Lester Munson: The Menace of Sports Gambling

Gambling isn't new, in fact it was around before Christ and actually played a role in financing the American Revolution. The challenge of the game and the promise of a quick dollar continues to attract a variety of players, especially with an increased presence of online platforms. But with today's targeted advertising and the ease of placing bets online for collegiate and professional sports, what are the real long term costs of gambling?

After graduating from the University of Chicago's Law School, Lester Munson was an attorney for 22 years before realizing that law never did captivate him. So in 1989, he jumped ship, becoming a sports journalist whose work has shaped how America understands money, celebrity, violence, sex, drugs, race, gender, greed, falls from grace, court decisions, and government actions in the sports industry.

In a sense, that 1989 career shift reunited him with an earlier professional love. He had been the chairman of his Princeton college newspaper, enjoying it so much that after graduating he took a reporting job on the city desk of a Chicago newspaper.

The journalistic undertaking that redirected his career from being a lawyer was the National Sports Daily, which began publication in 1990 as an attempt to create a new kind of sports publication with both local news and longer-form local and national stories. Munson heard about it because two of the leaders of the enterprise had been with him at the Princeton newspaper. “They staffed that paper with the most prominent names in sportswriting,” Munson recalled. “The only wild card was me.”

Profligately managed, the paper folded after 16 months, but Munson was soon recruited to join the staff of Sports Illustrated, where he remained for 13 years. In 2004, he joined ESPN, working there until leaving in 2020. He also appeared on television, in shows that ranged from sedate PBS discussions to the rambunctious Chicago-based “The Sportswriters,” whose hosts gathered around a poker table with cigar smoke filling the air.

Lester continues with writing projects, and was the chair of the board of trustees of the national Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation for three years, which ended in 2022.

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All meetings are held at The Union League Club - Presidents Hall on the 2nd floor at 65 West Jackson Blvd (1/2 block east of Clark). Upon entering the ULC, you will be directed to the check-in location.

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