My players can name three sportsbooks and cannot name their state senator. These ads run during the games kids watch with their families, and they sell betting as part of fandom itself: same-screen odds, celebrity cameos, 'risk-free' bets that are nothing of the kind. Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision opened legal betting nationwide, calls to the national problem-gambling helpline have climbed, and counselors keep saying the same thing, that the ads reach people before the harm does (helpline). We banned tobacco ads from TV because kids were watching. A whistle-to-whistle ban during live games is the same principle with fifty years of precedent.
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