Betting $10,000 Every Sunday

Bloomberg

07-02-2025

Businessweek
Inside the fan experience of five dedicated gamblers, who say they do it for the camaraderie as much as the money.
Photograph by Ben Lowy
For millions of Americans, Sundays mean football—and football means gambling. The American Gaming Association estimates that 73.5 million Americans, more than a quarter of the US adult population, bet during the 2023-24 NFL season. And in the six-plus years since the US Supreme Court ruled that sports gambling could expand beyond Nevada, the industry has seen massive growth: 38 states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, now offer legal sports wagering. This football season, the AGA projects that Americans will bet $35 billion with legal sportsbooks.
And those numbers spike for the big game; 26% of US adults were projected to bet on the 2024 Super Bowl. But for many, sports betting has become a constant. A survey from the Siena College Research Institute found that 59% of sports bettors gamble at least once a week.
Researchers have begun to examine the macro impact of these trends, finding, for instance, that betting particularly hurts the credit ratings of the economically vulnerable. But Bloomberg Businessweek wanted to know what it was like for individual sports fans to bring legal betting into their life. We followed five gamblers as they placed and tracked their bets to see how they spent their money and their game days. For many, it's a community, a way for fans, who are overwhelmingly men and often young, to build relationships and have regular conversations with other guys. These friendships—largely built online in Discords, X spaces, Reddit threads and the comment sections of YouTube streams—can be expensive to maintain, but fans say it's worth the cost. 'Guys need an icebreaker for friendship,' says Sean Green, co-founder of the Sports Gambling Podcast Network (SGPN) and co-host of the Sports Gambling Podcast, 'and sports gambling can be that for them.'
Smith starts to prepare for Sunday's games the previous Monday morning. He has a text thread with three other guys, a couple of whom are college buddies, and they each have a role. One assesses injuries, another monitors the line movements (changes in the betting odds) and analyzes the spreads, and one keeps track of which book has the best odds overall. Smith, who keeps a spreadsheet of statistics for each NFL team, handles matchups. 'We try to talk on the phone to game plan for the week on Monday, and we talk throughout the week,' he says.
Smith has usually placed his bets—mostly point spreads, maybe a couple of over/unders—by Friday evening, so Sunday is all about watching the results come in. 'A lot of people do live betting, and I'm really not that type of person, because you can really drown, and it can go bad really fast,' he says.
Although he's in constant communication with his group chat, game day is a solo affair. On Sunday, Sept. 22, he recorded his segment of the NFL Gambling Podcast, a pregame show on SGPN that Smith started contributing to in 2024, where he discusses prop bets, or wagers on a specific occurrence that may not affect the final outcome of the game. Then he set up his screens: NFL RedZone in one corner of the TV and games where he has the biggest positions in the others. By 1 p.m. he was eating pizza and watching. 'After the game starts, I'm pretty much just observing,' he says. 'The cake is baked.'
Smith watched through the 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. matchups, stepping out a couple of times to walk his dog, Blue, who shares the couch with him during games. 'The key to being more carefree is that you can't just be fully engaged in it,' Smith says, speaking of watching games he has stakes in. 'Take some breaks here and there.'
All in all, it was a good day for Smith: His friend group had a big win with the New York Giants (who beat the Cleveland Browns 21-15), plus a smaller successful bet on the Indianapolis Colts (who beat the Chicago Bears 21-16). There were some disappointments, too—a bad bet on the Tennessee Titans—but that's part of the game. 'I'm pretty comfortable if I lose,' he says, adding that the goal is to win 56% of his bets.
Smith watched some of the Sunday night game (no money on that one) while starting his analysis for the following week. Then it was time to switch channels for an episode of Law & Order with his girlfriend, who watches TV in the other room or hangs out with friends on Sundays. On Monday morning, he'd be thinking about the next Sunday.
Gino Donati
The Bookie
Age: 40
Location: Palm Beach, Florida
Profession: Runs a software company
Outlay: $10,000 every Sunday
Photographer: James Jackman for Bloomberg Businessweek
Donati has been betting on sports for as long as he can remember. 'At age 7 or 8, when my grandpa or uncle would have money on the game, I'd give them $5,' Donati says. They'd give him a few dollars in return if they won. 'It was entertainment, no different than going out to a movie or dinner—it makes the event you may not care about more interesting.'
In high school and college, he was an informal bookie for his buddies and his fraternity brothers, running small betting pools. These days, sports betting is how he keeps in touch with friends. 'It's the glue,' says Donati, who also plays in five fantasy leagues. Three years ago he and a friend started a peer-to-peer sports betting platform, BetOpenly; the software connects a bettor to someone making the other side of the bet.
For him, the leagues are both a way to stay in touch with friends and to remain connected to the sport. 'Fantasy gets my hand on the pulse of players and games and matchups,' he says. On Oct. 6, like on most Sundays during the NFL season, his morning thoughts were about football lineups, both real and fantasy. 'The first thing I do is open my computer and check all my fantasy teams, like how a dad from 40 years ago would start the day with the New York Times,' he says.
Next up, the phone calls. He spent around an hour calling friends, asking what bets they liked for the day and writing them down as research for his own wagers. Then he stopped by Publix—Donati always brings the liquor, usually hard seltzer and tequila—and met up with a half-dozen friends at BetOpenly's studio in a strip mall. By 12:30 p.m. he was settled in, placing his bets for the 1 o'clock games in front of a wall with eight TVs. 'I like to wait until as close to game time as possible to put in bets, to see who's actually hurt,' he says. Once bets were placed, he cracked his first High Noon seltzer and grabbed a slice of pizza.
Donati had some successful parlays early in the day—the Denver Broncos beat the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Baltimore Ravens beat the Cincinnati Bengals, netting him $770. He uses BetOpenly for smaller bets, but he still makes some larger bets through casinos, including through the Hard Rock Bet app. He also had some sizable losses: When the Minnesota Vikings beat the New York Jets, he lost $2,200. But he brushed it off. 'That's why I risk-mitigate,' he says. 'If I had it all on one game, it wouldn't be fun.'
His big bet wasn't until 8 p.m.: the Dallas Cowboys versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. Donati and a friend, Matt Tanner, with whom he co-hosts a podcast (We Bet With Gino and Matt), went big on the Cowboys, including several prop bets. Donati and Tanner thought quarterback Dak Prescott would have a great game. That meant an emotional roller coaster as Dallas was behind until the team scored on the game's final pass. 'We were one dropped pass away from losing,' he says. 'Instead of losing $13,000, we made $17,000.' (This kind of turnaround didn't happen in last year's Super Bowl, when he lost $25,000.) The final drive of the Cowboy-Pittsburgh game put Prescott over on completions and passing yards, too, winning Donati and Tanner an additional $800. They all did tequila shots.
All in all, it was a big day for Donati, though it ended as every Sunday does. When he got home at around 12:30 a.m., he woke his wife to share the highs and lows. 'I told her we won on the last play, and she's like, 'I've heard this a thousand times before,'' he says. 'She always says, 'I've gotta deal with you when you're sad. What do I get when you're happy?' Still, though, the day felt as much like fantasy as reality: 'None of it's real until I'm holding the money.''
Jackson Reddick
The Newbie
Age: 24
Location: Chandler, Arizona
Profession: Works on the grill at Chipotle
Outlay: $50-$100 per week (when he has the funds)
Photographer: Cassidy Azaria for Bloomberg Businessweek
Reddick started gambling on NFL games at age 21, and it became an easy way to spend time with his brother and friends in Lincoln, Nebraska. This past fall he and his wife moved to Arizona for her job. His way into a new social life, he hoped, would be through sports betting.
On Oct. 13, Reddick spent the morning listening to a few pregame shows. Then he headed to a local bar to watch the games, placing three bets on his phone: a $50 wager on the Detroit Lions to win against the Cowboys, with a spread -3½; a $10 three-leg parlay spread on the Steelers, the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Chargers; and a $25 live bet late in the second quarter of the Lions-Cowboys game for Detroit wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to score a touchdown. He placed all three wagers through the DraftKings app—a big change from betting in Nebraska, where money line bets (on which team will win a game) require using an offshore account or going to the casino. 'It's so much easier to do it on my phone,' he says. 'But watching the actual games, it does suck not to watch with anybody.' He won all three bets, taking home $159.41 in winnings.
'People say gambling is so stupid, but then they spend $40,000 on a country club membership. As long as you're betting within your means, what's wrong with it?'
Sports betting has helped Reddick stay connected to his friends back in Nebraska. 'The gambling stuff helps us keep in touch, since we still text about it,' he says. 'It's made the moving process easier.' Reddick plans to reach out to some guys in the area that he's met through the SGPN's online forums. 'It's easy to start conversations with people about it, which can take you to so many different places with people,' he says. 'It starts with something like, 'I threw some money on this game, too, and I want to get to know you a little more.''
Henry
The Accountant
Age: 38
Location: Texas
Profession: Certified public accountant
Outlay: Around $5,000 per weekend
Photographer: Ben Lowy for Bloomberg Businessweek
Henry, who asked to be identified by his middle name, as sports gambling is largely illegal in Texas, starts his Sundays at church. On Oct. 20, after service, he and his wife went to pick up their kids from a sleepover at her parents' house. 'Throughout the morning, like at my in-laws' and stuff, I'm keeping an eye on guys I follow on Twitter,' including Adam Schefter at ESPN and team beat writers providing news like quarterback injuries, Henry says.
By that time, he's already placed most of his bets. Throughout the week, Henry listens to the Lock Betting Podcast, hosted by Billi Bhatti, and pays to participate in a WhatsApp group. On one WhatsApp channel, the host shares his picks; on the other, members ask questions about where to find various bets. 'As soon as their picks go through, as long as I'm around my phone and not in the middle of something, I'll pop them into my betting websites,' he says. Henry uses BetOnline, BetUS, Bovada and Xbet, searching each bet on all four sites for the best odds.
When Henry and his family got home, he headed into his 'gambling cave,' a home movie theater with a big-screen TV, a place he's in and out of during game days. He wrote out all his bets by time slot, as his 5-year-old son played EA Sports College Football on the PlayStation, peppering him with questions about the day's games.
Before 1 p.m. he checked in with his wife to see if he should do anything before disappearing into the gambling cave for the day. He got the leaf blower and cleaned up the back patio and outdoor kitchen, then headed in, setting up four games in the quadrants of his 15-foot projector screen.
'Having the community of the WhatsApp group is really fun. Even if the bets didn't win me money, I would still be a part of it'
The first slate of games was frustrating for Henry: In both the Green Bay Packers versus the Houston Texans (24-22) and Lions versus Vikings (31-29), he placed bets on the winning teams, but they didn't cover his spread. (In the Lock Betting Podcast WhatsApp group, they call this 'getting hooked.') He had only one eye on the games, though; the other was focused on parenting. 'My son had his football with him and was reenacting the plays, going 100 miles per hour the whole time,' Henry says. His daughter, age 4, preferred jumping on the couch.
After the 1 p.m. games wrapped up, Henry and his family headed to the store to get their groceries for the week (where they had to wait to snag the one grocery cart with a race car attached). As they shopped, Henry's son watched the Kansas City Chiefs game on his phone, narrating the plays. 'I'll ask him questions like, 'Who has the ball?' 'How close are they to the yellow line?'' Henry says. 'He screams if somebody scores. We definitely get looks in the grocery store.'
For the rest of the day, he juggled watching the games with kid duty: jumping with them on the trampoline before dinner; watching half of the Jets and Steelers game; giving the kids showers; and then finding out that he had lost money as the Jets lost. Afterward he headed back to the gambling cave for 20 minutes or so, before switching to reality TV and tallying up his sheet: He won 15 of 20 bets, netting $758 for the day. 'I slept well that night,' he says.
Ron Mau
The College Football Fan
Age: 60
Location: Cullowhee, North Carolina
Profession: College professor
Outlay: $300-$500 per week
Photographer: Shawn Poynter for Bloomberg Businessweek
Mau started the day on Saturday, Oct. 19, by taking his Great Pyrenees for a walk while listening to college football podcasts the College Football Experience, from SGPN, and Bet the Board. A few friends came over then, and Mau and his wife wheeled TV carts out into their backyard to enjoy the fall foliage as they watched the games and ate cheeseburger sliders. Mau prefers this kind of hosting to his routine before online sports gambling was legalized in North Carolina last year. He and his wife used to have a standing Thursday night date at the casino, where he'd place his bets for the week while she played slots before dinner.
Mau sometimes bets on the NFL, but he's always been a bigger fan of the college game. He and his wife live a mile from Western Carolina University and can hear the band from their house on game days. 'We're kind of college football nuts,' he says.
'You just shrug it off. Some are going to win, some are going to lose'
The biggest game of the day for Mau was between the University of Miami Hurricanes and the University of Louisville Cardinals. He bet on Louisville, and the game came down to a fumble return on a pass by Louisville in the fourth quarter—they would have had a touchdown, but it was ruled an incomplete pass. 'When you have money on it, you remember those sorts of things a little bit more,' says Mau, who stood to win $110 but instead lost $50.
By early evening their friends had headed home. Mau and his wife ended the night watching football on the couch, as they often do. He prefers to make small bets: $40 on a spread, $10 on the money line. 'You get the adrenaline rush when you win, no matter how much or how little you have on it,' he says. 'When you lose, it's like, 'Gosh darn it,' but it's not a crazy amount of money to get worried about.'
Read more: The New Age of Sports Betting
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