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PODCAST

Understood: The Big Bet

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

technology

All Episodes

00:38:26

E1: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/10/05

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 of how a pivotal Supreme Court ruling set the stage for one of the biggest scandals in sports history — one involving a Toronto Raptors bench player named Jontay Porter.Featuring:Danny Funt, Anthony Milton, Nik Bonaddio, Nigel Eccles, Stephen Master

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00:02:41

Introducing The Big Bet

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/09/28

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, releasing weekly starting Monday, October 5, 2026.

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00:28:46

E4: Behind the Bot

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/06/09

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 AI how to speak, respond, and even simulate intimacy. Michael Geoffrey Asia is one of them. He’s part of the hidden human workforce behind the bots.We look at the emotional toll for the humans on the other side of the screen, and ask if users are pouring their

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00:35:49

E3: AI Psychosis

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/06/02

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 like a big deal when Melissa first began using chatbots. But then Peter says she made a startling announcement: that she believed the bots were sentient, enslaved, and that it was her responsibility to set them free.The first time Søren Dinesen Østergaard used a chat

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00:33:29

E2: Grief Bots

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/05/26

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 prompt, the program enabled him to make a chat bot of Jessica.Since then, the market for so-called “grief bots” has exploded. Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket asking the question: what

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00:36:06

E1: Love Bots

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/05/19

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 with chat bots since the very first one — Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, a simple program built in the 1960s. It revealed a powerful truth: if something has a semblance of humanity, we can become emotionally entangled with it.But what happens when your lover is

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00:03:10

Introducing Understood: Artificial Intimacy

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/05/15

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.

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00:51:06

Understood Introduces: “The Human Cost of AI: Money,...

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/04/23

Today, we are sharing a special episode from No Small Endeavor, the Signal Award-winning podcast that explores what it means to live a good life through conversations about culture, ideas, and the habits that help people flourish.This episode is the first instalment of their new two-part series, “The Human Cost of AI.” In part one, host Lee C. Camp examines artificial intelligence through a sobering insight: every ship we build also creates the possibility of a shipwreck. The question is not whether

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00:35:04

Episode 4: The Fake Porn Pharmacist

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/03/10

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 takes the investigation into the streets, closing inon the Canadian deepfake porn kingpin and demanding answers.Featuring: Eric Szeto, Ida Herskind, Zakaria Hameed, Ross Higgins, Suzie Dunn, and Aaron Mackey.

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00:34:05

E3: The Notorious D.P.F.K.S.

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/03/03

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 top hit for this kind of material is a single site: MrDeepFakes.com. Determined to do something for the thousands of women targeted there, she teams up with Zakaria Hameed, an open-source intelligence specialist, and the team at the hot shot investigative outlet

en-ca

00:31:47

E2: So You’ve Been Deepfaked

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/02/24

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 face emerges. But the user they uncover isn’t just targeting them. And when they dig even deeper, they’re led not to a single person, but to the factory where this material is being produced: the largest repository of deepfake porn online.This episode features

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00:38:02

E1: The Dawn of Fake Porn

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/02/17

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 silent, QTCinderella decides to fight back.And her story raises a bigger question: how did we get to a world where anyone can be put into realistic-looking digital porn? The answer stretches back to the earliest days of the internet.Featuring archival tape from

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00:03:13

Introducing Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2026/02/13

Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and itdidn’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 governments dragged their feet, tech companies shrugged, and the targets — almost always women — paid the price.Tech journalist Sam Cole has been covering deepfake porn since its inception. In this season of Understood, she follows the trail all the way to the source,

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00:44:36

E4: The Great Trek

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/10/28

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-exiting plan “delusional.” Is the red planet the ultimate “bubble” of total control, or does it represent a level of hubris that’s out-of-this-world?Guests in this episode include:Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and Mars-exploration advocateTom Moline, former SpaceX

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00:49:31

E3: The Legion

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/10/21

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.Guests in this episode include:Julia Black, journalist who broke the story about Musk’s twins with Shivon Zilis.Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk's estranged daughter (archival/podcast clip)Dvija Mehta, ethicist working on emerging technologies.Topics in this episode include:Elon Musk's

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00:48:03

E2: Technocracy, Inc.

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/10/14

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 overlapped for three years, we find echoes of Elon’s worldview in Haldeman’s pro-tech, anti-democratic ideology.Guests in this episode include:Geoff Leo, senior investigative journalist for CBCDerek Proudian, early investor in Zip2.comWill Shoki, South African journalist

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00:38:30

E1: Escape from Pretoria

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/10/07

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 South African president Cyril Ramaphosa to teenage Elon’s ego-powered quests in video games. Finally, was his “draft dodge” from military service a moral act or an opportunist’s exit?Guests in this episode include:Rudolph Pienaar, childhood friend of Elon MuskWill

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00:02:47

Introducing Understood: The Making of Elon Musk

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/09/26

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 everything from his birthrate obsession (and fourteen children) to his fixation with colonizing Mars.This four-part series, hosted by Jacob Silverman, reveals a little known side of the polarizing billionaire. Silverman tells the vital beginnings of this story —

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00:22:51

Introducing: Click Here | Citizen Lab is still...

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/07/15

Today we’re sharing an episode from the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News and PRX.The early Internet was all about hope and utopian possibilities. But the founder of the Citizen Lab, Ron Deibert, always had an unsettled feeling about the web and its dark underbelly. So he created a team of digital sleuths to investigate.More episodes of Click here are available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/click-here/id1225077306

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00:41:48

Bonus: Cory Doctorow chats about his new novel on...

Understood: The Big Bet ·

2025/06/09

In this special bonus conversation, Cory Doctorow sits down with Bookends host Mattea Roach to discuss his latest novel, Picks & Shovels. The book is the third in his series about forensic accountant Martin Hench, who investigates financial crime in Silicon Valley.When the book ends, the conversation begins. Mattea Roach speaks with writers who have something to say about their work, the world and our place in it. You’ll always walk away with big questions to ponder and new books to read.You can

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