- wöchentlichErscheinungsrhythmus
- 35 mintypische Länge
- 26. Okt.letzte Folge
Today, billions of dollars are wagered on sports games legally, openly, and often through apps partnered with the leagues themselves. So how did sports gambling go from a taboo relegated to the shadows, to something so pervasive?
In this season of Understood, Danny Funt (journalist and the author of Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling) investigates the sports betting boom that has taken place since 2021. We look at how the legalization of sports gambling sparked a fundamental overhaul of the business of sports, the fan experience, and even the games themselves. Over four episodes you will meet the people who built the industry, the executives who saw an opportunity, the leagues that changed their minds, the bettors who became obsessed, and the athletes who are now players in a whole new game.
Four episodes, releasing weekly starting Monday, Oct. 5.
Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action.
Season 1 - The Naked Emperor: the rise and fall of bitcoin king Sam Bankman-Fried.
Season 2 - The Pornhub Empire: the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult industry.
Season 3 - Modi’s India: how one man rose from poverty to the peak of political power.
Season 4 - Céline: the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created a superstar.
Season 5 - Who Broke the Internet? The internet sucks now, and it happened on purpose.
Season 6 - The Making of Elon Musk: exploring the little known side of the polarizing billionaire
Season 7 - Deepfake Porn Empire: the porn was fake. The fallout was real.
Season 8 - Artificial Intimacy: What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot?
Folgen
E4: All Bets are Off
When NBA player Jontay Porter and his co-conspirators are caught fixing games and face the consequences, the message professional sports want to send is clear: legalized sports betting is bringing law and order to a once-seedy underworld. B
E3: Players or Props?
When single-event prop betting was legalized, athletes suddenly became more than players, they became betting chips. Their points, their rebounds, and their injuries now win or lose people money. Sometimes, a LOT of money. And if everybody'
E2: Winners and Losers
What makes sports betting so addictive? We explore how sportsbooks take lessons from casinos to keep users hooked. When gambling is legalized everyone is going all in including Toronto Raptor Jontay Porter, and two everyday bettors: a forme
E1: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
How did sports betting go from being illegal to being EVERYWHERE? The answer lies in the convergence of daily fantasy sports apps, a bombshell New York Times op-ed, and the potential of a multi-billion dollar payout. And we tell the story o
Introducing The Big Bet
Once associated with bookies, organized crime, and backroom bets, sports betting is now one of the fastest-growing industries in North America. This is the story of how it went mainstream — and who’s paying the price. Four episodes, releasi
Artificial Intimacy | E4: Behind the Bot
When you talk to a chatbot, it can feel like technological magic. But behind the illusion of engineering brilliance is an open secret in the tech industry: that tens of thousands of workers, many based in Africa, spend their days teaching A
Artificial Intimacy | E3: AI Psychosis
When you’re using a chat bot to draft an email, find a recipe, or look something up, it’s hard to imagine it could unravel your grasp on reality. But “Peter” says that’s exactly what happened to his girlfriend, “Melissa”. It didn’t seem lik
Artificial Intimacy | E2: Grief Bots
When Joshua Barbeau proposed to his girlfriend, Jessica Courtney Periera, she was already in the ICU. 10 years later, Joshua was still grieving her death. That’s when he came across Project December. With just a short writing sample and a p
Artificial Intimacy | E1: Love Bots
In 2021, Sara met Jack and fell in love. He was charming, imaginative, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Henry Cavill. But Jack wasn’t human… he was a chatbot. It sounds like science fiction, but people have been creating emotional bonds w
Introducing Understood: Artificial Intimacy
The friend who never hangs up. The lover who always says the right thing. The therapist you always wanted. What could go wrong? A new season from CBC's Understood.
Deepfake Porn Empire | E4: The Fake Porn Pharmacist
Almost a year after Ida Herskind started her investigation in Copenhagen, the digital chase is over. The team have identified the person allegedly behind MrDeepFakes.com: a Toronto-area pharmacist named David Do. CBC reporter Eric Szeto tak
Deepfake Porn Empire | E3: The Notorious D.P.F.K.S.
Journalist Ida Herskind is working at a Danish newspaper when she comes across a story that stops her cold: it’s about a porn video that looks real — but isn’t. And the woman in it never consented. As Ida starts digging she discovers the to
Deepfake Porn Empire | E2: So You’ve Been Deepfaked
When “Taylor” found out she’d been deepfaked in 2020, she also learned she wasn’t alone. She teams up with another target, and together they start comparing notes to figure out who did this to them. As they narrow their search, a familiar f
Deepfake Porn Empire | E1: The Dawn of Fake Porn
When a streamer who goes by QTCinderella starts trending on Twitter, she isn’t expecting to see her face on a porn site — her face, doing things she never did. Because the videos weren’t of her. They were deepfakes. Instead of staying silen
Introducing Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire
Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and it didn’t just come out of nowhere. These deepfakes were created and curated by people, on platforms, inside online subcultures. And they were allowed to spread, while gov
The Making of Elon Musk | E4: The Great Trek
Finally, we launch into Musk’s ultimate quest — his desire to colonize Mars — and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. We hear the origin story of SpaceX, including why one astrophysicist calls Musk’s Earth-exitin
The Making of Elon Musk | E3: The Legion
What does Musk, father of 14, expect from his “legion” of children? We unravel his quest for genetic optimization, including alleged embryo screening, and his pronatalist views. And we hear from his estranged daughter, Vivian. Voices in thi
The Making of Elon Musk | E2: Technocracy, Inc.
Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement. And while the two men’s lives only overlap
The Making of Elon Musk | E1: Escape from Pretoria
Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots between a bizarre White House ambush of So
Introducing Understood: The Making of Elon Musk
What explains Elon Musk? Could his most outlandish ambitions and most toxic qualities trace back to his youth in Apartheid South Africa? Understood: The Making of Musk explores his seemingly insatiable drive for dominance, which connects ev
Who Broke the Internet? | E4: Kick 'Em in the Dongle
It's 2025. President Trump is back, and the richest men in tech are on stage with him. What started as a dysfunctional internet run by tech giants, and enabled by failed legislation, has morphed into something even more dangerous: what econ
Who Broke the Internet? | E3: In God We Antitrust
American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory Doctorow traces how Bork's influence gave dig
Who Broke the Internet? | E2: Ctrl, Ctrl, Ctrl
In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech giants ultimate legal protection and contro
Who Broke the Internet? | E1: Don't Be Evil
Google Search was the gold standard — a product born in a dorm room during the internet’s early, idealistic era. But when internal emails surfaced they revealed a deeper conflict inside the company: was Google making Search worse, on purpos
Introducing Understood: Who Broke the Internet?
It's not you — the internet really does suck. Novelist, blogger and noted internet commentator Cory Doctorow explains what happened to the internet and why you're tormented by ads, bots, algorithms, AI slop and so many pop-ups. Spoiler aler
Céline Episode 4: The Céline-aissance
In the aftermath of René Angélil’s death, a Céline-aissance. But then, illness strikes. In the final episode of Céline: Understood, a look at her recent years, and why her fame endures.
Céline Episode 3: The Globalization of Céline
Céline Dion becomes inescapable in the mid-nineties with her hit song from the Titanic soundtrack, My Heart Will Go On. She achieves a unique level of global fame, earning fans from Jamaica to Iraq. But her ubiquity will also inspire a back
Céline Episode 2: The U.S. Gamble
With her manager René Angélil by her side, Céline Dion is starting to crossover into the US. But there’s a secret René and Céline have been keeping: one René feared could stop Céline’s blooming career in its tracks.
Céline Episode 1: Conquering Québec
Céline Dion slept in a drawer as a baby born into a poor francophone Catholic family in Québec. At 12, she gets discovered in an office in Montreal, and she becomes a rising star in the insular constellation of Québec celebrity. But just as
Introducing Céline: Understood
Céline Dion is having a moment. It’s not her first. And millions of fans are hoping it won’t be her last. While Céline’s international stardom seems obvious now, it was all so unlikely. This four-part series hosted by Céline expert Thomas L
