Jul 24, 2024

Whey to Go, It's Wednesday!

The Olympic Games starts on Friday, so we've got some cool previews. The latter half of today's newsletter also has a subtle, underlying theme: SPORTS BETTING. I warn you, however, it's a very subtle message that you could blink and miss. So don't blink.

Today's cheddlines:

Wishing you sharp instincts and gouda fortune this week, whatever you choose to do with them.

Matt Davis—Need2Know Chedditor

P.S. Meet Japan's latest railway employee, a 40-foot-tall robot, on our Instagram.

1. Congress Calls in CrowdStrike CEO for a Roasting

The U.S. House of Representatives has summoned CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to the hot seat. He's being asked to provide a full briefing on the cataclysmic tech outage that plunged the modern world into a chaos from which it will never emerge. Also, a lot of flights got canceled. My friend Sofia, for instance, had to spend an extra two days in Hawaii. The horror, the horror...

Anyway, given how the last congressional briefing ended—with the head of the Secret Service ~~committing seppuku~~ stepping down over Donald Trump's recent assassination attempt—this is hardly going to be a high point in Mr. Kurtz's career.

Here's a good prep question, George: "Why did your company, whose mission is computer security, in fact ground planes, prevent hospitals from carrying out vital surgeries, and prevent billions of dollars in global financial transactions? Are you, in fact, a James Bond villain?"

Beyond coming up with a brief answer for that one, my advice to George is to wear a suit and do his homework. He wants people screaming at him in a bunker for the next few days as exposure therapy. It's also probably worth remembering that a win, here, would be to emerge without billions of dollars in lawsuits bankrupting the company. To keep his job? Not so much. You can do it, man. I believe in you. Or better yet, get ChatGPT to write your talking points! Assuming you haven't crashed that one, too... Read More

2. Snoop Dogg Will Commentate on the Olympics!

The upcoming Paris Games start on Friday and feature 329 events, including 32 sports over two weeks, six hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone. NBC Sports will air the Games, and Jenny Storms, the chief marketing officer of sports and entertainment at NBC, is, understandably, "very excited."

"So many people are already over there—I head over this weekend," she said, failing to invite us along and put us up in a suite with our friends.

The opening ceremony will take place on the Seine. Snoop Dogg is doing commentary along with Kevin Hart, Leslie Jones and Keenan Thompson. Call Me Daddy" podcaster Alex Cooper is also in line for a commentary spot.

Snoop's "ability to bring the games to life through his own experiences and his own lens is really what we're looking for," Storms said. "His experience of talking to the athletes and asking them questions for our promotional campaign really has resonated so well. We expect that to continue as he appears in the games."

Plus, he is also going to be carrying the Olympic torch. That'll be useful if he needs to light a cigarette or...something. I think the only thing that could make the Olympics more exciting would be if I could gamble on them. Wait…I can gamble on them?! Watch Now

From @cheddar

Meet Japan's newest railway employee, a 40-foot-tall robot.

JR West, a railway company in Japan, has introduced a giant humanoid robot to handle maintenance tasks on its rail network.

The robot, resembling the character Wall-E, is controlled by a person sitting inside a cockpit on a truck. It has large arms that can be equipped with different tools and its hands are operated by the person using cameras in the robot's eyes for vision.

The enormous machine aims to address labor shortages and improve worker safety.

Follow @cheddar on Instagram!

3. You Can Totally Gamble on the Olympic$

True story, I love to gamble. As in, I can't walk into a casino with any money in my wallet or it will be gone by the time I walk out. In England I once tried to withdraw a thousand pounds in cash from an ATM so that I could bet the money on Ronnie "The Rocket" O'Sullivan in a snooker match (which is like pool but harder and more interesting and everybody used to smoke while they played). The ATM wouldn't give me the money, which was a shame, because I was certain Ronnie was going to win. It was a sure thing. I was angry at HSBC. Then Ronnie lost. I was grateful to HSBC. And that's when I realized: I should not gamble.

That said, apparently it is possible to gamble on sporting events without it being terrifying or problematic. A record 68 million Americans bet more than $20 billion on the most recent Super Bowl, for example. And I bet (ha ha) all of them were just fine afterwards, and it didn't, say, cause any of them a divorce or anything.

Gambling.com's Max Bichsel joined us to talk about people betting on the Olympics. "I don't believe it's as predominant as March Madness or the NFL or the NBA," he said. "But since the last Summer Olympics, we've had over ten states regulate and license online sports betting."

Woo-hoo! God bless the Supreme Court for repealing the law prohibiting sports betting. What could possibly go wrong there?

Gambling addiction "is something that we take very seriously as an industry," Bichsel said. "And there's many groups and organizations that promote responsible gambling and provide resources for people who are struggling with gambling addiction." Phew. Well, I'm sure that's all taken care of.

Swimming lends itself to sports betting "because people can clearly understand the rules and how the sport is competed," Bichsel said. Tennis, too. Men's basketball. Women's soccer. Imagine betting on those! (Dressage, not so much.)

Different states do have different rules on what you can and cannot wager on. You won't be able to bet on the breakdancing, sadly, because the subjective element in the judging means most states won't allow it. Now I find myself desperately wanting to bet on the breakdancing, for some reason. And you can use a bank card, apparently. You don't even need to go to an ATM! Watch Now

You Need 2 Know About This Box!

Meet the Sunset Box, a quarterly subscription service sending home, wellness, and travel goodies straight to your doorstep, curated by editors at mag Sunset, the Western-lifestyle magazine that just so happens to be a sister company of ours.

Since you clearly have good taste (you're an N2K subscriber, after all), we think you'll love this box. Use code CHEDDAR15 for 15% off your subscription.

Gimme the Box!

Note: Sadly does not contain any cheese.

4. More Americans Are Saving for Something Called 'Retirement'

Retirement is a joke for most Americans under 45. Like home ownership and a prescription for statins, it's something Boomers take for granted. So: Are we headed for a retirement crisis? It's a question media outlets and financial experts ask on an increasingly frequent basis, particularly when so much of consumers' money is about to be gambled down the toilet on the Olympics! Vanguard takes a closer look at the question in its annual How America Saves report, and senior wealth advisor Cassandra Rupp joined us with insights.

"Everything has been really showing positive progress," she said, failing to live up to her Greek-myth namesake, who was totally a hater. "We've seen year after year progress in the retirement savings of over 5 million American workers that we're surveying. This has been over 20 years that we're releasing this report."

So: Good news. Cassandra particularly highlighted automatic enrollment as a smart way for people to save through their employer, with low-cost, diversified target retirement date-based funds helping people hit their goals. That said, most Gen Xers have less than $50,000 saved for retirement and only one in five say they're ready to retire. Cassandra recommends figuring out what your goals are for later life and then joining a rock band and living fast, dying young. Or, er, worrying. Kidding. She didn't recommend either of those things. She did suggest coming up with some realistic plans that don't include counting on Social Security.

Gen Z, meanwhile, are saving at a higher rate, although God knows why. The climate apocalypse will be here before they're 70 and all their retirement savings will be good for is buying guns to fight for scraps of dry land in Vermont. Smoke 'em if you got 'em, kids. That's my advice, and Snoop Dogg's. Watch Now

5. TNT Will Match Amazon's $1.8 Billion Offer to Air NBA Games

You know who really loves to gamble on sports? Phoenix Suns great Charles Barkley. He's lost more than $25 million on big bets, he has said. And that's probably one of the reasons he's still working for TNT, co-anchoring one of the best-watched sports analysis shows on American television, which has won more than 19 sports Emmy Awards. (We hope he's putting money into a retirement account.)

There's talk that NBA on TNT might go away under the NBA's new $7.5 billion media rights deal. Except now, there is hope. TNT owner Warner Bros. has said it plans to match Amazon Prime Video's $1.8 billion yearly bid for game coverage.

As buzzer-beaters go, this move by Warner Bros. is as clutch as it gets. They've had to show they've got the financial muscle to compete, offering a bank's reassurance. With negotiations behind closed doors and high-stakes deliberations, we're all on the edge of our seats waiting for the NBA to call the final shot. This game is going into overtime! Read More