The flight attendant informed us there would be no Wi-Fi. She sounded cheery and calm. I was not. For the 3 hours 10 minutes it would take to reach Des Moines from New York, I would be unable to check the score in the Cleveland Guardians’ game against the San Diego Padres, or in the Washington Nationals’ game against the Seattle Mariners.
To be clear, I do not care about baseball. I do not have ties to those four teams or cities. But, on that particular August evening, I had money riding on the games.
Months after New York joined the states that allow you to wager on sports from your phone, I — a 30-something woman disinterested in both sports and gambling — was reporting on the rise of regulated sports betting in America.
