about it is, you want it to be as seamless and as natural as possible, and that you are not doing the hard work adapting to whatever the interface is. The technology is adapting to how you’re working at any given moment in time. When I asked Sam Altman about competition from Google, he argued that OpenAI was building AI-native products and implied Google was bolting AI onto existing ones. Do you accept that framing, and can a “bolt-on” compete with an AI-native product? First of all, it’s a very dynamic moment. We are all pushing each other. OpenAI has pushed us as a company too. This is not just we are doing something to them. Far from it. Yes, Google went into its own version of a code red too. In the AI moment, all of us have to respond with varying levels of urgency at any given moment in time. We are constantly building new products as well. Gemini was built from the ground up as a product—the Gemini app I’m talking about. Or tomorrow, as all of us are adapting to agents, are you bolting agents onto ChatGPT, or are they building it natively? How would you think about that? You can always put these questions back. I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as you want to build world-class product experiences that are AI-native and they are winning. Some of it is adapting products, some of it is rethinking new experiences. They will all be part of how you approach this moment. How do you expect to make money from these AI interfaces? If an agent recommends a product and I buy it, should it take a cut of the sale, even if that’s disclosed? I’m going to put enterprise aside. Consumers are going to increasingly value this technology. Take software developers today. Developers are willing to pay for these coding models because it really helps make them more productive. Nobody would want to code the way they were coding three years ago, or even the same time last year. When you’re delivering value, there’s value to be had. I’ve never seen examples where consumer products really scale to billions of users, where people are using it intensely, and haven’t had monetization to go along with it. If you’re providing value to people, there is inherent value to be had. The nature of it may change. You’re asking a scenario in which agents are doing stuff for you. At the end of the day, you will have commercial needs. The agents need to fulfill those commercial needs. The providers on the other side are going to see value in that. There’s going to be some mechanism by which it gets fleshed out. That’s what an efficient system does. But what matters is that you’re building those world-class consumer experiences. I promised myself one product feature request: Can you make Gemini-powered search in Gmail as good as searching Gmail through ChatGPT? What’s going on here? One of the exciting things we announced recently is the unified Gemini agent for enterprise, and we’re bringing that to consumers. These are persistent agents which run 24/7 in the cloud. We’re spinning up a micro VM effectively for every query, and from the runtime, the harness, the model—it’s all a headless service. It’ll work everywhere, and it has your context with you. You can address this agent whether you’re in Workspace, in Search, in Gemini. Agents are going to drive this unification from a customer experience, which people are looking for. When you have a broad product portfolio and you’re moving forward fast, there are always areas where you’re moving forward faster than some other areas. That’s valid feedback. But we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure, as we build out our agentic experience, that unification and that capability works well across all these services. People have asked where Google’s equivalent of Muse or Dots is. Do you anticipate creating a new product to compete with them? Our goal with Gemini is to be a personal, proactive, and powerful assistant. That’s what we are working toward. You saw us describe the early versions of it at Google I/O this year with Spark. Effectively, already, if you open the Gemini app as a Pro or an Ultra user, you see Chat and Task, and they start giving you that agentic experience. With Argon now, that capability is dramatically accelerated. What we announced recently in our enterprise event, we are bringing that to consumers as well. Soon in Gemini, you will be able to ask something, and it’s a continuum. You don’t need to think about whether you’re asking a chat or an agentic task. It’ll just automatically do the right thing, and it can work persistently in the background securely and get things done for you. Already, empirically, when I look at what’s coming into Gemini in our app, last year you would have tagged them and most of them would have been chats. But a steadily growing percentage is already agentic tasks in Gemini. Yes, we are going to bring personal agents to our consumers. It’ll work in the Gemini app. It’ll work in Google Search. It’ll work in Gmail. You can address it, call it, etc. We want to make sure we’re getting it right. It’ll be powered by Argon, and we are very excited to bring it to our users. Google has invested and committed tens of billions of dollars to Anthropic. What do you see in Dario Amodei that makes you want such a deep investment and partnership? Very early on, when we looked at the founding team of Anthropic, it was very clear to us this was a world-class team which was involved in some of the earliest GPT models. We were quickly able to assess that they would be at the frontier. We’ve always tried to identify and partner with companies which would be at the cutting edge of technology. We’ve done that with SpaceX. We’ve done that with Anthropic. That’s what we saw, and we had a chance to partner. Is your partnership with Apple to license Gemini for Siri expanding, contracting, or standing still? For both us and Apple, that partnership was about translating the capabilities of AI into better experiences for users. I thought Apple has done a phenomenal job of incorporating—they customize these models and build it into Siri—and it’s been great to see the reception. We are committed to doing more. You’re going to do more with them? There’s nothing specific to comment, but it’s a partnership. It’s working well. What have you learned so far about the feasibility of data centers in space? It’s a very exciting project. Projects like this remind me—I still recall that moment in the desert for the DARPA Grand Challenge, watching the Stanley car compete in it, which ended up being the basis for Waymo. With all these technologies, you’re at a moment in time where it looks a bit like sci-fi, but 10 to 20 years down the line, it’s actually working in a meaningful way. I feel the same in space. We’ve always believed in betting big on these technologies. Quantum has been a great example of it. We’re probably 10 years into the journey. Waymo, we are almost 20 years into the journey. Space, we are two to three years into the journey. It’s clear to me that it’s an approach which will make a lot of sense in the future. Being in sub-synchronous orbits with 24/7 access to the most abundant form of energy we have access to will make a lot of sense for this exponential increase in compute that we are going to need. Having said that, this is a challenging project. The team has disciplined milestones. It was a super exciting milestone to send the TPUs up to space. Sometime, as we are speaking, we are expecting a “hello world” moment from them. I look forward to seeing that happen, and we’ll continue investing here too. You previously said 25% of the code written within Google was written by AI. What’s the number today? That number in our world today is meaningless in the sense that every part of what we now touch is influenced by AI deeply. What we are tracking with Argon, for example, it’s been a point of inflection. People are using Argon to really go tackle complex projects, including projects which affect millions of lines of code. In the four weeks since we have launched Argon, we have seen a 30% increase in CLs, and more importantly, almost a similar increase—a one-third decrease in rollbacks. People are writing code more productively and better code with it. We are tracking it with newer metrics now. How are you dealing with opposition to data centers? If you can’t build in the U.S. the way you want to, where else do you go? We’re very committed to building our data centers very responsibly. When I look at our largest data centers in some of the communities where we have been the longest, I visit them, I talk to people. There are people who come and tell us their kids have gone to college because of our investments in these communities, and we’ve grown in those communities. To me, this is about doing it right. Engaging with the communities early, doing it transparently. We are committed to making sure we are bringing incremental power, and we cover 100% of the cost of our power needs for these projects. It’s understanding the impact on neighborhoods and making sure you’re working thoroughly to address them. Done rightly, you can continue making progress. But we are constantly taking feedback into account. I do worry not everyone operates the same way. People have been surprised by data centers showing up in their backyard. Those are all important. As an industry, we should continue to do better. But part of the reason, in a 20-year time frame, we are thinking about things like data centers in space is making sure we are able to put these data centers where maybe the trade-offs will be different. What unproven area of AI is Google working hardest to crack? Is it continual learning—getting models to keep updating after release—or something else? There are multiple parallel paths. You saw with Argon we have a million output tokens. With our Gemini models early on, we had a one-million context window on the input side. These are all examples of breakthroughs we are constantly working on. How do you think about synthetic data? How do you think about continual learning? How do you think about more efficient architectures? We do dedicate a meaningful percentage of our compute to these research bets too. It always goes hand in hand, including our world models. Those are all bets we are placing. Sometimes, as part of these bets, there are ideas that emerge which just make their way into the mainline models. Maybe we don’t fully talk about it, but we have multiple steps in these areas. Working in technology requires optimism that building something will improve the world, but those bets can leave real consequences when they fail. I recently returned to a town in El Salvador where enthusiasm for Bitcoin had given way to unfinished construction and something resembling a ghost town. How do you maintain the optimism you spoke about in your Stanford commencement address while accounting for those risks? I genuinely have a deep conviction that improving technology and improving access to technology makes people’s lives better. It’s been my personal experience in my life, out of which comes that deep conviction, optimism. But with that, I’ve always felt humanity’s journey is always about working hard to harness that technology to make it work well for society. The optimism is not an optimism that you just build whatever you want, whenever. You work hard to make sure you’re building technology in the service of humanity, to make the human condition better. That’s got to be the defining goal as we are approaching it. With that framework, I’m very, very optimistic. We are in very early stages of the kind of progress that we are going to see on many areas. We’re all talking about areas like healthcare. A lot of the progress is ahead. The ability to make things in a fundamentally cheaper way on many things where things have been getting expensive for a long, long time, discovering new materials, etc., which really bend the curve—it’s tough to step today and understand the impact of all that, but they’re going to be very profound. I’m very optimistic, but we have to be rightfully concerned about all the ways this technology can go wrong. Sundar, I know you don’t do many of these. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.
Study links rise in online sports betting to mental health issues
The study’s authors said gambling and sports betting have never been more accessible.
The Most Efficient Way to Tax Sports Betting
Most US states have legalized this quickly growing business.
Oregon State U. Put Its Chips on Computer Science. Then the Bottom Fell Out.
The university’s $19-million loss shows the risk of betting enrollment on job trends.
EXCLUSIVE: Sports Betting No More Addictive Than Stock Trading, Smarkets CEO Says
Sports betting is no more addictive than stock trading, and financial brokers should face similar obligations to protect vulnerable customers, Smarkets CEO Jason Trost told Benzinga in an exclusive interview. “I don’t think sports betting is any more addictive than...
Betting on the election? Here’s where it’s prohibited
The midterm elections are fast-approaching, but can you wager on them?
Fair Value Cut Raises Fresh Questions For Flutter Entertainment Stock (FLUT)
Flutter Entertainment has recently seen analyst fair value estimates marked lower following repeated guidance resets and ongoing regulatory pressures across key betting markets. The split between confidence in FanDuel’s customer momentum and concern over heavier promotions and regulation highlights growing uncertainty around Flutter Entertainment’s near term profitability profile. We will now look at how this more cautious tone on regulation and costs could reshape Flutter Entertainment’s...
Why Buffett's Berkshire is betting nearly $1 billion on Bending Spoons
Warren Buffett's storied company has historically avoided tech stocks, but Bending Spoons is a long-term acquirer that prizes ownership and learning.
North Carolina Football vs. Duke: Betting Lines, Injury Report
Fresh off an upset at Pitt, the underdog North Carolina Tar Heels visit Durham to battle the Duke Blue Devils.
Is Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Undervalued Following Its Brazil Exit And Legal Probe?
Brazil exit and legal probe put Flutter Entertainment in focus Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) has halted sports betting and iGaming in Brazil after nationwide restrictions on online gaming, a move tied to a new Pomerantz LLP investigation into potential securities law violations. Recent regulatory concerns have coincided with pressure on Flutter Entertainment’s shares, with the 30-day share price return down 22.5% and the year-to-date share price return down 65.4%. The 1-year total...
Florida Gators vs. Texas Longhorns: Betting Lines, Injury Report
With freshman Tramell Jones making his first start in a hostile environment, the Florida Gators face steep odds against the Texas Longhorns.
Why is a New York-based betting site donating to Idaho politicians?
A donation doesn’t necessarily buy a vote, a Boise State political science professor said. But it “gets you a foot in the door.”
Los Tacos No. 1 is betting on private equity. Its CEO explains why.
Los Tacos No. 1 took a private equity investment, and customers freaked out. Its CEO promises horse meat isn't coming to the menu: The quality stays.
NBA bans certain types of sports bets following high-profile gambling scandals involving players
The NBA is banning certain player prop parlays and other wagers while expanding measures to detect suspicious betting activity and protect players from harassment.
Gen Z founders are hiring while Boomers’ corporate America freezes out—‘I’ve already proven to myself that I can thrive in this’
While entry-level job seekers face a ‘low-hire, low-fire’ market, young entrepreneurs are betting big: 46% plan to add staff, compared with just 19% of boomer owners.
Stars Sign Veteran Winger David Perron to Pro-Rated Deal
Dallas bolsters its forward depth with a low-risk gamble, betting that the seasoned Stanley Cup champion still has enough offensive spark to provide a cheap scoring punch.
ESPN gambling writer defends network over ‘neutered’ coverage criticism
Former ESPN producer Nicole Noren sent chills through the industry by going public with her resignation after more than two decades at the network, citing its sports betting coverage. Since nationwide sports betting was legalized, gambling companies have taken over the sports world. That has had a stunning impact on American society that we still…
Online Sports Betting Linked To Rise In Depression And Anxiety Treatment
By HealthDay Staff HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2026 (HealthDay News) — More people are receiving treatment for depression and anxiety in states that legalized online sports betting. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University reviewed health insurance records from 2016 to 2023, comparing ...
Spartans Wire Big Ten Football Picks: Week 7
Check out our picks against the betting spread for each of the Big Ten games this week
Thailand's bet on business events to boost tourism
Thailand is turning to MICE tourism - meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions - to revive its tourism industry amid declining visitor arrivals, safety concerns and a stronger currency. With Bangkok rising in global rankings, the country is betting on international business events to attract more visitors and boost economic growth. CNBC's JP Ong takes you through the streets of Bangkok.
Blazers' Tom Dundon Meets the Man Betting Big on Portland
As Tom Dundon navigates high-stakes arena negotiations, the Blazers owner finds an optimistic ally in a real estate mogul wagering $250 million on downtown Portland’s recovery.
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin: I fundamentally believe in the sports betting business long term
Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the company's sports betting business, the increase in marketing spend on sports betting, his thoughts on prediction markets, staying private vs. going public, and more.
Fixer in lucrative NCAA basketball betting scheme sentenced to 6 years in prison
Prosecutors in Pennsylvania have announced that a man involved in rigging college basketball games has been sentenced to six years in prison
How El-Sayed Lies About His Health-Care Plan
He is betting the press won’t call him on it.
NBA and WNBA to launch new responsible gaming campaign to reinforce risks of sports betting and prediction markets
The campaign will educate fans, particularly young adults, about the risks associated with sports betting and prediction markets.
Sports betting revenue has exceeded annual expectations
In three years, Kentucky sports betting has generated $128.2 million in tax revenue, with most wagers placed online and retail sportsbooks drawing visitors.
Is Most-Watched Stock AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (AMC) Worth Betting on Now?
Recently, Zacks.com users have been paying close attention to AMC Entertainment (AMC). This makes it worthwhile to examine what the stock has in store.
BETMGM Q3 2026 BUSINESS UPDATE
/PRNewswire/ -- BetMGM LLC ("BetMGM"), a leading sports betting and iGaming operator across North America, jointly owned by MGM Resorts International (NYSE:...
Flock is facing a surveillance backlash. Meanwhile, its drone business is booming
As cities push back against its license plate readers, the $8.4 billion surveillance company is betting big on police drones, raising fresh questions about privacy and oversight.
As sports betting is normalized, college players become targets of angry bettors
As legalized sports betting has grown, so have bets on individual player performance rather than final scores. "Prop bets" have surged especially in college sports, shifting the focus to individual players who are increasingly targets for abuse by aggrieved bettors.
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Is a Trending Stock: Facts to Know Before Betting on It
IBM (IBM) has been one of the stocks most watched by Zacks.com users lately. So, it is worth exploring what lies ahead for the stock.
Palantir CTO: AI researchers smoke, betting AI will cure cancer
Some AI believers expect the technology to make smoking-related health risks like cancer a thing of the past, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said.
Taylor Swift Spends Her 100th Week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as ‘Life of a Showgirl’ Stays on Top in Week 2 of ‘Encore’ Rebound
Taylor Swift is fond of the number 13, but here’s betting she also considers the numeral 100 lucky, too. She can now celebrate having 100 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, for all of her albu...
Patriots vs. Raiders Odds: FanDuel, Kalshi, Polymarket and Prediction
The New England Patriots are favored to get back above .500 on Sunday, but the Week 5 betting board is sending a more cautious message about how comfortable that victory might be.New England enters at 2-2, while the Las Vegas Raiders are 3-1 and have covered the spread in all four games.The Patriots also head […] The post Patriots vs. Raiders Odds: FanDuel, Kalshi, Polymarket and Prediction appeared first on HEAVY.
Jaguars vs. Eagles: How to Watch Week 5
Game time, TV/radio schedule, betting odds, and more for Jaguars vs. Eagles in Week 5.
Inside Silicon Valley's bet on a new path to landing a job in the AI era
Andreessen Horowitz-backed Horowitz Andreessen Academy is betting that "proof of work" and AI skills can offer some students an alternative to the traditional college path.
NFL Week 5 betting advice: Giants-Commanders picks and props
Giants-Commanders wagers to consider as you fill out your tickets
Big Tech is betting $700 billion on AI. Healthcare will decide whether the bet pays off
Healthcare has something many industries lack: a clear place to put the productivity gains AI creates.
Watch: Inside Our $22K Sports Betting Experiment
What happens when you bet like a problem gambler on DraftKings and FanDuel? Reporter Jake Pearson spent 10 weeks on the apps to find out.
The midterms are getting close. Why is Trump in Upstate New York?
Trump is betting that his presence can turn out conservative Republicans in the gubernatorial race. But even some in the MAGA base aren’t confident about his odds.
AI companies are betting on Tennessee politics. Here's how much
The Tennessean explains how companies like Oracle and Anthropic are spending in Tennessee's midterms this year.
Casino UK: How Online Gaming Became Part of Britain’s Entertainment Mainstream
The UK has always had a particular relationship with gambling. From the betting shops that became fixtures of every British high street to bingo halls that served as social hubs for working communities, wagering on outcomes has been woven into British leisure culture for generations. What changed in the past decade was not the appetite,
CFTC Can’t Tell the Difference Between Sports Betting and Derivatives Trading
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy for Better Markets, issued the following statement after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed a rule that treats event contracts on sports, elections, and pop culture as financial derivatives and adopted a rule that attempts to distinguish ‘casino-style gambling products’ that it says are not swaps from
New York Plans Stronger Sports Betting Regulation to Curb Gambling Addiction
The New York State Gaming Commission announced plans to require online sportsbooks to beef up user protections. The move follows reporting by ProPublica and others that raised questions about how apps like DraftKings treat problem gamblers.
Oklahoma State vs. UCF: Kickoff Time, TV Channel, Betting Odds and What to Know
No. 18 Oklahoma State returns to Boone Pickens Stadium Saturday for a sold-out Big 12 showdown against UCF. Here's everything fans need to know about kickoff, TV coverage, betting odds, Stripe the Stadium, and the key matchups as the Cowboys look to improve to 2-0 in conference play.
Vinod Khosla Backs An AI Startup Building A Mind-Reading Baseball Cap
Palo Alto-based Sabi is betting its cap, outfitted with 100,000 sensors, will enable people to talk to their AI agents just by thinking.
Seminole Tribe of Florida sues DraftKings over sports betting
The lawsuit alleges DraftKings operates a sports book in violation of the gaming compact between the Tribe and the state inked in 2021, which provides the Tribe a monopoly on sports betting in Florida.
Seminole Tribe sues DraftKings: What it means for sports betting
The Seminole Tribe of Florida has filed a federal lawsuit accusing DraftKings of running an illegal, unlicensed sports gambling operation across the state.
Seminole Tribe Sues DraftKings for Running Illegal Sports Betting in Florida - WRUF 98.1 FM | 850 AM
The battle over sports betting rights in Florida is heading to court with the Seminole Tribe defending its exclusive rights to sports gambling in the state. The Seminole Tribe is suing DraftKings and CEO Jason Robins, claiming the company violated Florida’s 2021 Gaming Compact and is operating an illegal sports betting business. Through the 2021
Seminole tribe files lawsuit against DraftKings claiming it's illegal sports betting business
Online sports betting petitions in Nebraska get another $7 million from DraftKings and FanDuel
National online sports betting apps continue to see a big opportunity with two Nebraska petitions that would legalize and regulate online sports betting in Nebraska, donating a combined $7 million in a two-month period.
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Stock Trades Up, Here Is Why
Shares of global online betting powerhouse Flutter Entertainment (NASDAQ:FLUT) jumped 4.4% in the afternoon session after Citi analyst Monique Pollard upgraded the company from a Neutral rating to a Buy rating. According to StreetInsider, Susquehanna analyst Joseph Stauff separately cut his price target to $100 from $115 and kept a Positive rating. He said third-quarter profit is likely to be lower and that the weaker result is already discounted. The stock, he said, is most sensitive to FanDuel
Tribal Nations Urge Supreme Court to Halt Prediction Market Sports Betting
A broad coalition of Tribal Nations and Tribal organizations is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case involving prediction market company Kalshi and determine whether its sports-event contracts constitute sports betting subject to federal, state and Tribal gaming laws. In an amicus brief filed in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, the Tribal coalition argues […]
Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Stock Trades Up, Here Is Why
What Happened? Shares of global online betting powerhouse Flutter Entertainment (NASDAQ:FLUT) jumped 4.4% in the afternoon session after Citi analyst Monique Pollard upgraded the company from a Neutral rating to a Buy rating. According to StreetInsider, Susquehanna analyst Joseph Stauff separately…
Everton's Sherif fined for breaching betting rules
The Football Association fines Everton forward Martin Sherif £5,000 for breaching its betting rules over a 15-month period.
Republican megadonors dominate 2026 midterm election as crypto and AI money surges, CNBC analysis finds
Fourteen of the 20 biggest donor groups CNBC analyzed are Republican-aligned as crypto, AI and betting money reshapes 2026 midterm spending.
NFL Canada Partnership Could Be A Game Changer For Penn Entertainment Stock (PENN)
PENN Entertainment recently saw its theScore Bet unit secure a multiyear role as an official NFL partner for sports betting and online casino in Canada, alongside an analyst upgrade that reflected these business developments. The Canadian NFL tie-up gives PENN Entertainment another channel to push its digital betting brand into a live sports audience, which could affect user acquisition costs and long term engagement across its broader entertainment ecosystem. We will now look at how PENN...
Study finds gambling disorder diagnoses rose in states with legal sports betting
A new study found that diagnosed gambling disorders increased 61% in states that have legalized sports betting, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Why Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Stock Is Up Today
Shares of global online betting powerhouse Flutter Entertainment (NASDAQ:FLUT) jumped 3.1% in the pre-market session after Citi analyst Monique Pollard upgraded the stock from a Neutral rating to a Buy rating.
Why Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) Stock Is Up Today
What Happened? Shares of global online betting powerhouse Flutter Entertainment (NASDAQ:FLUT) jumped 3.1% in the pre-market session after Citi analyst Monique Pollard upgraded the stock from a Neutral rating to a Buy rating.Citi analyst Monique Pollard upgraded the shares in research carried by Str…
Is PENN Entertainment (PENN) Undervalued Following Deutsche Bank's Upgrade And NFL Partnership?
PENN Entertainment (PENN) drew fresh attention after Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock and highlighted an improved sector risk reward, while its theScore Bet unit signed a multiyear NFL betting and online casino partnership in Canada. For context, PENN Entertainment’s share price has moved sharply around these headlines, with a 5.36% 1-day share price return and 8.90% 7-day share price return, yet it is still down 20.92% on a 90-day share price basis and its 1-year total shareholder return is...
Quinnipiac booth warns students about mental health impact of gambling
HAMDEN, Conn. (WTNH) — Quinnipiac University put a spotlight on the mental health impacts of gambling and sports betting at Fresh Check Day on Tuesday. In partnership with Connecticut Childre…
PENN Entertainment (PENN) Stock Trades Up, Here Is Why
Shares of casino, sports betting and entertainment operator PENN Entertainment (NASDAQ:PENN) jumped 5.3% in the pre-market session after Deutsche Bank upgraded the company to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $25 from $23.
Updated Super Bowl 61 betting odds after Week 4 games
This is a look at the updated Super Bowl 61 odds.
College Football Betting Power Ratings
Check out updated college football betting power ratings for Week 6, including projected spreads for every team.
PENN Entertainment (PENN) Stock Trades Up, Here Is Why
What Happened? Shares of casino, sports betting and entertainment operator PENN Entertainment NASDAQ:PENNjumped 5.3% in the pre-market session after Deutsche Bank upgraded the company to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $25 from $23.Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli upgraded the sh…
Brazil: Lessons from a Disaster
By Antonio Martins (Outras Palavras) Defeats become deeper and more prolonged when we misunderstand what caused them, avoid correcting course, and embrace “solutions” that only compound our mistakes. Lula’s government and the Brazilian left suffered a disaster in Sunday’s election. Contrary to every poll, the president finished the first round 2.2 million votes behind Flávio Bolsonaro—and, more significantly, 3.4 million votes below his total four years ago, when the machinery of the state was working against him and in favor of his opponent. His vote share declined in 98 percent of Brazil’s municipalities. The PL, the main party of the far right, elected 121 deputies and 28 senators, becoming the largest caucus in both houses of Congress. The parties aligned with the Centrão—Brazil’s bloc of transactional center-right parties—were somewhat diminished, but will still hold roughly 250 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 35 in the Senate. That will make it easier to assemble the majorities needed to amend the Constitution or impeach Supreme Federal Court justices. If elected, Flávio Bolsonaro could appoint four members of the Court, substantially altering its internal balance of power. What produced these results? How can the far right be prevented from consolidating them into a prolonged political hegemony? And what is the essential change of direction the left now needs? Explaining the Disaster Across the commercial media and the exuberant chaos of digital platforms, interpretations are multiplying. Some focus on specific episodes: Lula’s absence from the Globo debate, his very close relationship with Alexandre de Moraes, or his emphasis on issues supposedly remote from most people’s everyday concerns, such as rare earth minerals. Among the more systemic interpretations, three seem especially questionable. One argues that the principal defeat was not the left’s, since its congressional representation declined only slightly. The decisive movement captured at the ballot box, according to this view, was a shift within the right itself—from the more moderate and transactional forces of the Centrão toward the more ideological and radicalized forces of the PL and Novo. A second interpretation holds that the nature of electoral and political processes has changed. The material interests and aspirations of society, it argues, no longer play the central role they once did; they have given way to forms of subjective self-identification that the left has yet to understand. And a third concludes that, because of these two developments, we should expect a political winter: a prolonged period in which the far right and the broader right dominate Brazilian political life. There are important elements in all three interpretations. The problem lies in what they deny or leave out: Lula’s third government was a small-bore government. It offered the majorities that elected it neither a clearly better life nor reasons to believe again in politics and its power to transform society. These failures flowed from two fatal accommodations, which I will examine below. As a result, the government suffered a slow but steady erosion of support. And, as has happened in so many Western countries, it gave the far right the opportunity to present itself as anti-system and to benefit from popular frustration and distress. The interpretation that emphasizes the migration of votes from the center-right and traditional right toward the far right has been advanced, among others, by the courageous journalist Leonardo Sakamoto. In his UOL column on Monday, October 5, he highlights the miserable behavior of the traditional conservative parties. Over the past four years, they repeatedly joined forces with the “neo”-fascists, helping to “normalize” them—a criticism that could equally be directed at almost the entire corporate media. Believing they could use the far right as a stepping stone, they instead ended up partly devoured by it. This was especially true in the Senate, where the PL’s gain of 13 senators and Novo’s gain of two came at the expense of the PSD, which lost nine; the MDB, which lost two; the PSDB, which lost two; and the PP, which lost one. Sakamoto’s observation is accurate and necessary, but it leaves uncomfortable questions unanswered. Why did the erosion of the Centrão benefit the far right rather than, for example, producing growth for the left—as has happened so many times before, both in Brazil and elsewhere? The answer is not difficult. Throughout its four years in office, Lula’s third government was almost invariably associated with the Centrão. Here lies its first accommodation: accepting the limits imposed by conservative institutions; avoiding, as much as possible, any attempt to strain those limits through popular pressure; and believing only in the modest changes that could be squeezed through openings in Congress. The failure of the campaign to end the six-day workweek is emblematic. Lula could have electrified the presidential race by pairing it with a popular campaign for passage of the measure. Instead, he chose to place his hopes in the hands of Senate president Rodrigo Alcolumbre. He generated no mass mobilization, did not force his opponents onto an uncomfortable defensive, and won no victory. In September 2025, the government squandered the greatest of its many opportunities to shake up conservative power in Congress. Popular opposition to the so-called Shielding Amendment—which, if approved, would have restricted criminal proceedings against members of Congress—brought crowds into the streets, mobilized primarily by artists and social movements. This opened the possibility for a broader political education: a campaign that could begin exposing the limits and dysfunctions of Brazil’s political system while putting Bolsonaro’s movement on the defensive for its predictable support of political privilege. The amendment was defeated. But the executive branch then backed away from the fight. It remained associated with an institutional world widely seen as corrupt, elitist, and indifferent to ordinary people’s struggles. In doing so, it forfeited its credibility as a vehicle for the protest vote. On Sunday, it reaped the bitter fruits. Are We Doomed? Taking a different approach from Sakamoto, the philosopher Moysés Pinto Neto and other writers have drawn attention, in their first analyses of October 4, to the fragmentation of the public sphere produced by Big Tech platforms. Through their algorithms, these platforms present each person with a different view of social reality. As a consequence, it becomes much harder to identify common material problems and demands—for example, the fight for labor rights or for a properly funded public health system. Voters no longer embrace such demands, these authors argue, because they no longer see themselves as part of a collective. Instead, they tend to value the identities assigned to them by neoliberal subjectivity—the role of the entrepreneur, for example. On this interpretation, the left’s possible error lies in clinging to outdated illusions. Moysés’s warning is highly relevant and resonates with arguments such as Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s “Apocalyptic Fascism and the Billionaires’ Bet.” Unlike a century ago, the far right no longer promises a radiant future. It concentrates instead on resentment—especially that of young men. “They belong to a generation that fears it may never own a home, but compensates with the pleasure it gets from constantly provoking progressives online. Convinced their future has been stolen, they share memes romanticizing historical authoritarian regimes,” the authors write. But Moysés seems to confuse this danger with inevitability. He fails to see that the left’s answer cannot be adaptation. On the contrary, it must strengthen the possibility of politics as collective action. Nor does he recognize that precisely such a reversal is already becoming possible in some of the most promising mobilizations of the twenty-first century: the election, at the end of 2025, of the young Muslim Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, on a platform centered on the intensely material fight for an affordable city; the Left Party’s victory in Berlin two weeks ago, built around the demand to expropriate private real-estate corporations; and the very recent wave of demonstrations in Spain—including an occupation of Madrid’s Puerta del Sol—in which tens of thousands of young people mobilized by the Tenants’ Union have demanded limits on rents. By putting itself in the straitjacket of the “fiscal framework” in the first months of 2022, Lula’s third government adopted the second fatal accommodation of its term. Faced with conservative institutions and a country devastated by four years of Bolsonaro, increased public investment was the government’s remaining weapon for offering a more dignified life to the majority and forging an anti-conservative pact with them. The same state that disburses 1 trillion reais a year to enrich a small class of rentiers could instead spend money to extend the Family Health Strategy to every Brazilian, at a cost of 30 billion reais; provide full-day public schooling and childcare to all adolescents and children—and, especially, relief to their mothers; achieve universal sanitation while cleaning up polluted urban rivers; multiply metro systems; begin transforming the urban peripheries; and undertake many other urgently needed projects. In April 2023, an article in Outras Palavras warned that the fiscal framework could “shrink the Lula government and preserve the forces that condemn the country to inequality and regression.” A year later, another article showed that restraints on public spending were strangling policies vital to ordinary people and undermining the president’s popularity. In November 2024 came a reality check, in the form of the government’s humiliating defeat in the municipal elections. Even then, the fiscal lock was neither removed nor loosened. On the contrary: throughout the government’s four years, fiscal restraint remained central to its political narrative. The administration proudly proclaimed that it had “put the state’s accounts in order,” without grasping either how misleading that phrase was—given the payment of 1 trillion reais in interest—or how badly the message was hurting it politically. Lula finally woke up in September 2026. The increase in Bolsa Família benefits, after four years of being frozen; the announcement that anti-obesity drugs would be offered through Brazil’s public health system; and the ban on online betting showed that the state has the power to act decisively on behalf of the majority when those in government are willing to confront obstacles. The huge marches that closed the campaign in Fortaleza, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo on the eve of October 4 showed how such initiatives can mobilize activists and the broader public. But it was too late—and too little to change the outcome of the first round. History has not ended The possibility of a turnaround in the three weeks leading up to November 25 cannot be ruled out. It will not be simple or easy. Lula must not only make up a deficit of 2.2 million votes; he must also offset the movement of voters who backed other right-wing candidates in the first round, most of whom are likely to move toward Flávio Bolsonaro. Pulling that off will require a broad, grassroots effort to win over voters, potentially reinforced by new initiatives from Lula. The coming hours and days will be decisive. If Bolsonaro’s movement also wins the presidency, the result will create a high-risk situation for Brazilian sovereignty and democracy. The enormous challenges posed by such an outcome would require the left to reexamine, in depth and with a genuine willingness to engage in self-criticism, its political projects—or its lack of them—and its practices. But would that mean we are condemned to the long winter of far-right hegemony that some analyses are beginning to forecast? It is far too early to say, suggests a recent text by Álvaro García Linera, the thinker who served as vice president of Bolivia under Evo Morales. His central hypothesis is that this political current will prove short-lived. At a moment when the entire world is once again talking about sovereignty and protecting national economies, the far right offers a stale, recolonizing neoliberalism. Its submission to the United States is as blatant and pathetic as Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro’s overtures to Donald Trump. Its project amounts to something like every man for himself: greater inequality, capitalism without limits, devastation, and supremacism. Will it work? In the United States, just two years into his second term, Trump himself is reaching record levels of unpopularity and may be on the verge of losing Republican control of both the House and Senate in November. Every new beginning is difficult. Whatever the outcome of the second round, the defeats of October 4 show how profoundly the Brazilian left will have to rethink and rebuild. But just as it would be foolish to underestimate the seriousness of its mistakes, it would be equally foolish to conclude that rebuilding a political project is no longer possible. History has not ended. The times are moving faster than ever. Originally published in Portuguese by Outras Palavras. English translation by Eric Blanc; I’ve added the subtitles. More We can’t stop the far right at home or abroad without a revitalized labor movement, which is yet another reason why you should become a sustaining supporter of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) — one of US labor’s pivotal bright spots. Relatedly, Jacobin published a short piece of mine reflecting on a decade of Bernie Sanders inspiring a whole new generation of young worker organizers.
AI is changing entertainment. Here's what investors are betting on
New Delhi, Oct. 6 -- Recent investments in media and entertainment, from Prime Focus-backed Brahma AI raising $150 million to AI-native live entertainment discovery and ticketing platform thumpN raising over $3.75 million, might suggest that artificial intelligence has become the industry's newest…
Lions vs. Cardinals odds: Opening lines for Week 5 matchup
Checking in on the opening betting odds for the Week 5 matchup between the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals.
Gambling Is Sending More People to the ER
Recent research suggests that the rise of gambling is leading to a surge of mental-health problems.
How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy
Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.
Sports betting is increasingly the norm for Gen Z. Here’s why some financial and mental health experts are worried
Surveys show Gen Z increasingly views sports bets as a form of investment, and those who gamble too often face mental health risks.
Sports betting is increasingly the norm for Gen Z. Here’s why some financial and mental health experts are worried
Surveys show Gen Z increasingly views sports bets as a form of investment, and those who gamble too often face mental health risks.
Packers vs. Buccaneers: Game Time, TV Channel, Injury Report, Betting Odds, Prediction and Key Matchup
The Green Bay Packers face a high-stakes crossroads against a winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers squad starting a rookie quarterback. Survival hinges on a battle of struggling offensive lines at Raymond James Stadium.
TST Best Bets: October 4, 2026
Week 4 of the NFL season has arrived, and this column is due for a bounce-back after back-to-back weeks under .500 followed a strong Week 1 debut.Let’s get straight to it as we pick every game on Sunday’s slate, starting with the Lock of the Week.For all of your NFL betting picks, here are today’s TST Best Bets, brought to you by BetOnline.ag. Click here to join. All new players receive a 50% welcome bonus and up to $250 in free bets.
Mormon leader decries explosion in sports betting, prediction markets
A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says an explosion in online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed among young people
Mormon leader decries explosion in sports betting, prediction markets
A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says an explosion in online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed among young people
Mormon leader decries explosion in sports gambling, prediction markets
A leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says an explosion in online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed among young people
Mormon leader decries explosion in sports gambling, prediction markets
A leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says an explosion in online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed among young people.
Mormon leader decries explosion in sports gambling, prediction markets
A leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says an explosion in online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed among young people.
Mormon Leader Decries Explosion in Sports Gambling, Prediction Markets
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints warned Saturday that an explosion in gambling driven by online prediction markets and sports betting is fostering greed, particularly among youths, while producing “nothing of value.” D. Todd Christofferson, one of the ...
NFL Week 4 betting advice: Giants-Cards picks and props
Giants-Cards wagers to consider as you fill out your tickets.
Trump is campaigning in reliably red states, a sign of midterm concerns
Trump is rallying in Republican strongholds such as Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama, betting that his presence will be enough to energize voters who might be thinking of sitting out the election.
Will Brazil Betting Ban Change Flutter Entertainment's (FLUT) Narrative
Flutter Entertainment reported that Don Liu resigned as Chief Legal Officer effective September 30, 2026, with Group Company Secretary Edward Traynor stepping in as interim Chief Legal Officer from October 1, 2026. Brazil's recent ban on online betting removes a previously important market opportunity for Flutter Entertainment, placing greater emphasis on execution in existing regulated regions and any remaining expansion plans. We will now look at how Flutter Entertainment's investment...
Record 12th consecutive month of $500 million in sports bets
Advocates and counselors said more funding is needed to address sports gambling in North Carolina.
Record 12th consecutive month of $500 million in sports bets
Advocates and counselors said more funding is needed to address sports gambling in North Carolina.
Iowa Football: Betting Prediction For Ohio State Game
HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz shares his betting picks for the Iowa-Ohio State game, including spread and total.
Victor Wembanyama Slams Door On Sports Betting As LeBron James, Kevin Durant Cash In
Victor Wembanyama is entering a different part of his NBA career now. Wembanyama's spotlight has grown, and his influence has expanded well beyond the basketball court after three seasons with the San Antonio Spurs. Victor Wembanyama Slams Door On Sports Betting As LeBron James, Kevin Durant Cash In At 22, Wembanyama already has a Defensive …