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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

This may be a more recent thing, but I find a lot of the "sportsball" conversations are actually just slightly disguised conversations about gambling. Everyone is on Draft Kings and when they talk about this guy's stats or that team's past, or this game's expected score, they're just talking about betting and stuff. I don't think a lot of the sportsball people are even really fans of the sport, they're just looking at stats and betting.

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As somebody who enjoys both watching and playing sports, I agree and I think that sports betting is so gross and harmful.

I have a question, though. What's up with the "sportsball" thing?

I mean, I'm very familiar with it. It just seems like it's always been used as a mildly derogatory term by people who really dislike sports and sports fans. What does it mean to you? No wrong answers.

I don't know. OP used the word and I just repeated it. I figure it's a generic term for the kinds of ball sports that popular culture follows and/or bets on: Baseball, Basketball, Football and so on.

> It just seems like it's always been used as a mildly derogatory term by people who really dislike sports and sports fans.

Yeah, actually saying 'sportsball' in conversation in a non-ironic way is an excellent way to signal that you have poor social skills. No need to yuck someone's yum.

That's certainly been my experience. I've never heard it used in a way that wasn't a mild yucking of somebody else's yum.

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