Badder Beats

As the Browns begin what seems like a long, inevitable slink back into misery, hosts Brant James and Ryan Butler debut their personal Super Contest, oddly, and sadly agreeing on some key games. What’s to make of that massive Patriots’ line? In the big interview, Tilman Fertitta owner of a lot of restaurants – one of which you’ve surely patronized – The Golden Nugget casino chain, the Houston Rockets and now an author (“Shut Up and Listen! Hard Business Truths That Will Help You...

Former Packers vice president, agent and SI.com and The Athletic writer Andrew Brandt dispenses knowledge on the upcoming NFL season and its future, why Andrew Luck walked away, CTE, player leverage and how sports betting impacts it all.

With the college football season unfurling fully in Week 1, Brant James and Ryan Butler hash out the Auburn-Oregon game and ponder other lesser matchups. NASCAR managing director of gaming Scott Warfield lays out the stock car series’ plans to utilize legal sports betting beginning in September. BADDER BEATS TIME STAMPS 5:46 – College football, Week 1. 6:30 – Brant nails his Week 0 prediction. 7:17 – Auburn at Oregon. 11:27 - Auburn’s Gus Malzahn could be under pressure...

College football commences. The PGA Tour schedule is down to the king-making FedEx Cup. Badder Beats welcomes in a Stadium’s Brett McMurphy to break down the AP Top 25 preseason poll and a season ahead in sports betting (he’ll break some news on the future of the College Football Playoff) and Matt Cooper makes a long-distance call to assess the golf final. 1:51 – Oregon sportsbook announces it will begin taking bets on Sept. 7. 4:01 – On gerbil racing. Chinook Winds. Not...

NBA reporter Mark Strotman cracks the code on betting on the National Basketball Association. His analysis of over/under trends from the past decade will thrill and amaze you, and could have made you a very successful bettor. TIME STAMPS Mark Strotman on Betting the NBA in the Offseason 3:02 - On betting the over/under in the NBA. 5:39 - Breaking down how NBA teams fared in over/under betting over the last decade. 7:25 - Bet the the under for teams forecast to win more than 50...

As the English Premier League season gloriously approaches, hosts Brant James and Ryan Butler defer to Bookies.com football expert Peter O'Rourke for betting tips, trends and insights. Also, Penn National Gaming helps seed major sports betting players into some potentially fertile fields. Sports Business Update 2:20 – Penn National Gaming acquisitions alter the sports betting map. 3:50 – theScore has options in Indiana and Mississippi before its New Jersey operation goes...

On the eve of the Hall of Fame Game and potentially the first very bad officiating decision of the NFL season, hosts Brant James and Ryan Butler dissect how technology and sports betting combine with human fallibility or rulebook loopholes to create noxious mess. FanDuel chief marketing officer Mike Raffensperger stops by to discuss an incursion into Pennsylvania. BADDER BEATS TIME STAMPS Legislative Update 2:21 – Iowa legislative update 3:02 – Ryan Butler guarantees that...

Pugilism considered, as Bookies.com contributor Kelsey McCarson joins Brant James and Ryan Butler to analyze the Maurice Hooker-Jose Ramirez junior welterweight unification bout and boxing as an entity. Legislative update 1:38 – New York becomes the tenth guest state to legalize and implement legal sports betting. 3:00 – The confluence of states and sports betting and football. 5:15 – How the Hall of Fame game is like the NBA summer league. 6:50 – Jimmy Vaccaro moves back to...

On the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission that put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, New York becomes the 10th state to land a legal sports wager. Call it a Sea of Bet-quility. North Carolina follows suit – almost – by passing legislation to legalize sports betting. And as the frenzy of NBA free agency slows to a rolling boil – we think – DraftKings NBA analyst Julian Edlow stops by to assess who moved the odds and if it was justified. Time Stamps State...

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie drinks a symbolic tequila toast, analyzes the New Jersey sports betting market from germination to July and ruminates on what comes next, including maybe, perhaps, politics. And in the second and final installment of our series on the Chicago Black Sox Scandal, Society for American Baseball Research scholar Jacob Pomrenke puts the legacies of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver in perspective. He also draws strong comparisons between the baseball...

Kevin Durant to the Nets, in a year and a half. Kyrie Irving to Brooklyn immediately. Kawhi Leonard …. who knows. Maybe he was just sparing Toronto a bummer of a Canada Day as NBA free agency opened. Agents and general managers were pummeling each other like UFC fighters. Speaking of which, UFC239 is this weekend and Jon Jones’ insatiable consumption of the light heavyweight division, according to oddsmakers, will continue. Pass the pepper, Thiago Santos. EPISODE 34 TIME...

As the manic NBA free agency festival draws ever near, there is speculation aplenty about landing spots for superstars and how a certain non-functional Achilles tendon could change everything. And Badder Beats unveils Part I of an informative and entertaining interview surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Black Sox scandal with Jacob Pomrenke, chairman of the Society for American Baseball Research’s committee on the topic. EPISODE 33 TIME STAMPS Legal Sports Betting...

Live from the Turf Club at Monmouth Park Racetrack - where the first legal sports bet in New Jersey was placed by Governor Phil Murphy in June, 2018 – Gambling.com Group Plc presents the first-annual American Gambling Awards. Designed to reward excellence in the online legal sports betting market in the United States, the AGA’s presented 14 Golden Eagle statues to stakeholders from politicians to sportsbooks. ESPN draft analyst and New York Times best-selling author (and Badder Beats...

Brant overcomes jet lag from his tour of Europe, then we talk with Golfweek columnist and Golf Channel contributor Eamon Lynch. We also go over the NBA Finals - and predict the winner of a Stanley Cup finals game that already happened. Plus we rip on Brant more as he announces his new-found love for cappuccinos and long-standing appreciation for opera.

Thom Cunningham of Bookies.com fills in more than admirably for Brant James, as the two hosts discuss Andy Ruiz Jr.'s shocking upset, preview the 2019 Women's World Cup and give some hot(!) takes on the Stanley Cup finals. Plus the second part of our interview with Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow, authors of the acclaimed book "The Logic of Sports Betting."

On the eve of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors, Bookies.com contributor Mark Strotman joins the podcast with a bevy of prop bets and intel worth your time. How does Kevin Durant fit back in for the Warriors if he returns healthy? Can Kawhi Leonard do it – as in everything – again for the Raptors? Why so many questions? And in the big interview, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow, co-authors of the lavishly praised and highly-worth-your-time “The...

Proving that draft day sometimes comes before Memorial Day (and Carb Day always does), Badder Beats unleashes a deep, deep roster. It’s a P1 (as in podcast and pole position). New York Times best-selling author Matthew Berry, host of The Fantasy Show on ESPN+, comes aboard for musings on the new synergy between the fantasy and sports betting spheres, and his gig hosting the first-annual American Gambling Awards on June 18 at Monmouth Park. How did Berry make the transition from...

On the one-year anniversary of the dynamiting of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, the ICE North America gaming trade show opens in the sprawling Boston Seaport district, drawing influencers from around the globe. Half of the podcast joined them, with Brant James prowling the hallways and interview rooms in search of the hot topics in the legal sports betting industry. In summary: lots of pro sports teams and leagues believe that eSports could be a massive betting...

In an episode that is sure to please fans of every team still skating in the National Hockey League playoffs, hosts Brant James and Ryan Butler break down all four Western Conference finals with the help of massive amounts of physics and terawatts of electricity. In the big chat, fabled oddsmaker Johnny Avello stops by to talk about his past on the Las Vegas strip, his present as director of operations at DraftKings and the future of his profession and legal sports betting in the United...

Three-year-olds are tricky. And we’re not just talking toddlers. Colts in the Kentucky Derby can be bedeviling also, especially when they were the morning line favorites to win installment 145 and especially when they represented the storyline of the first Saturday in May … and then were scratched. But here’s hoping that Omaha Beach recovers quickly and completely, runs a few more races safely and then settles in for a fruitful career of making more Omaha Beachs. Yes, the original...