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1:48

everybody. Welcome back. This is Larry Wilmore.

1:50

You're listening to Black on the Air.

1:53

I'm back. And I'm back.

1:55

I'm back on the air. Black on the air. And

1:58

I'm back to Black on the Air. in the

2:00

air, been out on the road doing a

2:03

little show I was telling you guys about. And

2:05

man, I had so much fun. I have to

2:07

tell you guys, I saw so many of you

2:09

out there on the road and it was so

2:11

great seeing everybody. Like I said,

2:14

it was just a mini tour, just a few

2:16

cities, but every

2:18

place I went, man, people came out,

2:21

had some fun. We

2:23

had so much fun in the cities,

2:27

doing a little magic, which surprised some people

2:30

and we had some real funny, I

2:33

do jokes in the set, but the stuff that

2:35

happens live with the audience is always the most

2:38

fun stuff. So I just wanna really, really thank

2:40

everybody who came out to

2:42

the shows. So many special

2:44

people in so many different places.

2:47

Here in Hollywood, a lot of my friends came out

2:49

at the improv, had

2:53

a great time. We went up to Cobbs

2:55

in San Francisco. Man, I met so many

2:57

fans up there. And

2:59

let me just say, San Francisco is a fantastic place

3:01

for comedy, you guys. It really is. I had forgotten

3:03

how great a comedy town that is.

3:06

We were at Cobbs. My brother David came at

3:08

me and that was such

3:10

a fun audience. Really, really wild

3:12

show up there. And what a

3:14

great room Cobbs is too. So thanks to all

3:16

the people at Cobbs and at the Improv too.

3:18

Improv is just classic. That

3:21

new showroom, they've done so lot with the showroom

3:23

there, the Improv's really great. Then

3:25

we were off to City Winery in New

3:27

York. And by the way, really

3:30

special thanks to Morning Joe and the people

3:33

over there. It was a short, I was

3:35

on the show very short amount of time, but

3:38

it was so impactful. So many people came out to the

3:40

show after they saw my

3:43

spot on Morning Joe. So thanks Mika Brzezinski,

3:46

all the people over there hanging

3:48

out there for a few quick minutes.

3:50

It was funny because they said, so what is your show?

3:53

What are you doing? I'm like, well, I'm doing some magic.

3:55

They're like, magic. It was really funny.

3:58

Um. But, you

4:00

know, the magic that I do in the

4:02

show, it's really integrated into the theme and

4:08

the comedy of the show. And much of it, I don't

4:10

even know, some of it you can't even really say is

4:12

magic. It's really, it's kind of

4:14

some mind-bending thing. So I think

4:17

many people were pleasantly surprised.

4:21

New York, you know, a lot

4:23

of friends came out to there and saw a

4:25

lot of nice people, was fun. And

4:29

we played the Birchmere Theater in

4:32

Alexandria after that. Such

4:36

a cool like venue, kind of

4:38

an old school, people

4:41

would call it juke joint, like that kind of place where

4:44

you'd see like some real, some real

4:46

cool bands. I bet they have great bands that play

4:48

in that place. It's just set up. Most

4:50

of these places, by the way, are set up for live

4:52

music. So it's unusual to have comedy people in them. Although,

4:54

City Winery does a lot of comedy. But

4:57

the Birchmere, man, all the people there, thank

4:59

you so much, you guys, met

5:01

so many fans afterwards. Lot

5:04

of podcast fans came to that show. People listened

5:06

to the podcast. So hey, nice to see you

5:08

guys again. And

5:11

then we went off to Philly, which is

5:13

always fun. My

5:16

brother and I had a really good time just

5:18

hanging out in Philly for a little bit too.

5:22

And great staff there. And then we wound

5:24

up in Chicago, man. Chicago, let me tell

5:26

you something. It

5:29

was so much fun in Chicago. A lot of

5:31

my, you know, my family's from Chicago. My parents

5:33

are there, were born there, grew up there.

5:36

Many of my relatives are there. So all my cousins

5:38

came out and they were hilarious. But

5:43

that was one of the funnest shows because

5:46

some of the people from the audience were

5:48

just hilarious. They were so funny. There was

5:50

a guy named, what was

5:52

his name? Was it, oh, it was Ronnie. I

5:55

thought it was, well, I thought it

5:57

was Randy or something. And it was, I can't

5:59

remember. I got the name wrong. I just completely

6:01

got his name wrong. And I've called him by

6:04

the wrong name the whole time. It was pretty

6:06

funny. But

6:08

I just wanna thank everybody for coming out to

6:10

the show. It's definitely something I like to do

6:13

again. Maybe

6:15

this particular show, we've

6:17

had such a great response from it. My

6:21

people, my people, you know that expression.

6:24

We're already talking about trying to

6:26

do, I don't know, maybe do different things

6:28

with it. Who knows, it might evolve into

6:30

something. This always was intended as kind of an

6:32

experiment, anyway, to get out there and

6:35

try to see what it was. So

6:38

I did a lot of experimenting doing

6:40

it and a lot of stuff just

6:42

really, really clicked in terms of being

6:44

fun and talking about America, that

6:47

type of thing. But the biggest thing was getting out there

6:50

and just meeting you guys, meeting the fans, interacting,

6:54

just shooting the shit. We even had

6:56

drinks together, took pictures, things like that.

6:58

Just, you know, I really

7:00

hung out with people a long time. And we

7:02

just, sometimes we were just talking and having good

7:05

conversations. So thanks for making me feel at home,

7:07

everybody. I really, really, really wanna

7:09

thank everybody out there for that. So

7:11

I will say this, if

7:14

I did not make your city, which there's

7:17

a lot of cities, of course, I

7:19

have not come out to, please

7:21

keep mentioning it

7:24

on X or Instagram, Facebook, wherever

7:26

it is, we interact, just

7:29

tell me. And I'll try to

7:31

put together another one of these things. The

7:35

thing with me is sometimes it's hard for me

7:37

to travel. So it's good if I can string things together

7:40

like over a couple of weeks and hit as many cities

7:42

as I can, just because of my schedule, just

7:45

trying to fit everything in. So

7:48

if we can do this again, there's so many places

7:51

I'd like to go. And I heard people

7:53

from Toronto, yes, I would love to go to

7:55

Toronto. Thanks for asking about that. Some friends down

7:58

in Houston asked about that. But

34:00

that was during that big poker boom

34:02

that happened back then. The poker boom

34:04

that kind of began with

34:07

Chris Moneymaker in 2003 was kind of this... That's

34:10

right. Chris Moneymaker. That's right. He's

34:12

like his perfect name. I know.

34:15

And he's like just a boring... He's actually a

34:17

really nice guy. I met him once or twice.

34:19

This consultant guy who just hits it

34:21

rich and lives everybody's dream. And

34:24

that plus the availability of the internet, poker on

34:26

the internet really caused a boom. And that show,

34:28

World Poker Tour, I remember was big too. World

34:31

Poker Tour is still around. I mean, poker has had like

34:33

a little bit of a revival. The

34:36

pandemic, people had more time on

34:38

their hands and they were

34:40

lacking risk. They couldn't do very much. And

34:43

so poker really boomed in the pandemic and

34:45

is now... Like the online

34:47

games are complicated because there's long and short of it. There's

34:49

a fair amount of cheating. But

34:52

the live games are still

34:54

very popular. At least the tournaments are. So we're in

34:56

the shadow of the second boom is what you're saying?

34:58

We're in the shadow of it. Not as big as

35:00

the first boom, but the World Series of Poker got

35:02

a record number of

35:04

participants for two years in a row. But yeah, it

35:06

was just being mad at Congress

35:09

for banning my livelihood

35:11

that got me engaged in covering

35:13

politics. And one thing

35:16

that it seems to me

35:18

that the language that you're

35:20

using was different. But to

35:23

me, I think people treated

35:25

it the same, but you were actually speaking

35:28

a different language, it seems like, as an

35:30

example. It feels like

35:32

you were dealing... And

35:34

I may not use the right words here, but

35:37

you were dealing with like pure

35:39

probability and odds, right? Which says,

35:41

well, anything can happen. These are

35:43

just the odds. Yeah. Right.

35:46

People were treating those

35:49

as certain outcomes

35:51

that were more certain because if

35:53

the odds are like 80 to

35:55

20 or 90 to 10, that's

35:57

a certain outcome in their minds.

44:00

Um, but you, what you're trying to find

44:02

are like, you know, a lot of players like, well, we

44:04

have to be very precise about this and that what you

44:06

want to find are like the big leaks that you have

44:08

the big blunders that you're making or,

44:10

or the failure to take advantage of good

44:12

opportunities. I mean, for the most part in

44:14

poker, you make your money from

44:17

the bad players, obviously, and you make more

44:19

from the bad players than you lose

44:21

the good players. So often, often

44:23

one player will be the reason that a whole game

44:25

is going on. A table of eight or nine players,

44:28

there's one fish or whale they're called.

44:30

If they're a high stakes fish, there's one whale

44:32

and the minute the whale leaves the game drives

44:34

up. So this fish is

44:38

the player that isn't you guys. That is the

44:40

sucker at the table. Is that what the fish

44:42

is? The fish is a sucker, a donkey,

44:45

a dog, a fun player, a

44:47

VIP. There are a lot

44:49

of nicknames for this breed of, of, of a

44:51

poker athlete. And if they have a lot of

44:53

money, they're a whale. That's what it is. That's

44:55

right. Yeah. Yeah. A whale and the whale term

44:58

is used. The gambling

45:00

industry is like whale

45:02

hunting, really, right? They want people

45:05

who are spending hundreds of thousands

45:07

of dollars in betting per trip.

45:10

And if you do that, then you'll get any

45:12

suite that you want. Any,

45:15

because it's Vegas, right? Any

45:17

female attention that you want, right?

45:20

There's some things you shouldn't ask for, but

45:22

yeah, the VIP patrons are treated very, very

45:24

well by the casinos. Does Vegas make most

45:26

of its money from like

45:29

a lot of select whales or all

45:31

the little guppies that are coming into

45:33

the casino, not even the fish,

45:35

just even the guppies. There's really

45:38

three markets, right? Um, the

45:40

top tier market, if you're going to like the wind or

45:43

the area or Bellagio, places like that, that's

45:46

a market for, for whales

45:48

first and foremost. Um, they

45:50

want really, really, really high

45:52

rollers. And, and

45:54

because, you know, one person coming in to spend

45:57

$300 on slots versus one person who will bet

45:59

three million. million on Baccarat for a weekend. I

46:01

mean, just do the math, right? It's 10,000 times

46:03

more valuable. The middle

46:06

market is

46:08

kind of a loyalty and rewards, like a

46:10

frequent flyer program basically, right? They rely on

46:13

regular business. Of course, they still like their

46:15

whales, but they

46:17

want more the guys who are

46:19

going a couple of times

46:21

a year. Then there's a locals market,

46:24

which is some of the more

46:26

depressing places on

46:28

earth. And that's, you know, that is frankly

46:30

relying on people who are

46:32

compulsive slot machine players, to put

46:35

it bluntly, who

46:37

are probably not particularly well off. Like

46:39

some of the rundown casinos, they don't even have

46:41

blackjack tables anymore. They might have

46:43

some electronic games, but yeah, those people are

46:46

just there to, you know, punch

46:48

quarters and not even quarters anymore, but

46:50

to press buttons on slot machines. And

46:53

that part of the market, you know,

46:55

I spent a lot of time in casinos

46:57

writing the book. I'm not bothered by, I

47:00

enjoy my time in Vegas, but like that

47:02

part of the market can be pretty depressing.

47:04

Yeah. You mentioned that many of the people

47:06

who do the slot machines are really different

47:09

from the other gamblers. Like you describe them

47:11

as people that really are there for an

47:13

escape and winning really doesn't matter as much

47:15

as the escape of playing the slots themselves.

47:18

Is that accurate? Yeah. There'll be things like

47:21

they will be playing so much

47:23

they haven't realized that like they feed their pants

47:25

or things like that. It

47:27

gets dark, Larry. And

47:29

yeah, when you win a slot jackpot,

47:32

like alarm sound and like some attendant

47:34

comes over to like give you like

47:36

a 1099 form tax form and things

47:38

like that. And it's quite disruptive

47:41

and some people don't want that. They want to

47:43

just keep playing to keep playing. And, you

47:46

know, it's similar technology, not coincidentally

47:48

to the technology used by like

47:51

Facebook and Twitter and Tik Tok and Instagram

47:53

to get people to continuously scroll. If you,

47:55

if you play a slot machine, there's

47:58

never any natural break. They

50:00

tend to be pretty big spenders. They

50:02

tend to tip pretty

50:04

well, right? They tend to like taking nice

50:08

vacations, right? Spin

50:10

a lot on golf and sports and things like that.

50:13

I think they kind of recognize the ephemeral nature of

50:16

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of Ford or its affiliates. What

51:26

traits make the best poker player today?

51:29

And has that changed over

51:31

time? Like since Joe Brunson wrote his

51:33

book and kind of created

51:36

the modern poker player, it seems like with,

51:38

is it a GTO, Game Theory or

51:40

something like that? GTO is the shorthand

51:42

for Game Theory Optimal Play. Game Theory

51:44

Optimal Play. Okay, explain what that is.

51:47

And has that changed how poker kind

51:49

of operates? Oh yeah, totally. Like to

51:51

the point where if you took like

51:54

an average player from a tournament today and

51:56

put him or her back 25

51:59

years ago, they'd be one of the... river

58:00

in general. Certainly traits

58:02

like attention to detail,

58:04

right? Traits

58:07

like not caring as much about what

58:09

the rest of society think, sorry, traits

58:11

that are associated with the

58:13

spectrum. Although the spectrum is also, I talked

58:15

to like one of the world's leading autism

58:17

researchers, who is Simon Baron Cohen, who's actually

58:19

related to Sasha Baron Cohen. To Sasha, I'm

58:22

sorry. And

58:25

I mean, the whole spectrum thing itself is kind of

58:27

complicated. It's like these five

58:29

different categories that, you know,

58:31

most people are not a five out of five. They might

58:33

rate strongly on one or two of

58:36

these domains and not others. What's

58:38

unusual is that usually people who are on the

58:40

spectrum are pretty risk averse. They

58:43

want routine and regularity, whereas that

58:45

doesn't necessarily work in gambling where you have

58:47

uncertainty. Yeah, routine is what they crave. Yeah,

58:49

they don't want things to change. So

58:51

I think it makes for a really unusual person. So, okay,

58:54

say what you want about Elon Musk. Now he's

58:56

jumping up and down in truck rallies and things

58:59

like that, right? But like, but he is someone who

59:01

identifies as having Asperger's,

59:05

but also is very, very risk

59:07

loving. Right. I think that

59:09

combination is unusual, but

59:11

can lead to high variance outcomes,

59:14

right? Like, you know, some of the hedge fund

59:16

guys probably fall, fall into that

59:18

camp too, right? It was very analytical, but they

59:20

just really liked to take risk almost as a

59:22

matter of, I don't know,

59:25

right? Almost like, is their duty, I

59:27

think. Yeah. You make a distinction between

59:29

what you call foxes and hedgehogs. Tell

59:31

us what those are and who are

59:33

those people? So foxes are people who

59:36

are good at many little things, whereas

59:38

a hedgehog is good at one big

59:40

thing. Okay. In general, I think

59:42

we're in a world where, where

59:45

it helps to be a fox. I

59:47

mean, especially if you're in media, right? You have like a lot of little hustle

59:50

for different things. You can write a little bit. You

59:52

can do some TV, you know how to negotiate as

59:54

a business. You promote yourself on social media, like, you

59:57

know, that's kind of a very fox-like mentality.

59:59

and gamblers are mostly like that. And the

1:00:01

reason why, especially like sports betters is because

1:00:04

like big edges don't

1:00:06

last for very long. Right.

1:00:09

You can have a big edge for a short period of time or

1:00:11

a small persistent edge, but in business

1:00:14

and sports betting and poker, you

1:00:16

don't just have piles of money lying on the table

1:00:18

for infinite durations of time. And so people

1:00:21

who can pivot and find like

1:00:23

the next opportunity tend to do better

1:00:25

than like the hedgehogs who are very all in

1:00:27

on one approach. Give me an example of who

1:00:29

you would describe as a fox and who you

1:00:32

would describe as a hedgehog. So

1:00:34

someone who will be known to the Ringer family. So

1:00:37

Bob Folgeris is a former MBA

1:00:40

professional sports better and

1:00:43

then left that to go consult for

1:00:45

the Dallas Mavericks and then left

1:00:47

that to go do a bunch of crypto trading and

1:00:49

then left that to go own

1:00:51

like a Spanish soccer team, which

1:00:53

is now progressing the divisions, hoping to one day

1:00:56

compete with the Real Madrid's and whatever. So he's

1:00:58

somebody who's like, yeah, things

1:01:00

are gonna dry up for a period of a couple, after a period of

1:01:02

a couple of years and you have to move on and find like the

1:01:04

next, I mean, hustle is

1:01:06

the wrong term, but he's an example

1:01:08

of that. Whereas maybe

1:01:10

Elon Musk is actually more of a hedgehog,

1:01:13

I guess, right? He's kind of very, very all

1:01:15

in on whatever he's doing at any given time.

1:01:17

Although I think he has a lot of bandwidth

1:01:20

to juggle different things, but

1:01:23

he's more ideological, right?

1:01:25

When he founded SpaceX,

1:01:28

according to his kind of friend of me,

1:01:30

Peter Thiel, he's like, yeah, I'm just

1:01:32

gonna do this, right? I don't care about the odds, I'm just gonna

1:01:34

do this and not play

1:01:36

the percentages just because I don't see why it can't be done.

1:01:39

I am the person to do it and

1:01:41

therefore we're gonna make it work. So the

1:01:44

hedgehogs are people that are more idealistic in

1:01:46

terms of following a certain set of ideals

1:01:48

that they adhere to. And

1:01:50

that's our thing, whereas Foxes

1:01:53

are more strategy oriented. Is that it?

1:01:55

Where they're looking more- Strategic is a

1:01:57

great word, I think, to describe Foxes.

1:02:00

And they're more willing to be self-critical

1:02:04

and to change plans potentially.

1:02:08

Foxes are concerned

1:02:10

about overconfidence where his hedgehogs

1:02:12

are supremely confident, which is again,

1:02:14

why I mention him on the next, because

1:02:17

he has no half felt

1:02:20

beliefs, right? If he's gonna endorse

1:02:22

Trump, then he's literally

1:02:24

going to the rallies and

1:02:27

doing everything he can, right? There aren't

1:02:29

any half measures, but in

1:02:32

business that seems to work actually

1:02:34

in like startup type environments. It's like, well,

1:02:36

we're really gonna like, it's

1:02:39

balls out on this project all the

1:02:41

time and we can fire the 80%

1:02:43

of Twitter engineers who aren't in this

1:02:45

mentality. And I guess the

1:02:47

software still works, whatever else you think of the

1:02:50

political environment on Twitter, I mean, the software works

1:02:52

well enough. And so, but yeah, that's

1:02:54

the more hedgehog mentality, which

1:02:57

is unusual in the river. Usually you have

1:03:00

mostly Foxes who know a lot about a little

1:03:03

bit about a lot of different things. So would

1:03:06

you put Elon in the river? Is that

1:03:08

what you're saying? I think you have to,

1:03:11

because even though he is more impulsive

1:03:14

than some people, I mean, he

1:03:18

certainly is an amazing

1:03:20

gambler. If you read the Walter Isaacson

1:03:22

biography of Elon Musk, it

1:03:24

tells an anecdote about him playing poker. Literally he just

1:03:26

goes all in every hand and just

1:03:28

pulls out more money until he wins, right? And then

1:03:30

quits. That's

1:03:34

the ultimate bully approach to poker.

1:03:37

I've got a bigger stack, so I'm just gonna

1:03:39

keep doing this. Yeah, and if you haven't played

1:03:41

poker, it's played for table stakes. You can't be,

1:03:43

keep like, I don't really Elon Musk, I

1:03:46

bet $220 billion and you have to go to the

1:03:48

bank. No, it's not like

1:03:50

that. You play for the money that you have in front of you. But

1:03:54

yeah, he is just pure

1:03:56

degenerate gambler when you play the poker, according

1:03:58

to Walter Isaacson's book. What

1:04:00

type makes the best leaders, do you think?

1:04:02

Like we have industry,

1:04:04

politics, maybe

1:04:07

academia. What makes the best leaders in, let's

1:04:10

say, politics? You know, I don't even know

1:04:12

that many. When you meet

1:04:14

politicians, like if you meet like a senator, they're usually

1:04:16

kind of weird, right? They have this like wax figure

1:04:18

quality, I think. Senator sometimes,

1:04:20

remember, politics is in the village. So,

1:04:23

you know, usually they are people who are, who

1:04:26

are very good coalition

1:04:29

builders. Joe Biden,

1:04:31

especially in his younger years, was very

1:04:33

effective at like calling

1:04:36

donors, building coalitions, making

1:04:40

friends and allies and not enemies. And like,

1:04:42

that's the core skill set for politics,

1:04:45

which to me sounds terrible. Like you have to go

1:04:47

on some phone call and have some weird chicken

1:04:50

dinner at some rich person's house or

1:04:52

something. That seems horrible. That's

1:04:56

what their lives are, really. Because they're always,

1:04:58

just think about Congress. I mean,

1:05:00

at least in the Senate, it's every six years.

1:05:03

In the Congress, every year you're trying to raise

1:05:05

money because it's only a two year term. So

1:05:07

once you get in, you're already raising for the

1:05:09

next term. Yeah, look, even Donald

1:05:11

Trump, for as much as he defies the

1:05:15

norms and rules of politics,

1:05:18

you know, if you talk to people who have been

1:05:20

in rooms with him, like, yeah, he's very charming, right?

1:05:22

He will, or at least when he was younger, right?

1:05:24

He would remember your name and know how to charm

1:05:26

you, and know how to network around people

1:05:28

who have a lot of money. Even

1:05:31

to the point of being petty, right? Like

1:05:34

calling him to complain about a headline or he

1:05:36

got a person, he

1:05:38

got an analyst fired for saying

1:05:40

that his Atlantic City casinos were going

1:05:42

to fail because

1:05:45

he had taken out loans at like a 17%

1:05:47

interest rate, which of course they did. Right,

1:05:51

of course. Yeah, it's pretty

1:05:53

hard to lose

1:05:55

money in the casino business, but he managed to

1:05:57

do it. But even he has some

1:08:00

blighted piece of land. And we're like, what if we put like

1:08:02

a nice hotel there, right? And just

1:08:04

kind of, you know, seeing a couple of

1:08:06

moves. Like, yeah, I was having this debate

1:08:08

with, at a poker game last night, right?

1:08:10

About whether Trump is smart or

1:08:12

not. And

1:08:14

it's a pretty Harris

1:08:17

supporting crowd, this particular poker game. And I'm

1:08:19

like, of course Trump is smart,

1:08:22

right? I mean, smart

1:08:25

people are often their own worst

1:08:27

enemies too. All the Walter Rodgers and

1:08:29

books about these geniuses are about people

1:08:31

who are very much tortured by

1:08:33

their demons, whether it's Elon Musk

1:08:35

or Steve Jobs or whomever else.

1:08:38

Yeah, I find Trump not to be

1:08:40

smart. I feel like he's

1:08:43

clever, but he's also dumb as a post.

1:08:45

Like he's both of those things, you know?

1:08:47

Yeah. But he's very clever to me. Like

1:08:50

he's figured something out, but

1:08:53

he almost plays a hand too many

1:08:55

times, like the same hand. You

1:08:58

know, a good poker player would learn how to

1:09:00

beat him. It would seems pretty quick, but he

1:09:02

does play a certain hand. But

1:09:04

there's so many things he just seems, I

1:09:07

don't know, just shut off from the knowledge of, for

1:09:09

whatever reason, I don't know how he could live so

1:09:11

long. They say knowledge about some

1:09:13

things. I think it's really hard, right? Because

1:09:15

in the book, I met more, you know,

1:09:17

millionaires and billionaires than I ever had in

1:09:20

my life. And like, it's very hard not

1:09:22

to let that go to your

1:09:24

head, right? You're in

1:09:27

bubbles. You're in bubbles. You're in bubbles. You

1:09:30

get to a point where you never should have

1:09:32

to worry for money unless you really fuck up,

1:09:34

right? And so like, you know, some of these

1:09:36

guys will formulate political opinions, you know,

1:09:38

whether you're on wall street or Silicon Valley or

1:09:41

Hollywood, which guys in all these

1:09:43

professions where it's like, that's a really stupid political opinion that

1:09:45

shows you don't know what you're talking about. But

1:09:49

there's no, yeah, but people don't

1:09:51

know any better or they

1:09:53

start to hear something that they kind of, it's like

1:09:56

this game of telephone where like, you

1:09:58

repeat something then it gets repeated back to

1:10:00

you. you're like, oh, all the smart people

1:10:02

are are saying the same thing. It's like

1:10:04

just kind of a literal echo chamber half

1:10:06

the time. Real fascinating, just real fascinating. All

1:10:08

these types and stuff. Before

1:10:11

you go, you know, I wanted to get a

1:10:13

couple of predictions from you. See what we can

1:10:15

get. You know, let's start with

1:10:17

the election. If you had to predict somebody and it's

1:10:19

good because it's even right now, which is good, as

1:10:21

you say. We're talking about

1:10:23

this on Wednesday, October 15th. As

1:10:26

of today, it is a dead heat in

1:10:28

terms of the popular vote. And

1:10:30

is Trump slightly ahead in the

1:10:33

electoral right now? No, the

1:10:35

popular vote is Harris is a heavy favorite

1:10:37

in the popular vote, like a three to

1:10:39

one favorite. The electoral college is 50 50 50 50.

1:10:44

If you were to make a prognastication

1:10:46

based on that information, what

1:10:48

would you say? Well, that's 50. So I am going to. It's

1:10:51

50 50, Mr. Poker player. I'm going to random.

1:10:53

I'm going to randomize 50 50 all the time. I'm

1:10:55

going to randomize. I'm going to look at the last digit of

1:10:58

my phone. Oh, and if it's

1:11:00

even, I'll predict Harris and if it's I

1:11:02

predict Trump. It's even. So

1:11:04

I'm predicting Harris. Just like the puppy bowl. No,

1:11:07

it's like you might as well. I mean, they have this puppy.

1:11:09

No, no, no, no. Yankees games now. Yeah,

1:11:11

I I I really don't have it on

1:11:14

your phone. Blame me on your phone. I

1:11:16

really don't have any any instinct beyond the

1:11:18

model because and there are

1:11:20

times when I would like when. So you're only

1:11:22

going by the model. You're not going by your

1:11:24

observation of anything else. Yeah, look, I mean, I

1:11:27

you know, I could equally

1:11:29

compelling portraits to you of why each

1:11:32

candidate wins. Right. If Harris wins and

1:11:34

it's probably a story about about

1:11:37

having really motivated voters and having a

1:11:39

better turn out operation, maybe a

1:11:41

story about pollsters being scared

1:11:43

to miss low on Trump

1:11:45

again. Right. If it's Trump winning, it might be about the

1:11:49

momentum in the last week of the campaign. And the fact

1:11:51

is that like, look,

1:11:54

in parties all around the world, parties that

1:11:56

were in charge of things during COVID, even

1:11:58

though Trump was actually. in charge during COVID,

1:12:00

but Biden gets blamed for this. But

1:12:03

incumbent parties are having a rough go of things and

1:12:05

we had inflation hit 9% for

1:12:07

a period of time. And then Biden went

1:12:09

in prison until he was 86 and

1:12:12

kind of had to be ushered out.

1:12:14

And Harris

1:12:17

is trying to become a historic president. We've

1:12:20

never had a women president before. The Electoral

1:12:22

College favors Trump. So

1:12:26

there won't be a short effect of explanations if

1:12:28

Trump were to be reelected. Take

1:12:31

that for what you want, everybody

1:12:33

out there. Okay, World Series

1:12:35

is coming up. We

1:12:37

got four teams in the mix, as we're speaking right

1:12:39

now, one of them being my Dodgers.

1:12:43

Any odds favoring anybody right now at

1:12:45

this point in the game? I mean,

1:12:47

the betting markets say the Yankees, I

1:12:50

think. If I could say nothing as we're

1:12:52

taping this, right? The

1:12:56

Dodgers, you're kind of, my dad grew up a

1:12:58

Dodgers fan, I don't wanna like crash

1:13:00

the Dodgers. It's kind of a weird brand. Like why are

1:13:02

there, like LA is so chill and then it seems like

1:13:04

there are lots of fights and stuff at Dodger Stadium, I

1:13:06

don't know. Well, you gotta know

1:13:09

LA to know that. In New York, we're

1:13:11

rooting for a Subway series, obviously.

1:13:13

Yeah, and nobody cares about that. Only

1:13:16

New York cares about that. New York has kind of had

1:13:18

crappy luck in sports for a long

1:13:20

period of time, right? I moved here in 2009, I think

1:13:23

the Yankees won that. When

1:13:25

was the last time the Giants won in 2011? We've gone like

1:13:27

a decade without any championships.

1:13:29

Yeah, the Knicks, 1973. It's

1:13:31

been a long time for the Knicks. And

1:13:34

New York is a fantastic sports fan, sports

1:13:36

town when they win. It's

1:13:39

so weird to say the underdogs, right? Because

1:13:41

it's like the richest city in the world, right? You

1:13:43

guys are horrible losers, but very good winners,

1:13:46

very good. Super

1:13:49

Bowl, any favorites right now? Who are the favorites

1:13:51

for Super Bowl? Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC.

1:13:54

Who's the NFC favorite? I assume

1:13:56

it's the Chiefs and then... I

1:14:00

don't know, I mean, I'm a Lions fan. So

1:14:02

I've been ready. That's a pretty

1:14:04

good bet. Cause you can bet on who's gonna be in the Super Bowl,

1:14:06

right? Of course you can. Yeah. So

1:14:09

if you're betting today, who's gonna be in Super

1:14:11

Bowl? Lions chiefs, is that a

1:14:13

good bet? Lions chiefs, yeah. I was gonna

1:14:15

go with the Lions made

1:14:17

it cause I am 46, I'm

1:14:20

a Lions fan. And until last year they had

1:14:22

won one playoff game in

1:14:24

my lifetime, right? So I'm like, if the Lions

1:14:26

make it, I just have to go

1:14:28

to Vegas and get two tickets and

1:14:31

I don't care how expensive it is, right? So

1:14:33

then blowing, I came to the 49ers, probably

1:14:35

saved me like a $20,000 tickets and hotels and

1:14:40

stuff like that. Maybe I would have made

1:14:42

it up at the poker, but yeah. Okay,

1:14:45

here's my alternate bet. Vikings Ravens, there

1:14:47

you go. That's a good bet.

1:14:49

Okay, I like that. Vikings Ravens, okay. That's the

1:14:51

underdog one. But I like the first one.

1:14:53

NBA, who at the beginning

1:14:56

of the season, which you

1:14:58

bet on right now to be in the NBA

1:15:00

finals. You don't have to bet the winner. Boring,

1:15:02

but I would go Celtics,

1:15:05

Thunder. I mean, the Celtics are

1:15:08

really good and really deep. I guess I don't know if Rosingas

1:15:10

is out for the start of the year or not. Okay,

1:15:13

see, man, they were. The Thunder,

1:15:15

really? You picked the Thunder for the finals? Yeah.

1:15:18

Yeah. Oh, man. They're really good.

1:15:21

They added former Nick Isiah

1:15:23

Hartenstein. Well, yeah,

1:15:25

he's gonna make the difference. No,

1:15:29

they're like their youngest remember to advance to

1:15:31

that stage of the playoffs, I

1:15:33

think. And like, this is one of the things that

1:15:35

is predictable in sports is that like, when

1:15:37

you're young, you get better quickly. So

1:15:42

I think the Thunder are gonna be a very good team. Yeah,

1:15:44

I think they'll be good. I mean, it'd be interesting to

1:15:47

see how Memphis does this year with their team back, you

1:15:49

know, if they

1:15:51

have a team. They're coming a bit overlooked. I like

1:15:53

that. Dallas

1:15:55

is gonna be tough. You can't sleep on

1:15:57

the Mavs. They're gonna be a good team.

1:15:59

Yeah. I was wagering a lot against

1:16:02

the Mavericks last year, so that didn't work

1:16:04

out very well. Yeah, and I would choose

1:16:06

somebody other than the Celtics. I don't like

1:16:08

that bet. Last

1:16:10

one, this is just for me, Masters,

1:16:12

because he follows in golf and everything.

1:16:15

I don't know what else about golf, I could maybe random

1:16:17

with Scotty Scheffler, he's a good golfer, right? I was gonna

1:16:19

say, Scotty Scheffler gotta do it, dude. That's about how much

1:16:22

I'm gonna win. Does Tiger have one more in him? Okay,

1:16:24

here's the bet. This

1:16:26

bet has to be out there. Will Tiger

1:16:28

win another tournament? Not even a major. Will

1:16:30

he win another tournament? What's the

1:16:32

money on that? Is that good money or is

1:16:35

that bad money? Can it be a senior

1:16:37

event? Nope, gotta

1:16:39

be a PGA. Regular PGA tour. Yeah.

1:16:42

I think the odds should be like plus 150

1:16:44

or something, like a slight underdog. Apparently

1:16:46

it was a good bet when

1:16:48

Tiger was making his comeback to bet

1:16:51

against Tiger making the cut of

1:16:53

various events, right? Because these feel good

1:16:55

stories, like, nah, I don't want the

1:16:58

feel good, right? That's

1:17:01

an interesting bet. When somebody's doing

1:17:03

a particular thing, people

1:17:05

betting against it or that type of thing,

1:17:07

it's kind of interesting. It's hard to know,

1:17:10

because yeah, usually the crowd favorites are over-hyped

1:17:12

in betting markets, but now and then, I

1:17:14

remember watching a Serena

1:17:16

Williams match, the last one she won at the

1:17:18

US Open a couple of years ago. And

1:17:21

she did find that magic for one more match,

1:17:24

right? To win the second

1:17:26

round match. Clearly

1:17:28

not herself physically, but yeah,

1:17:31

look, I think as you get older,

1:17:34

then it's a sustained effort that's hard.

1:17:36

But maybe for one more, you know,

1:17:38

I mean, the Warriors winning that title

1:17:41

a couple of years ago was also, not

1:17:43

like they're that old, right? But like that was

1:17:45

kind of amazing too. I think quit Ceph and

1:17:47

company in like a different stratosphere. They had a

1:17:49

good run. Are they done? I think the West

1:17:51

is just too tough. I mean,

1:17:54

they were gonna try to get Lowry marketing. They'd have

1:17:56

to make some trade. I

1:17:58

just think they're like. Andrew Wiggins

1:18:01

has not been very good recently. It's

1:18:03

hard to see them winning four playoff

1:18:05

series. Are my Lakers done? Should

1:18:07

we just like, you

1:18:09

know, move on? Like

1:18:11

LeBron, it's time to go. Maybe if

1:18:14

Bronny is really good. No, I don't know. Bronny

1:18:16

is really good. I

1:18:19

like the Lakers roster like a little bit more

1:18:21

than the worry. It's just a matter of like,

1:18:24

you know, they were healthy as

1:18:26

you might hope for last year, LeBron

1:18:28

and AD, right? And

1:18:30

no one else was them. That's the problem. Yeah,

1:18:33

I mean, there's a word. I mean, look, there's

1:18:35

still probably both top 10 players.

1:18:39

So in principle, if the kind of rest of

1:18:42

the core clicked, I

1:18:44

would take, if I had sick a flyer on the

1:18:46

Lakers, I'd take it before the Warriors, I think. All

1:18:48

right, there you go, everybody. Nate

1:18:51

Silver, predicting my Lakers are winning NBA championship. That's

1:18:53

not a prediction. He said it right here. He

1:18:55

said it first. That's where the

1:18:57

good money is. And Bronny will get the

1:18:59

winning shot. He

1:19:02

scored the tag. Nate,

1:19:05

so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you,

1:19:07

man. I went back and started watching more poker.

1:19:09

So if I was reading your book, I hadn't

1:19:11

watched it in so long and I was like,

1:19:13

oh yeah. Oh, somebody just said fish. Oh wow,

1:19:15

look at this. You

1:19:17

know, I started hearing all the terms that I

1:19:19

didn't know what they were. And now suddenly they're,

1:19:22

you know, I was understanding so much more

1:19:24

watching it. It's real interesting. I

1:19:27

love watching poker. I find it fascinating

1:19:29

because I like human behavior, you know, and I just, I

1:19:31

love seeing people not know what to do

1:19:33

with bluffs. It's very entertaining, you know? It

1:19:35

is very, and the innovation of you get

1:19:37

to see what they have, right? So you

1:19:40

have like this X-ray vision basically. It's

1:19:43

great for TV. Yeah, it really is

1:19:45

great. Nate Silver, everybody. Get

1:19:48

his book. Nate, thank

1:19:50

you so much for being here.

1:19:52

It's on the edge, the art of risking everything. He's

1:19:54

not telling you to risk everything. He's just telling you

1:19:57

just how it works. If I did it. But,

1:20:01

you know, what is life at that

1:20:03

risk, right? Absolutely. Okay, thanks

1:20:05

so much, Zane.