Why'd people gamble their own money on the election?
plus, a new way to carry around all your baggage!
IF YOU’RE IN THE BAY AREA, mark your calendar for 1/31. Come out for a night of comedy and Death, Sex & Money at SF Sketchfest on January 31 in San Francisco with Guy Branum, Chanel Miller, Carl Tart and more! I’m really pumped to work with the Bay’s premiere comedy and improv festival for the first time, and already, it’s given me an excuse to play with AI-ifying headshots:
Come out to see what else we come up with. TICKETS HERE.
This week on Death, Sex & Money
Our new episode of Death, Sex & Money started with a question: who are all those people who gambled on the outcome of the US presidential election?
Maybe you, like me, heard about the betting odds on these sites in the run-up to Election Day, but I didn’t closely track all the ways this gambling was proliferating and who was attracting. My Slate colleague Nitish Pahwa walked me through the sudden transformation of election betting law this cycle, and Death, Sex & Money producer Zoe Azulay tracked down two men who each bet five figures on their presidential candidate. One lost…and one won big.
Talking with these two betters/voters, I learned why they did it — bragging rights had a lot to do with it — and how they landed on these election betting platforms when neither casinos nor sports gambling had ever appealed to them.
Listen to our new Death, Sex & Money episode here.
Look! New tote bags for you!
We have beautiful new tote bags available, screenprinted just for you!
These are made by Kin Ship Goods, a design and apparel shop in Charleston, West Virginia, my hometown.
The new Death, Sex & Money tote is the first one we’ve ever done in this color and our first new tote from our home at Slate!
And The Future Is Relational tote is a new design collaboration with artist Autumn Leiker, whose sticker I mentioned in this episode (which still graces the back of my phone.)
Personally, I find a lot of purpose and comfort in the message that The Future Is Relational. Of course, the future is a lot of things, but if it is not more relational…if it’s dominated by zero-sum battles, intransigence, and scarcity…it will only get more chaotic and painful. Alternatively, I want to join and lift up work that listens closely, breaks down tired silos, and creates more possibilities than each of us has alone.
If you order your tote bags by December 16, they can get them shipped by US-based addresses by Christmas.
Recommendations
Some things that moved me in culture and life this week:
“Somebody Somewhere” series finale - if you caught my conversation with actor and comedian Jeff Hiller last week, you likely fell even more in love with him and his performance of Joel. The series finale that aired Sunday is a triumph of restraint and heart.
“Classical Bangers” playlist on Spotify - I randomly landed on this playlist this week, and you know what? It does bang! Going about my day with this playing in the background gives me a sense of grand purpose…and the humility that I may actually be a deluded Wes Anderson protagonist.
School of Rock - I just watched this movie for the first time in twenty years over the weekend, this time with my kids. Thank you, Mike White and Jack Black. Step off!
“We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning….We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be.” Nikki Giovanni comforting her Virginia Tech community after the 2007 mass shooting on its campus.
And here we were together in New York City for a 2019 episode of the show. A treasured memory.
Until next week,
Anna
p.s. Thank you for listening and reading this year. If it’s added something to your life this year, please consider becoming a member of Slate Plus to support the Death, Sex & Money team’s work. We’ll thank you with ad-free listening and special drops like writer Heather Havrilesky on zoom singing lessons and hitting the high note on “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar.
Listen to our latest Death, Sex & Money episodes
12/10 Betting on America: Two Gamblers, One Presidential Election (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
12/4 From Social Work to Improv to the Best Show on HBO (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
12/4 Plus: Heather Havrilesky on The Transcendent Power of Low-Stakes Art (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/26 Why I Chose Estrangement (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/19 How a Betrayed Spouse Became an Infidelity Expert (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/19 Plus: Divorce is Illegal in My Country. Here’s How I Escaped My Marriage. (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/12 Will He Still Love Me When I’m Off Ozempic? (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/12 Plus: A Body Positive Educator Contends with Her Eating Disorder (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
11/5 A Celebration (and Critique) of American Freedom (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
10/29 The Making and Unmaking of a Productivity Perfectionist (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
10/22 Haley Joel Osment Is Not Your Typical Former Child Star (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
10/22 Plus: The New Era of Pop Womanhood (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
10/15 Search Engine: When Is It Time To Stop Drinking? (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
10/8 My Father Planned His Death. I Didn’t Stop Him. (Apple|Spotify|Slate)
That guy who gambled on and voted for trump…. He is not ok
I just started Somebody Somewhere! So needed