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Sports

Behind the Big Business of Football Gambling: VWOS

Amidst scandals, legislative battles and the new frontier of daily fantasy, the biggest debate in the world of sports today is gambling. Is it legal?

"When we went behind the book, we expected to see something maybe shadier, but it was just a bunch of guys at computers dressed business casual. It's a bit like "A Beautiful Mind," being able to see a game, injuries and weather, and historic matchups—all those factors come together in a way that it simply doesn't for your average person. Yet there still is this magic luck. The play [in Super Bowl XLIX, where Malcolm Butler picked off Russell Wilson in the end zone] was a perfect representation of: you may be an expert, but it just comes down to the fact that you're never going to be able to predict how things are going to go. If they punched it through, then billions and billions of dollars would have swung in the other direction. You can do all the calculations you want, but you can't predict that."

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- Evan Rosenfeld, VICE World of Sports Showrunner

Click here to see the rest of Season 1.