In a world long known for horse racing and patterned carpets along a slew of tables on the Las Vegas Strip, a new gambling revolution has taken off on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Platforms like X have allowed handicappers to post their plays to the masses when they used to put their plays on a blog site,” said Colby Olson, who is a regular contributor on the Not Gambling Advice podcast.
With the rise of sports betting across the United States, the industry is growing in the number of active users and money being wagered online. X has become one of the most popular sites and apps for engaging in sports talk.
Some sports influencers with a presence on X gamble on games or give their followers betting advice. While, others try to make original content focused on betting but with an original twist.
Sports gambling is at an all time high in the United States with a Pew Research Center study finding that almost 1 in every 5 U.S. adults say that they bet on a sports event in the last 12 months, with only 6 percent in person.
Almost 3 billion dollars have been bet in three states, according to , not to mention the money being bet across the 28 other states where sports betting is legal.
Ben Fawkes, a longtime journalist in the sports betting industry, reported that as of August 2023, New York is leading the way in bets with $1.12 billion, with New Jersey second at $725.8 million and Nevada at $431 million.
Rhett Bollinger, a writer for MLB.com on the Angels beat, talked about the sports gambling world, stating some change in content is branded around bettors. Bollinger does a weekly injury recap, saying a big reason MLB.com updates it so frequently is because of the betting industry.
With a following into the thousands and daily content, these creators are sometimes met with hostility, hate messages and trolling on the micro-messaging social media platform. While some of the X influencers may just love sports, others are gambling their future by relentlessly promoting their sports gambling knowledge in search of a full-time opportunity.
The Sign of Change
Growing up in New York, Fawkes was thrown into the gambling and sports world, deciding to combine the two.
“I think once you are exposed to sports betting, even if you don't want to bet at all, it’s kind of a way to analyze the games, it's really interesting and just a different perspective,” Fawkes said.
Fawkes now has over 37,000 followers on X and thousands of responses and reactions on his daily tweets, never foresaw his social media rise.
“I think one of the things I was able to take advantage of at ESPN is you get all of these stats and info packets and really just about everything in sports relates to gambling in some way,” he said.
Fawkes differs from the majority of users on X as he shies away from making traditional picks against the spread or moneyline. Instead he uses his prior knowledge, giving the stats and figures of key games or events.
Fawkes’s previous jobs at outlets like DraftKings and ESPN gave him insider contacts at some of the sportsbooks. Through these contacts he gives pregame knowledge to his followers about high wagers and percentage of money bet on individual teams.
“It's something I enjoy doing on a very small scale,” Fawkes said. “Just because I've been in the industry for so long, I know how difficult it is … For me, it's a lot more enjoyable to kind of give out the information and then sit back and find storylines, as opposed to being like I got 14 bets in play today and I got the whole card out.”
Ben Fawkes about the changing betting landscape.
Photo courtesy of Ben Fawkes
Fawkes doesn’t believe much has changed on the reporting side from X due to the rise of social media influences. He stresses getting information to his target audience has become more of an importance with the rise of betting lines rapidly changing.
“Almost everything probably is a betting implication and certain things move markets potentially,” he said. “Tweeting out not opinions on things necessarily, but reporting facts because they have more sway probably than they even realize in the betting markets.”
Fawkes just like anyone else on X has a different job, as a freelance sports journalist. He doesn’t make any money off X, he just enjoys staying relevant in the field, while providing new content to the sports fans out there.
“You can't really believe what you see on Twitter, which is that it seems like all the Twitter users are winning. You wonder why anyone has a full time job.”
Gambling on a New Era of Social Influence?
By day, Kev Mahserejian is media associate for Fox Sports. But at night, you might see “RotoSurgeon” gaining viral attention on X for his sports insight.
Mahserejian has gained a following of 12,000 followers for his willingness to give sports advice and challenge notable sports figures.
“Some small nobody questioning them (bigger accounts) and then maybe being right,” he said.
“You accumulate correct decisions over and over and you maintain good relationships with your followers who build up over that time.”
Mahserejian doesn’t bet a lot himself. The one daily strategy advice Mahserejian gives is fantasy best ball picks as it is still fantasy football, but on a weekly basis, instead of season long.
As an X creator, Mahserejian sees this as a side gig that has turned into a larger following than he ever dreamed. Although he makes no money from the X profile itself, he runs a separate page and podcast. On Patreon, his audience of fantasy football gamblers, can pay him for a monthly subscription in order to get more in-depth material or opinions on all things fantasy football.
Earlier on, he felt a lot more hyper aware of giving poor gambling advice and wanted to make sure he made correct decisions all the time.
“But people, you know, at the end of the day, they're making the decisions.”
He sees himself more of a cog in a big machine (X) that multiple users are churning through hundreds of accounts throughout the day, retaining the gambling advice they want to bet on or will affect their fantasy team.
Mahserejian's X profile is shown above. In the audio clip he talks about how he gained his following of 13,000 people.
Photo courtesy of Kev Mahserejian's X profile
He points to his work at RotoBaller being more of a justified consensus ranking system of fantasy football players due to multiple sports gambling professionals sharing their opinion, rather than himself, who does this for fun and his own entertainment.
“I never imagined I'd hit more than 1000 followers, let alone like 11,000,” Mahserejian stated.
“But even so, I'm still an ant in a large ant farm. It's not like I'm special, but it is very nice to know that some people do listen to me.”
Adapting to the Changing Sports Industry
Ryan Hammer got popular for his content on social media surrounding college basketball and more arcane kinds of sports material like understanding contracts.
In the midst of 2021, both his X and TikTok accounts blew up from a couple hundred followers to thousands.
“I don't want to live and die by my career, by whether my picks are hitting or not."
- Ryan Hammer
X recently allowed creators to profit from the content they put out by monetizing content and having users pay to see the creator’s content. Hammer sees it sort of like the recent changing atmosphere of college sports allowing for athletes to profit from name, image and likeness (NIL). Because creators can now profit from their X page, Hammer sees a need for regulation of accounts that can tweet out false information for profit.
“It’s kind of like NIL money, where it needs regulation and better standards in place because right now, anyone can tweet out anything like Ballsack Sports,” says Hammer about meme accounts not getting any repercussions.
Thinking towards the future of gaining money from X, he thinks X has a lot of room for improvement and to grow. Hammer spoke highly of X’s ability to allow engagement with the audience and fans, growing his page by the interactions within the sports community.
Hammer would rather create content that can withstand time, rather than gambling football picks that go away once a game occurs.
“I don't want to live and die by my career, by whether my picks are hitting or not,” says Hammer.
Hammer prefers to keep creating content that isn’t centered around betting but could still draw in a crowd of bettors on X. Although he has done promos for betting apps, he tends to stay away from the niche field of handicapping for sports betting.
Ryan Hammer
X Fan Engagement
A Second Full Time Job
Much like Mahserejian and Fawkes, Hammer isn’t making his money from X but sees it as a potential revenue stream of the future for people like them.
Hammer is able to gain hundreds of dollars through each of his branded posts around sports gambling sites or promotions.
“It isn’t my full time job, but now the kind of brand deals I get money through the platform,” he said. “I start to see how lucrative it can be. I wouldn't call it a hobby anymore, now I have a second full time job.”