The Big Spin & Sportsbook
How prosecutors picked death-penalty juries. Also, is the billion-dollar sport gambling industry in a bubble?
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The Big Spin
The New Yorker • 18 Nov 2024 • ~8000 words • Archive Link
A district attorney’s office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries. Jennifer Gonnerman reports.
Obtaining a death verdict, Anderson once said, was a “mark of distinction” in the office. As Quatman put it, “Anybody can try a homicide successfully. Not everybody can try a death-penalty case successfully.” A capital prosecutor had to win twice: first at trial (persuading twelve jurors to convict a defendant of first-degree murder with a so-called special circumstance) and then during the “penalty phase” (persuading all the jurors to sentence the defendant to death). The key, Quatman said, was to pick the right jury, and the pressure to win was intense: “Every other day, the boss comes by—‘How’s that case going?’ ” Preparing for and trying a death-penalty case could take at least a year, and after Anderson or Quatman sent a defendant to death row they framed his mug shot and hung it on their office wall, next to a copy of his death verdict.
Is the $11 Billion Online Sportsbook Bubble About to Burst?
Rolling Stone • 17 Nov 2024 • ~11150 words • Archive Link
From Vegas to the black market, gambling companies have taken over sports. Inside a billion-dollar industry that could be on the bubble.
Brody is a gambler — a damn good one — and he’s so good he worries that if the sportsbooks knew his real name, they wouldn’t let him bet anymore. That may sound like an absurd boast, but it isn’t. Brody is what is known as a “courtsider,” and he is the bane of any sportsbook. He goes to live sporting events and bets on his phone — well, phones, because he has a few of them. He loads one with an over bet, one with an under, waits for a batter to get a hit and tries to press the right bet on his phone before the sportsbook can adjust the odds. Most people at home watch the game on a delay, so they can’t beat the sportsbook’s information. But in the ballpark, where someone from the sportsbook is also watching the game and adjusting the odds, you can, because you only need to beat that guy.
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Walking Japan (again): From Fukuoka to Nagasaki
Chris Arnade Walks the World • 16 Nov 2024 • ~3500 words
Chris Arnade is back in Japan for another walk, focusing not on the scenery but on the thoughtfulness and care of the Japanese.
They are evidence that the thoughtfulness, and care, of the Japanese, especially when it comes to food, is a culture trait that’s independent of economic incentives. They take their jobs seriously, independent of the material rewards, because to frame it in language the policy class can better understand, their utility function is more influenced by non-economic cultural factors. Your priority is to be a good citizen, and that means treating your job, no matter what it is, with a respect that we in the US would find deferential to a fault, but in Japan, is about playing the role you’re meant to play in this world to the best of your abilities.
