Weather can have a big impact on specific wagers for sports bettors. How does the time of day affect NASCAR races? What about wind direction and speed for golf and football? Does the thinner air of the Rocky Mountains really impact baseball games at Coors Field?

Mike Szvetitz from Front Page Bets joins the show and discusses how weather changes the game  — football, baseball, golf, auto racing, and more.

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About the Across the Sky podcast

The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team:

Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises’ Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia.

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Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Hello, once again, everybody, I’m meteorologist Sean Sublette. And welcome to Across the Sky, our national Lee Enterprises weather podcast. Lee Enterprises has print and digital operations in 77 locations across the country, including in my home base in Richmond, Virginia. I’m joined by my meteorologist colleagues from across the sky, Matt Holiner in Chicago and Joe Martucci in Atlantic City at the Jersey Shore.

Our colleague Kirsten Lang taking some time off in Tulsa to be with family, for a few weeks. Gentlemen, we’ve got a really good interview today. Our pal here in Richmond, Mike Szvetitz , who runs Front Page Betts. And we’re going to talk about weather and gaming. The weather and gaming industry. I think most of us kind of know about about the football situation, but there are other aspects out there as well.

Joe, you are an AC man. So so talk a little bit about what you know there.

Well, you know, we’re in the actually the capital of sports gaming. Fun fact, Sean, New Jersey actually has more sports gaming revenue than Nevada. And it might sound crazy, but the difference is in Nevada. And this might have changed recently by not sure. You can only bet in Nevada if you sign up for an account at the casino in New Jersey, you don’t have to go to a casino.

You just sign up on your phone wherever you are. Does it matter if you’re in Cape May or in Sussex County? So we we are very ingrained in sports betting here. And New Jersey, of course, do so responsibly. I do some myself. I did pretty good with our March Madness, you know, biting I talk about is dodgeball is March Madness picks should followed mine I had UConn wedding the sign out a future bet on UConn.

But it’ll be a it’s a it’s a good episode Mike makes a good guy too and we’re happy to have him leading the charge over at front page bets.

And what was interesting for me is that we didn’t limited to just baseball, football because that’s what you kind of think about in the sports. You know, we do get a lot of interest in the betting world, but it was interesting to think about all the different sports that are impacted by weather. And we covered them all. I think I think we got through all we talked about golf, we talked about NASCAR, we talked about horse racing.

First, it doesn’t hit you.

But then you realize, man, weather has.

Such an impact on so many different sports and betting, therefore. So this is a really fun episode.

Yeah. So we’re going to talk to Mike’s event. It’s about all those things here. I was really fascinated by the NASCAR stuff, the horse racing stuff, tennis, golf, all of that. That’s up ahead with our conversation with Mike’s that it’s general manager and content director of Front Page Bets here at the Enterprises.

Our guest this week is Mike Stead, its general manager and content director of front page Vets here at Lee Enterprises. That’s our sports and betting portal, Educate, inform and of course, entertain sports fans from across the country, especially in this blossoming sports betting enterprise that is out there. Mike, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.

MAN Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Awesome beer.

So I think intuitively we understand that there is always going to be some kind of weather impact on a game, right? I know football comes to mind at first, but can you talk a little bit about some of the nuances that that aren’t obvious to the to the casual observer? Could you speak to baseball first since that one might be even less obvious?

Yeah, I think, you know, anytime you’re playing outdoors, you know, you always got to take the weather in effect, as you guys you know, as you guys know, I mean, some of the most popular are and the most popular content on any of our websites here in the enterprises or even in your local TV market is the weather.

When you know with what’s going to do today our apps everybody’s got the weather app. So then when you put sports into it, you’re always are you know is it going to rain. How cool for just for the fan perspective right. Is it going to rain? How cold, How warm? You know, what time’s the game? What what’s going on with all that stuff.

So it’s so important. And then when you come in from a competitive perspective, from players to, you know, coaching in the way you game, the way you scheme and then, you know, and then what we do in sports betting, if you are going to place a bet, if you’re if you’re looking to wager on a game legally and now it’s legal, it’s legal across, you know, sports betting is legal and more than 30 states across the country, including Washington, D.C. So, you know, if you place a legal ban, you’re looking and all that kind of stuff, you want to know, how can I get the best advantage?

Right. So where is where is the best advantage? How can I how can I maximize what I know versus what what intangibles are out there in sports? We all know you can’t predict. That’s why, you know, sports, even even, you know, the underdogs have their day. But in sports betting particularly and in competition, you want to be able to control or at least know about everything that you can and can’t control the weather.

But if you know going in, how this is going to affect whether if you mentioned baseball, whether it’s going to affect the ball fly at the pitching, you know, just kind of how cold or warm it is, all that stuff takes into account. Now, baseball is a little bit different. Football probably is has the most impact. The weather has the most impact, and football, just because you’re putting the ball in the air a lot, kicking game planning, how hot, how cold, all has an affect on everybody across across the board.

Baseball. It’s a little bit different because there’s not so much margin going on. There’s not you know, you pitch, you hit, you catch. And and I think and I’m not trying to simplify baseball and saying it’s less complicated, but I think the impacts on weather are fewer at a baseball game than they would be less than a football game.

So but there are some things that do happen that can control that. But it’s not so much almost who’s going to win or lose because of the weather. It’s more on the proposition bet, more of a player bet. How is this pitcher going to perform in the heat? How’s this pitcher going to perform when it’s raining? How’s this batter going to perform at Coors Field in Colorado with thinner altitude versus in Miami, where it’s really humid and moist?

All the time? How is all that going to play an effect in the proposition bets? And those you know, for anybody who doesn’t know what a prop bet is, it’s a it’s a proposition of a player or a team will do X win or lose. That’s that’s not a prop. And that’s just the MONEYLINE or against the spread over under.

You know how many points they’ll score you know over this or 100 that. But a prop bet is, let’s say, you know, Aaron Judge will hit two home runs tonight, plus or minus. You know, the odds are and if it’s minus, you know, 100, that means for every hundred dollars, you bet you get that back. So -100, basically, you have to bet 100 to just stay even to get it to get 100 back.

If it’s plus. So if it’s minus anything in the minus means it’s pretty good. That probably going to happen. The odds are that it will happen. Anything in the plus means it’s not as likely to happen. So, you know, and that’s why you see a lot of these proposition bets at 1.5 instead of two home runs, it’s 1.5.

So you can’t you get two homeruns you pushed. If you bet it’s at 1.5 you over one, which is two obviously, or under which is, you know, one or less. So you look at those kind of bets in baseball and how the weather’s going to affect you all right. So we’re playing in Wrigley Field. The wind’s blowing out.

It’s a day game. You’re going to have a better, you know, opportunity to hit home runs versus if you’re playing, let’s say it at old Candlestick Park in San Francisco will wind swirls and you never know which way it’s going to go. So all of that comes into effect, but it’s not so much who will win or lose.

Yes. And that that all depends. If you got a guy that hits five home runs, chances are that teams can win. But more for the proposition bet more for the player, individual bet, how they’re going to perform in the weather and in that time in space. So we can talk a lot more about individual things like that. But overall, I think that’s kind of how weather will affect baseball in particular.

And, you know, obviously any outdoor sport, an indoor be that as it may, you know how much does the weather affect the indoor. Well there’s there’s been times where at hockey games weather has affected the ice and you know I remember what the Philly the fliers and I think it was the islanders back in the eighties in a playoff game it was so warm that the condensation was coming up from from from the ice.

And it was almost like the fog bubble inside, you know, And, you know, times I remember even in Richmond, Virginia, there was a basketball game played at the old Richmond Coliseum right up the road from where we’re at, from where I’m at, I’m at. And they had the ice underneath. They did clear the ice and the ice was too much condensation on the floor.

They had to stop the game. I think it was Michigan and UVA. This was back in the in the eighties or nineties where they had to they couldn’t play the game because the floor so slippery because the ice was coming coming up through the floorboards. So it happens on indoor events, just less likely, more so than outdoor. Hey, Mike, it’s Joe here.

And on behalf of everyone, stay in New Jersey. We just want to say you’re welcome for having sports betting across the country. Here we were. You guys are the ones who really broke it open. Appreciate it. But. But do questions for a year. Yo, out of all the sports mess that are place, do we have a percentage or a number?

How much is placed on baseball? And then my second question is talking about the weather. Right. And I have to imagine oddsmakers are factoring in this weather into play. But I see you know, I’ve seen a host of Twitter accounts that show where the value is in comparison to what the lines you know, what the lines are placed.

As anecdotally, you know, you’d have to talk to a sportsbook to give you the breakdown of how much in every book is different right now since especially since mobile betting legalized where you don’t have to go to Atlantic City anymore, you don’t have to go to Vegas to place a legal bet. You could do it. You know, you could take your phone out.

If you’re in a legal state and and download an app, whether it’s DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars, MGM, you know, whatever it is. Even certain states have certain ones Bet365, which is legal in New Jersey and Virginia and Colorado, but nowhere else. So anyway, depending on where you are, you could sit from the comfort of your own home on your phone and place a bet which has increased betting across all sports.

You know, we do know anecdotally, at least from doing this the last year, there’s more. NFL is the most popular sport to bet. You know the Super Bowl and opening and opening weekend of the NFL are the two most bet days of the calendar year across the board. Now, baseball’s a little bit more, I think more maybe more people per capita bet football, but baseball has a lot of you know, I guess it’s almost more consistent betting.

You know, you got guys that are betting and ladies who are betting on baseball prop bets. You know, every day you got 262 games a year. So probably, you know, pound for pound, that’s probably more bets. But I think the popularity of football, college football, NFL, just because it’s I think it’s a little bit more mainstream for a lot of people to bet and and and it’s more popular.

You know baseball used to be America’s pastime. I’m in the I’m in the camp where now football’s America’s pastime. But, you know, we will get into that that debate. But I think, you know, if you’re betting on 162 games and you have 32, you know, NFL t excuse me, Major League Baseball teams or wherever we’re at now, you know, you’re going to have more bets per year, per game, Per season in baseball.

But again, I think you’re seeing more prop bets, more bets on strikeouts with this pitcher strikeout X number of players with this player hit X number of home runs rather than are the Phillies going to be, you know, the Mets tonight just because that money line and the run line is you know, it’s it’s it’s negligible and you’re you know, the value that you’ll get by betting the Phillies to win is probably not as if you parlayed you know, how many home runs is Bryce Harper going to hit versus you know, how many strikeouts you know, Max.

Charles Gosh, I’m sure anyway, I’m I’m not sure that goodness, I get like seven names popped into my head at one time. This is hard. This is. But yeah, so Scherzer strikes out X and Harper hits X, you’re going to you can parlays those together and make more because the odds of both of those happening at the same time are less than if the Phillies would win.

So all of that to be said. I think you know the the I guess the percentage of bets are what you also like to bet. Do you like to bet? Are you are you a better who just wants to, you know, watch the game and bet you know who’s going to win because you get right then you’ve got a lot of like I think you know emotional ties to that.

If you’re a fan, you want your team to win. You might place place more bets on them to win versus how this player’s going to do. So. It also depends on on what you like. Are you going to go are you going to live back to which the the influx of live betting. Now you can say on your phone and bet the next inning, third inning, how many outs, how many hits, how many strikeouts for both is this?

You know, who’s going to score first? What’s a halftime score going to be in golf? Probably one of my favorite things to do, sit on the couch on a Sunday and just go home for a whole like, all right, is Jon Rahm going to beat Max Homa on this whole today? You know, and and, you know, taking all that into consideration and, you know, it’s a it’s a pretty, pretty enjoyable way to watch sport, especially if you’re not that big of a fan of that sport.

I find myself watching more NBA basketball because of individual bets like that than I would if I was just, you know, a casual fan. And Joe, your second question, it escapes me because I talk to my so I completely forgot what that second question is. You kind of intertwine both on him. I was, I guess, my guy. You’re fired.

I was really kind of wondering, do we have a dollar amount and how much you actually bet on baseball across the country? I don’t know. I would know. It’s it’s pretty significant, I’m sure. Yeah. Mike, you mentioned golf, and that’s what I kind of want to talk about. You know, baseball, football, cause they lots of attention, lots of bets going there.

But the betting in golf and maybe other outdoor sports like tennis, What can you say about that? And weather’s influence? Do you see weather impacting any bets on golf, tennis, other outdoor sports besides baseball and football? Yeah, I mean, I think tennis I think it’s a little bit it’s harder or something like that. That’s smaller space, more confined the way the arenas are.

And obviously rain is probably win not so much, maybe a little bit in tennis, but I think I think golf probably is the sport that is most affected by weather. Just on rain versus no. Right. Because now you’re talking about with a ball run out on a wet fairway. If I hit the ball, will it stop at plug greens?

Green’s green speed is a huge deal. You know, if it’s colder, the ball’s not going to fly, you know, obviously saying that kind of thing with baseball, anytime a ball is in the air for a long period of time, more weather can affect that. You guys know that better than you know. I mean, you guys are that you guys are the meteorologist here.

I’m just I just know when I hit a ball high in the air like I was doing yesterday on the golf course and it’s 30 mile an hour wind, if I’m hitting it into the wind, is not going as far as I’m hitting it with the wind. Right. So you have to be a genius to figure that out.

We saw it in the Masters, too, with the rain. How will the scores be affected at a course that everybody knows? But it’s really hard and then it rains, it’s colder. How does that affect it versus if you’re playing, let’s say, the U.S. Open on Father’s Day weekend somewhere in southern states where it’s nicer, a little bit more humid, the ball travels a little bit further.

So it all takes into account. But again, it depends on what kind of bet you want to make. If you want to do a player bet, proposition bet, or if you want to bet overall on a MONEYLINE, who will win or will lose that all that all into consideration. And Joe, you had mentioned, you know, Twitter accounts and everything like that and taking in, how does this affect I think that was part of your second question.

There’s so much data that goes into it and so much research that goes into this buy by bettors, by people who make the bets, by people who set the lines, by the oddsmakers that go into this. Again, you know, and baseball, as you guys know, has stats like what a left handed batter does on Wednesdays during day games in January or June, I guess whatever you make, you throw it out there.

There’s a stat for it there. Now, if you’re going to bet a lot of I’d bet five or ten bucks maybe I don’t dig into that. But if I’m betting five or $10,000, which some people do now, I want to know where am I? You know what? What’s the affected? Okay, This is a day game on a Wednesday.

How again, educating yourself to be able to place the best bet that you can to maximize your potential of winning. Man It’s all about the stats, Mike. That’s that’s for sure. Now, I want to go back to two prop bets for a minute. How these things you have, these prop bets that are happening almost instantaneously, right? Like the next inning, the next hole to the best of your knowledge, when you have these types of bearish short term bets like this is bet the next 15, 30 minutes and the weather sometimes, you know, change is really, really fast.

I mean, we all know that especially in the summertime, in the spring, it could be fine for ten or 15 minutes and then boom, you got a gusty wind and a shower that kicks in for an hour or whatever. But, you know, if those rapidly changing weather conditions are incorporated in some of these prop bets, in these different sportsbooks.

So, for example, if I don’t know, I’m a meteorologist and I know there’s a really good chance a squall line is coming through in the seventh inning and that game is going to be canceled. Do you think the oddsmakers know those things as well? I mean, do you have any inkling about that yet? I’m sure they do. You know, they they’ve got people who are a lot smarter who do this, have been doing this a long time.

And they take a lot of information. And they where they get the information is places like us. Right. So they come to Richmond dot com or the president Lantern City and they say okay what what is Martucci saying today about this weather. Okay so if I’m making an odds, if I’m making a bet, I’m say, okay, what is what is Martucci saying about X?

Okay, I’m taking that. Then we’re going to say, okay, what is Michael Phillips at Richmond? You know, Richmond Times-Dispatch. What is he writing about this? Let me take all this information because where else are they going to get it? They don’t want boots on the ground. So they’re reading our information. They’re taking all that. They’re talking to sources, talking to players, talking to people, not players, but people, you know, as much as they can figure out.

And then that’s what’s educating the lines that they said. And then people are also reading up and saying, okay, how is that going to affect this bet or this situation? I think you got a lot of that happening pregame going in now. I will. What you get in the game sometimes you don’t have enough time to to really research a lot of that.

Now if you know if you have an insight or if you’re paying attention, you know, and you have the ability to check something real quick and make a bet, you know, you’re going to you’re going to get that. But I think live betting is all kind of about the feel, a feel of the game, how the game’s going, the feel about like, okay, it is the wind is blowing.

Now we’ve seen a lot of we’ve seen, you know, this player every time he gets up, he said that he said, no, you know, it’s foul, just barely down the right field line, you know. And so you’ve seen how the games go in. You’re seeing all that and you’ve taken that in consideration in your life. Bet. Are you just have a gut feel or you are you’re chase it right.

You lost a big bet in the first inning. Now you’re chasing the rest of the game, but trying to make your money back. Right. So you’ve got a lot of different scenarios happening at the same time. The reason golf is for me kind of fascinating is because you’re playing the same course over four days. So by Sunday, I have a pretty good idea of how, let’s say Jon Rahm has played the second hole, right?

I know he’s birdied it three of the last four rounds. I know that, you know, the teams are back now. The wind’s blowing downhill. If you watch a golf broadcast, it’s all about the wind, all about the direction, all about where the holes cut, all about where the tee boxes are. So now I’ve got three days of data that I can say just as a novice, just as somebody who’s not doing any research on that crunching numbers.

And I have a spreadsheet that I’m a abacus out on my protractor, right? I’m just there watching the game, watching the match, and now I can say, Oh, I bet he’s going to do this. But if I’m more in-depth in that I’ve already done my research going into that now I can make more of a feel better of how things are going by for the novice.

And that’s what really what and again, we’re not we’re not advocating betting as much as we are saying people are doing it. Lots of people are doing it. Lots of money is being spent doing so. If you are going to do it, here’s how we can educate you to make the best bet or to at least inform yourself enough to where you feel comfortable maybe stepping out there if you don’t want to.

Hey, that’s fine too, because you can read our stuff and talk about it at the water cooler. You can get on the podcast with your friends to talk about it. You can go have a beer and say, Oh, guess what severity would you know? It’s some of my favorite. Not favorite. Some of the most funny things are is last year when we first started doing this, you know, we launched Super Bowl week of last year and then March Madness was right around the corner.

So I filled out my bracket, you know, and I posted online and I everybody. So I was I was hanging out to dinner on a Friday, the Friday night of the week of the first round of the tournament. And a buddy of mine comes up and he’s like, Man, I thought you knew what you’re talking about. I didn’t have time to fill in my bracket, so I just copied yours, have filled it out.

You suck. And, you know, and it. And I did it. It was terrible. But he, you know, so it’s kind of like you’ve got you’ve got people who pay attention to this and they’re like, oh, this event is really nobody’s talking about though he does it. I keep track of every winner lost and I have then a football season I pick against the field, against the spread and straight out MONEYLINE and you know and so if you go by my picks some weeks, you’re happy with me, some weeks you’re not.

But again, I try to do as much research and educate myself as best possible to provide that, just like you guys do. Right. You’re not waking up one day going, Oh, man, it’s cloudy. It is probably going around you guys, you know, you guys are doing your research. You have all the tools at your disposal. You know, you’ve been around the game.

I’ve been around college and professional sports for more than 20 years. So, you know, you mean you kind of get that feel into it and just like, you know, fans, you know, you want some people only bet on the team that they know. Some people that only bet on their team because they’re like, I watched this team long enough to know what’s going to happen.

Yeah, exactly. You really want to have as much information at your disposal as possible. We’ll get more into that on the second side of this break to stay with us. We’ll be right back with Mike that it’s general manager and content director front page BET’s your lead enterprises on the Across the Sky podcast. We’ll be right back. And we’re back on the Across the Sky podcast.

Our guests this week, Mike Sweat, its general manager and content director across the hall as we’re over it, front page that’s here at the Enterprise IT that’s our sports and sports betting portal educate, inform and entertain sports fans and the blossoming sports gambling and gaming enterprise. Mike We talked a lot about sports with golf balls, baseball basketballs, footballs.

Well, what about auto racing, right? I got to think NASCAR racing is specifically track temperatures, things like that. Do we see much of an impact in the weather impact, knowing how that’s going to play out with specific drivers or specific tracks? Any information on that? Yeah, I think, you know, anytime you’re talking about 45, 43 vehicles going very, very fast in close proximity to each other, any little change in weather track temperature, tire wedge adjustment, you know, tire pressure is going to affect something massive, right?

You get that big speed, that many things happening at one time, one little degree, £1 a wedge, one half a pound of of of torque here, whatever it is, it could have a big impact. We see it a lot, especially at the super speedways like Talladega was two weeks ago. You get the fastest track in NASCAR, two and 5.2 and a half, 2.55 mile track.

Right. And the the the drafting and the amount of speed that they can garner up when they’re in line with each other, nose to tail. And if you watch it, I mean, they are touching each other going 200 miles an hour. So everything is, you know, you got to take into consideration for an outcome there for safety reasons.

One, But then also what car is doing the best in that condition because some cars really run well. One, they’re by themselves. Some of them run better in a pack, some of them run better in front, back side left, high line, low line. So all that kind of stuff take into consideration. We talked about the weather, obviously. Are they going to even race?

We saw Dover was postponed, you know, the Dover and they said the mastermind was supposed to be Sunday afternoon. He got postponed to Monday. So will they race? They won’t race if it’s wet, if it’s raining, too much danger. They’re talking about wet, wet racing conditions with tires and stuff. That’s still we have not seen that. And I think if you ask any driver, they don’t want to take any more chances out there.

Safety hazards, all that kind of stuff. So if it’s rain, if it’s cloudy, sunny, the track temperature warm up. A lot of things happen when a track goes from day to night and we don’t see it in too many races. Charlotte is probably one of the only tracks on Memorial Day weekend that we see. The race starts in the days a 600 mile race, the longest race that they have on the NASCAR circuit, starts in the daytime track.

Temperatures are usually a little bit hotter. They’re rolling and then it goes to night. Track cools off. You see the track changes to almost two different races at Charlotte from night and day. We saw it even at Richmond. Richmond races used to race at night. Not the best racing cooler track temperatures. Tires would get eaten up a little bit more, kind of somebody would get out front, stay out there, better racing in the day, hotter track temperatures, tires, you know, matter a lot more.

So you have you have that. So when are you racing? Are you racing the day? Are you racing at night? Are you racing day into night? We see the Darlington and as well Labor Day, you see a lot of those track temperatures, the early spring races, you know, it’s cold out there. How does that affect, you know, in the fall?

How does it affect running, you know, a race, you know, in 90 degree, 90 degree heat? And then what? The track temperature is probably 120 inside the car. You know, it’s even hotter than that, you see. How does that affect the driver? So there’s so much in NASCAR Now when it comes to betting, it’s hard to really gauge that unless you’re super into it, unless you really geek out.

But you can tell talk. Well, I bet you see how a driver or car is doing at a certain track. You go in and saying, this driver’s got a lot of success there. Maybe the car’s not running real well in the corners. You know, somewhere like Bristol, where you have to have a better turning car into the corner, a smaller track versus a superspeedway like Daytona or Talladega, where you don’t have to have much turn.

You just have to find the right line and hold it steady. So all out of that comes into play. But you could see that more live than you do pre pre-race going into that because you want to see how that car is going to perform, especially when there’s, you know, 40 other cars around it. And Mike, sticking with the racing theme, let’s talk about horse racing a little bit because I imagine there’s some similarities here, but also some important differences about whether in horse race.

Yeah, I mean, you know, track surface like, you know, are they running like they get the Kentucky Derby, the run on dirt and mud, Where they running grass are they running on, you know, what kind of dirt, what kind of sand? You know, all of that plays into a fact. If it’s raining muddy vision, how do the horses run?

Do they like to get wet or is it hot? How do the horses fare in the heat and when you’re talking about again on it’s not like the horse can tell you, like, yeah, I feel great today, right? You could tell by how it how just like a car you can’t tell how it’s going to run until you kind of get out there.

Maybe you hear something, you feel something. That’s why the jockey is so important. I think in horse racing, we got the Kentucky Derby coming up on Saturday. What’s the weather going to be like that for that? How is that going to play even the wind like running into a headwind? How is that going to affect, you know, also, you know, you want to get on the pole too early, you get on the rail, you’re in trouble too late.

You you’ve got to make up a lot of ground coming, you know, coming across the field. So all of that plays, plays it into effect. And, you know, you talk about the Kentucky Derby coming, one of the most fun days, one of the most bet days as well, because even if you’re not a horse racing fan, you’re there.

You’re like, I’m, you know, throw. And if you bet last year on the longshot to win the Kentucky Derby at 80 to 1 odds. You know nobody did that on purpose by the way they were just doing a up ten bucks on the long shot. But nobody who knew what they were doing actually bet you know, the long shot.

And so I think I think you’ve you have you kind of have again, what bets are you going to make? And then are we going to have some fun? You know, you want to watch the Kentucky Derby, you want to watch a sporting event. It’s a little bit more interesting or a lot more interesting if you’ve got money on it.

Right. If you’re not bet on it, you know who has it doesn’t matter. You throw a couple of bucks down, now you’re vested. You want to know, all right, this better win. We do. And so but you look at you also got to look at the history, right? We talked about the dad of horse racing, especially. How do they run?

How do they run at this mile? How they run? You know, do they have any other races that we could, you know, look at? What about the jockey? What about, you know, the track conditions, some race better on grass, those kind of things, too. So you’re looking at all that information as you go. But, you know, horse but horse racing, you can’t bet live post time you’re in and whatever.

You bet. That’s what. You bet. Hey, Mike, talk to us. This is no bother, per se, but tell us about the difference between betting and horse racing. I think it’s called parimutuel betting as well. So what you see when you are, you know, betting on baseball or football, you know, you could bet on a horse to win. You can bet on a horse to win place to show which is first, second or third.

You can bet trifecta boxes. Where are super factors? You can bet. All right. These three horses are going to finish in the top three somewhere, right? You can bet exact that this horse is going to finish exactly in this position. Right. So and the more you add to that bet, the worse the odds are going to get. So the more payout you could have.

So, you know, you in. It’s more fun to bet horse racing, in my opinion at the track. Right. The buzz everything’s going around you’re you know you might have a mint julep or two and you’re feeling great. You get to the window and you’re like, All right, here we go. Six horse in the seventh race, you know, whatever, whatever.

And then you got the, you know, the person behind the counter. If he screwed up, they look at you like you can’t make that bet. So that’s really kind of intimidating. So you got to know what you’re talking about. You got to get in there. But it it’s really fun. My brothers and I took my dad two years ago to Kentucky for a bourbon trail tour.

Right. We somehow ended up at Churchill Downs on a Friday, you know, matinee race. We somehow found our way to the ticket line and with a few drinks in our hand and had a really good time. Now, had my brothers ever bet on horse racing prior to that? No, because they’d never been to our they had it. They never went in.

But since we were there like, oh man, we got a bet. We got we’re here, right? So you get caught up in that kind of thing. And I think that’s where you start. Talk about the popularity, Sean. You mentioned if you know, the blossoming sports betting world, people are finding out that, you know, if you do it responsibly, you make you make wise choices.

You don’t get yourself into trouble. You set a limit. All those things. It’s fun, You know, it’s enjoyable, it’s populated. The sports have gotten more popular because of it. I think you’re seeing a lot more. You can’t watch a sport now without seeing a DraftKings ad or FanDuel ad, and obviously their marketing to that, to that, to those constituents.

But they’re also because people people are finding like, hey, this is fun and the sports are growing and more people are being evolved in and I think, you know, as long as you do it responsibly and make sure that you set yourself limit, it’s fun to do. That’s why when I go to a horse track, I carry the cash that I’m going to spend.

I leave my wallet in the car because I know, like if I especially if I lose it now, I start chasing. I’m like, Oh man, I got my money back. It’s just like you go to the tables of Vegas or Lake City. John Are you, you know, I’ve been down to the Borgata. You’ve been sitting there. You know, I get around, I get around and, you know, I’ll just say it, You know, you’re there.

You bet. Long enough. The house is always going to win. So you got to make sure you’re setting yourself in position to at least, you know, maximize your losses. Yeah. You know, the one thing I remember when I first went to go was to a casino in Atlantic City when I was 21 years old. Back in the day, I still remember the signs all over the place and and I forget which casino it was, but it was the sign was there.

Said bet with your head not over it. Yeah, that. That is what you always have to remember. Get. Don’t bet any more than you think you can lose or you plan to lose. A few times I’ve been to casino, whether it was in Vegas or in a see, this is exactly right. You take this amount of money this is it.

After that, the party’s over. Go home, spend it wisely, risk it wisely. Else you get into a lot of trouble really fast. I’m like, Shawn, real quick. Just a just a plug for that, though. You know, now, these sports betting mobile apps, they have these parameters on there. They have these you know, it’s almost like a it’s almost like a child lock.

Like if you gave your kid a cell phone, you could lock it down. You can set parameters where you could set a bet limit per day, a number of bets per day. You go in there, you set that stuff. So when you’re at your limit, it will let you do any more. And you can’t you can’t bypass that unless you have the code.

But if you’re doing it right, have somebody accountability partner, somebody set that up for you. So there are there are these things that I take into account where you can’t get in over your head. And so that’s why I think it’s so regulated. Sports betting is so regulated, especially in New Jersey. Joe You guys got some of the the strictest rules, which I think are really valuable to have because you’ve been doing it for so long, you know, the pitfalls.

But again, you want people to do it responsibly. So the more you regulate it and you could talk about whether it’s alcohol or marijuana or anything, regulation is going to really help police some of the stuff where people are doing it anyway. Might as well, if you’re going to do it legally, do it responsibly. So it’s one of those things, too, where we’re Sean to you know, to your point, if you’re mobile betting, there are those there are those safety.

You know, features on there to help you, you know, really, really be responsible. Yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted to to focus in on as we wrap it up for somebody who just is entering this this space, they’re curious. They want to get involved, but they’re going in kind of they’re putting their proverbial toes in the water. Well, as we as we close out, what is some of your suggestion?

What are some of the ways they should approach this carefully, tactfully, so it doesn’t get out of hand in a hurry? Yeah, I think I think what we just talked about. Right. No, no, your limit. Right. If you are if you are if you struggle with an addictive personality, I think you got to know going in that like you need to make sure that you have some guardrails right for anything.

Right. Like, you know, don’t drink. You drive right. Just stupid. Not stupid, but just baseline rules of like, you know, don’t be dumb. Right? And so I think there’s you got that. But I think also, you know know what? You know what you’re doing right? If you are if you don’t know about a lot about a sport, maybe watch it, figure it out.

Try to educate yourself as best as possible before you put before you put money down on it. And I think, you know, it’s just being responsible, educating yourself, making sure that you’re not that. And also don’t do it in the dark. Make sure people know, you know, don’t try not to hide things. You know, things that are in the light tend to stay in the light and tend to have a lot more of a of a better outcome where people can ask you about it and those type of things and and seek help if you find yourself, you know, in a position in chasing is one of the things we kind of joke about.

But you know, if you lose early, you know, it’s probably best not to chase, right? You go to it, you go to the casino. You bet. Place a bet. You take your money in there, you lose it in the first 5 minutes. You know that that that’s a that’s a tough that’s a tough pillar for a lot of us to swallow.

Hey, I’m in Vegas for the next three days. I lost all my money in the first 45 minutes. Well, you didn’t have a plan. Have a plan going there saying, here’s the deal. It’s kind of like I tell my kids right before you go out, already know what you’re going to do if you find yourself in a situation, right.

You got to have a plan. You got to make sure that you’re you have an exit plan, you have a plan to talk to. And if you do, what happens if you win, right? That not just lose, but what happens if you win? And you got to know when you know, Kenny Rogers was alive, You got no one to hold him.

No one to fault him. Because if you stay long enough, you’re going to you’re going to lose. And so I think that’s why you just got to be be smart, talk about it, educate yourself. You know, listen, stuff like this, this is the again, there’s plenty of podcast, there’s plenty of information out there about about sports betting, but also about how to make sure that you’re doing it responsibly.

So so just do that, you know, and and don’t don’t, don’t. And the other thing I’ll say is don’t take my March Madness picks. So many other thing what you said there have a plan that is something that is very good for all kind of risk. Right. Well, because all risk is gambling. There is risk in the world, whether it’s weather risk, whether it’s sports gaming risk.

There is risk. Have a plan B ready for whatever is out there and so that you are prepared when it does hit, whether it’s good or bad. Mike, for we wrap up, where could people find out more about front page bets? All right, front page, Pets.com, all one word, front page, Pets.com. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

That front page bets. You know, it’s just we’ve been doing this a little bit more than a year here. Lee Enterprises would grow an audience for having a lot of fun with it. You know, we’re getting really good feedback and so I’m excited about it set about, you know, educating, informing people, having fun too, as well. Doing podcasts like this, doing videos that we do, you know, it’s really fun.

And sports just must be fun, right? And especially, you know, when you take the weather in consideration, there’s a lot of times that weather is is not fun. And it’s it’s you know, there’s there’s a lot of things that can go wrong. Same thing in sports betting. But, you know, we’re here to educate and we’re here to inform you guys.

And so just like these fine meteorologists that that are on with me, you guys, you know, I check out shorts. You know, I live in Richmond. I check out Shaun every morning as weather video. What I what do I need to do? And so I just I really appreciate you guys having us on in front page BET.com and on social from page bats and you know we hope to see you guys soon.

Thanks Mike so much. So much good information for those getting into this space, understanding this space, because it can be overwhelming. So thanks so much. We will talk to you again soon, Mike, Our guys, thanks a lot. So I learned a lot from that interview, that discussion with Mike. You know, I had not thought about that much with tennis and golf.

As we said at the outset, the classic baseball and football immediately come to mind. But I really had not thought about those those immediate bets during a golf tournament, guys. Yeah. So in other words, interesting. I actually really like the NASCAR, what with the difference in the track between a day and night. Am I like a big NASCAR fan?

But I didn’t I didn’t realize the impact that the day and night time timing had on, you know, the track conditions and how you bet for it as a result. So I thought that was pretty cool. I tell you what, I’m not a big sports better. I did it once when I went to the Kentucky Derby, I had to place a bet being at the Kentucky Derby.

I’ve also done it a couple of times when I’ve been to Vegas, just because, you know you’re in Vegas and got a bet. Let’s do some sports betting. College football, that was kind of fun. But every time I’ve done it, I have I’ve not well, I’ve won, but I placed multiple bets and that’s where I’ve I fail and I lose money.

So I am not a big sports bettor. And boy, after listening to Mike, I’m more intimidated now, thinking about all the different things and all the ways whether it could impact the outcome. I’m like, now that I’m making the right choice and not engaged on it, that’s sports betting on a regular basis. It would not end well for me.

Yeah, as you said, got to be very careful. This stuff has gotten so big so fast. If you don’t go into this very carefully and very deliberately, it can take hold of you and go go very bad. So his his recommendations are certainly, certainly well taken as I’m like you. I mean, I used to be much more of a big sports head when I was in my twenties and very early thirties, but I just don’t pay as much attention as I used to.

So the temptation is there for me. I you know, I do the occasional football wagering, but but this is not that is not that big. Certainly not as big as it is. Jersey there. Mr. Martucci Hey, listen, man, I’m going to grill I have a group chat with like nine of us today, and there’s a lot of sports betting talk, and I think it’s just a different Yeah, we’re just used to it, you know, with Atlantic City here for so long, it’s just.

It’s just a different way of life. But I have to ask you, Sean, what is what what determines very early thirties? And I’m wondering if I’m exiting that that scope of very early thirties, I’m going to say 32 after 32. You’re not in your early thirties anymore, you toward the mid-thirties. Okay. All right. So I got another year because I’m 31 now.

You know, the other thing, like I’m like sport is you also don’t have children, at least not yet. And that will take up a lot of time if you and Seany decide to go in that direction. Yes. That also takes up a lot of time that I used to use a lot of brain cells I used to use to pay attention to sports.

I had to start paying attention to to two small, small children. Right. So that’s another big thing, right? I do that, you know, one thing, too, and I forgot to ask him whether impacting the hot dog eating contest on 4th of July, that makes dinosaurs shaking his head at me. I’m telling you, there’s a difference. And I think I’m going to reach out to majorly eating.

I think we’re going to do a podcast on that. We’re going to see. But there’s something there because you can bet on the hot dog eating contest, too. You know, there are lines out there. That’s nasty. I’m sorry. That’s nothing nasty. I can’t watch that stuff. I can’t I mean, if they all want to do it, knock that stuff out there.

But that might be a lucky one. As to what they do to that, though, the pods you get the pod bones in the one is that me? And I’d rather do almost anything else a nap. It’s just off and that’s enjoyable at all. I go, Oh man, I mean, no. My gosh. So okay, let’s wrap this up as I don’t want to I don’t want to get into that any.

We’ve got some cool things coming up in the pipeline. Tropical cyclones in the Mediterranean Sea. We don’t think a lot about hurricane formations, tropical type formations and the Mediterranean. We’d be talking about that in the coming weeks. And also we’ve got a guest in the pipeline from Penn State who has been studying for ever. So we’re going to talk about hail in the weeks to come.

So lots of good stuff coming up there in the next coming a few weeks here on the Across the Sky podcast. But for now, with my colleagues in Atlantic City, Joe Martucci, Matt Holiner in Chicago, our meteorologist Sean Sublette at the Richmond Times Dispatch in Richmond, Virginia. Thanks for joining us on the Across the Sky podcast.