{"id":28866,"date":"2020-12-02T07:27:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=28866"},"modified":"2020-12-08T07:01:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T15:01:35","slug":"heartbreaker-for-sports-bettors-what-killed-tony-hsieh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/heartbreaker-for-sports-bettors-what-killed-tony-hsieh\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartbreaker for sports bettors; What killed Tony Hsieh?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5bEM1HUJQ7I\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\" class=\"has-drop-cap\">A last-second <strong>Carson Wentz<\/strong> Hail Mary pass and an ensuing two-point conversion didn&#8217;t enable the <strong>Philadelphia Eagles<\/strong> to catch the <strong>Seattle Seahawks<\/strong> but it <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/brobible.com\/sports\/article\/seahawks-eagles-hail-mary-cover-bad-beat\/\" target=\"_blank\">ruined the evening for 91% of bettors<\/a>, who expected Seattle to cover the 6.5-point spread. Instead it eked out a six-point win, great for Seattle but disastrous for those for whom it&#8217;s not whether you win or lose but did you cover the spread? This so-called &#8220;backdoor cover&#8221; was a bonanza for sports books, although we&#8217;ve yet to see a dollar amount for the epochal bad beat. As <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>&#8216;s <strong>Jimmy Traina<\/strong> put it, &#8220;A completely unwatchable game still had millions of people hanging around at the end because of one thing and one thing only: the point spread.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\">However, <strong>ESPN<\/strong> (which was carrying the game) <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/extra-mustard\/2020\/12\/01\/espn-ignores-eagles-seahawks-bad-beat?suid=5cc1c37224c17c493947da18&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=SI%20Extra%20120120&amp;utm_term=SI%20Extra%20-%20USE%20THIS%20-%20List\" target=\"_blank\">made no mention<\/a> of the point-spread erasure, even though some of its fellows, like <strong>CBS<\/strong>, have acknowledged sports betting at least to the extent of publishing the over\/under. <strong>Fox Sports<\/strong>&#8216; <strong>Joe Buck <\/strong>has spoken of the <em>verboten<\/em> subject of covering. But not ESPN, even though it carries sports-betting programming. Heck, you can&#8217;t watch an <strong>NFL<\/strong> game this season without seeing a <strong>FanDuel<\/strong> ad, can you? It&#8217;s the elephant in the middle of the room. Traina argues, &#8220;when you have a significant and surreal turnaround like the one in <strong>Philadelphia<\/strong> on Monday night, it has to be mentioned because the only people still watching at that point are the ones with cash on the line.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\">Speaking of bad beats, who would have figured the &#8220;<strong>Washington<\/strong> football team&#8221; to clobber the <strong>Dallas Cowboys<\/strong> 41-16 in a Thanksgiving Day turkey? Thirty million-plus people, evidently, as it is 2020&#8217;s most-watched game to date. Clearly people are so starved for NFL action they&#8217;ll tune into a meaningless matchup like this. It&#8217;s a cinch to beat the viewership of the much-delayed <strong>Pittsburgh Steelers<\/strong>\/<strong>Baltimore Ravens<\/strong> matchup, now shoehorned into a 12:40 p.m. (Vegas time) broadcast slot. The NFL was offered prime time but didn&#8217;t take it. WTF, <strong>Roger Goodell<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\" class=\"has-drop-cap\"><em>Global Gaming Business <\/em>thinks sports betting is all well and good but that the gold mine is in Internet gambling\u2014<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/ggbnews.com\/article\/here-comes-hip-hop\/\" target=\"_blank\">and they&#8217;re right<\/a>. Revenue between now and 2030 is projected by Wall Street as anywhere from $20 billion to $30 billion. As <strong>SB Tech<\/strong> Chairman <strong>Gavin Isaacs<\/strong>, a true industry expert, told the news service, &#8220;Casino games are higher margin than sports betting, so there is going to be lots of opportunity for game developers willing to get licensed and develop iGaming titles.\u201d We&#8217;ve already seen in <strong>New Jersey<\/strong> and <strong>Pennsylvania<\/strong> how i-gaming can come to the rescue of brick-and-mortar casinos during a shutdown. <strong>Green Jade Games<\/strong> boss <strong>Jesper K\u00e4rrbrink<\/strong> adds, &#8220;The merging of the video game and gambling industries into one is a no-brainer. The gambling industry needs new players and the video game industry needs new revenue streams.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\" class=\"has-drop-cap\">Was <strong>Tony Hsieh<\/strong> the victim of adult game-playing gone wrong or felled by an accidental overdose? Those are some of the questions arising as more becomes known about the house fire that ultimately killed the business genius and philanthropist last week. For one thing, the house itself <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9002463\/Mystery-surrounds-fire-killed-ex-Zappos-CEO-Tony-Hsiehs-death.html\" target=\"_blank\">wasn&#8217;t more than slightly burned<\/a>, the damage confined to an attached shed in which Hsieh was locked. Why? By whom? The 911 call <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/tony-hsieh-death-details-emerge-fire-investigation-zappos\/\" target=\"_blank\">adds layers of myster<\/a>y to what seemed a straightforward news story. Dispatchers were told Hsieh was &#8220;barricaded inside &#8230; Everyone else is outside the house. They are trying to get him to open up.\u201d The British press is less than circumspect, painting Hsieh as someone whose substance abuse was an open secret, hooked on nitrous oxide (shades of <em>Blue Velvet<\/em>) and Grey Goose vodka, and fascinated by burning candles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\">Speculation is that some mix of the above ingredients <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9005781\/Listen-firefighters-Tony-Hsieh-barricaded-inside-shed-house-fire.html\" target=\"_blank\">set off the conflagration<\/a> in <strong>New London<\/strong>. &#8220;In recent months the nitrous oxide had become as important to Tony as his alcohol and Grey Goose vodka was his best friend,&#8221; a &#8220;close colleague&#8221; told the <em>Daily Mail<\/em>. Said another, &#8220;The talk among his former colleagues at <strong>Zappos<\/strong> is that Tony was likely in the shed blacked out drunk and on drugs.&#8221; We won&#8217;t know for sure until the toxicology screen comes back, which won&#8217;t be until next month. &#8220;His heavy alcohol and drug use was known by everyone around him,&#8221; the &#8220;close colleague&#8221; related. &#8220;Anyone that challenged him about it was cast aside &#8230; He was a major alcoholic and a drug addict.\u00a0He was hardcore.&#8221; (Having dealt with alcoholics, we can vouch for the behavior.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:18px\">That allegedly included &#8220;dozens&#8221; of daily infusions of nitrous oxide. &#8220;He lived a crazy, eccentric life. The drugs often made him hallucinate, he became paranoid\u2014that could explain why he barricaded himself in,&#8221; said the <em>Daily Mail<\/em>&#8216;s primary source. &#8220;Tony was very fond of candles. He liked to set the atmosphere. The guess is that he managed to ignite one of the nitrous oxide canisters which caused a small explosion that killed him.&#8221; The timing of the fire\u20143:30 a.m.\u2014would jibe with stories of Hsieh bingeing on drink and drugs in the predawn hours. It&#8217;s all a tremendous shame, as it <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-9005531\/Ex-Zappos-CEO-Tony-Hsieh-trapped-storage-room-dying-smoke-inhalation.html\" target=\"_blank\">threatens to overshadow<\/a> Hsieh&#8217;s Midas touch in business and his community accomplishments, the foremost of which was to reclaim downtown <strong>Las Vegas<\/strong> for locals, making it a place to eat, drink and be merry, not just gamble and serve jury duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A last-second Carson Wentz Hail Mary pass and an ensuing two-point conversion didn&#8217;t enable the Philadelphia Eagles to catch the Seattle Seahawks but it ruined the evening for 91% of bettors, who expected Seattle to cover the 6.5-point spread. Instead &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/heartbreaker-for-sports-bettors-what-killed-tony-hsieh\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251,37,74,243,292,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28867,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28866\/revisions\/28867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}