"To model the experience of a casual sports fan, we analyzed games aired on cable or broadcast TV (excepttwo, from the NBA TV streaming service) in Washington between Dec. 21, 2025, and Jan. 23, 2026. League schedules constrained our choices: NCAA football was in its bowl season; the WNBA and MLB were not included because they don't play in winter."
"We selected games to maximize variance by sport, league, gender and channel, and chose a wide variety of teams and stadium or arena locations. Other factors also can potentially affect gambling content - such as the legality of sports betting in the home states of the teams playing - but were not controlled for in this analysis."
"We counted "references to gambling" as the names or logos of sports betting apps, state lotteries or casinos. We also counted commentators' references to gambling lines or wagers, and odds or over/under lines displayed on sports tickers or on-screen graphics. We didn't include gambling metaphors from commentators ("They're playing with house money"), a car company's betting-themed sweepstakes or ads for an investment app that offers prediction market bets through a partnership with Kalshi."
"An internal Post video tool called Haystacker extracted a still frame from the videos every two secondsand asked an AI model to examine each one, using a custom prompt meant to focus on gambling-related imagery. We combined that with tra"
Games were selected from cable or broadcast TV in Washington between Dec. 21, 2025, and Jan. 23, 2026, with league schedules limiting which sports were available. Selection aimed to maximize variation by sport, league, gender, and channel, while including a wide range of teams and locations. A fixed amount of content was chosen across leagues, and one hour per game was randomly selected, including commercials and other programming. Gambling references were counted when betting app names or logos, state lottery or casino names, commentator mentions of lines or wagers, or odds and over/under lines on tickers or graphics appeared. Gambling metaphors and certain promotional content were excluded. Frames were extracted every two seconds and evaluated by an AI model using a custom prompt focused on gambling-related imagery.
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