As if losing a bet on football wasn’t bad enough, now I can lose money on skee-ball too.
Of course sports gambling has been a massive market since being legalized in the United States a few years ago, with billions of dollars of bets placed annually through sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and countless other apps that allow you to bet on everything from who’s going to score the first touchdown in a football game to who’s going to win the women’s tennis match.
And once you’ve started placing bets, it can be a slippery slope from a casual bettor to degenerate gambler…
Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.
But if betting on professional or college athletes isn’t stressful enough, you’ll soon be able to bet on your drunk buddy playing Pop-A-Shot while his hands are covered in chicken wing sauce.
The arcade and restaurant chain Dave & Buster’s just announced that they will soon be rolling out the ability for guests to place real-time wagers on arcade games against other players. The betting option will be available through the app, and Lucra, the company that’s developing the platform, is careful not to call them “bets” or “wagers” to get around strict gaming regulations:
“We use real-money contests or challenges.”
Whatever you wanna call ’em buddy, just take my money and put 10 on the guy with the beer belly posted up at Mortal Kombat.
Of course the experience will be different than sports betting in that the wagers are placed against other players, meaning you’ll be betting against your friends or others instead of betting against the app itself. And Dave & Buster’s also said they’ll implement a limit on how much guests can bet, though they didn’t reveal what that limit would be.
I mean, just imagine having to go home and tell your wife that you lost all your savings because your high school best friend beat you at Pac Man…
Looks like it’s time to get really good at air hockey and go hustle some high school kids.
