Podbit · Freakonomics Radio
There's a crucial difference between roulette — where you have no control — and backgammon or sports betting, where hard work and analysis can generate a real edge. Mark Olsson argues that skill-based gambling hardens your character, punishes recklessness instantly, and rewards preparation.
Where this was said
At 34:15 · chapter starts 29:35
Mark Olsson co-founded Backgammon Galaxy in 2018 with Sandro Lilov and Mochi, initially imagining it as a money-gaming site built on their sports-betting background. That business model ran into regulatory walls, but their YouTube channel took off, becoming the biggest backgammon channel on the platform. They pivoted to social gaming, raised funding, and officially launched in 2022 — the platform now has 220,000 users, 25 employees, and ownership of the World Championship in Monte Carlo. Beyond the business narrative, Olsson makes a compelling intellectual case for backgammon as an economics simulator: unlike economic models that begin 'all else being equal,' backgammon never holds anything constant. Change one variable — split a back checker, say — and every other variable in the position shifts. This entanglement of trade-offs, Olsson argues, makes the game a genuine training ground for opportunity cost awareness, sunk-cost discipline, and probabilistic decision-making under complete-information-but-uncertain-future conditions.
In 2018, Mark Olsson, Sandro Lilov, and Mochi set out to build a unified backgammon site. They pivoted away from money gaming, grew a massive YouTube channel, launched in 2022, and now own the World Championship. Backgammon Galaxy has 220,000 users and a 25-person team.
Backgammon Galaxy, the online platform co-founded by Mark Olsson, Sandro Lilov, and Mochi, has approximately 220,000 registered users.
Backgammon Galaxy, launched in full in 2022, now employs a team of 25 people split between developers and operations including customer support, YouTube, and live tournaments.
A baseball-playing junior who learned about compound interest now wants to quit the sport to start working and investing. George says let him decide and own it. Jade says team sports build something a job can't replace — try doing both during off-season first before making the call permanent.
May is 33, carries $69K in combined household debt, and wants to spend 11–13 years training to become a forensic pathologist at $14K/year in tuition. The prerequisite is non-negotiable: zero debt before a single class. Then, with the spouse earning $4,500/month and able to run the household debt-free, cash-flowing medical school is genuinely possible.
Kavak launched the Jedi Academy, an internal program where every employee — from CEO to mechanics — completes a 6-week training and ships a production-ready AI agent. The message to staff was blunt: train and adapt, or this may not be the right place for you.
The worst AI outcome for young people isn't cheating on homework. It's that passive, mindless consumption strips away the motivation and agency their brains need to develop. The second worst outcome is banning AI from classrooms entirely. The winning path is giving students AI-powered agency.
Prompting AI effectively is a skill that should be taught in K-12. The best prompter in history? Socrates. His method of relentlessly asking precise questions to uncover truth is exactly what powerful AI interaction looks like — and schools should explicitly teach it.
When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, Fei-Fei Li's first move was to email her child's elementary school principal and offer to lecture teachers and students. No investor or tech company did that. Teachers are scared, forgotten, and lectured at — and if they're not helped, neither are the kids.
After the KSI show exposed how hard physical comedy really is, Andrew Santino sincerely proposed doing a semester at clown school in France. Bobby agreed. This is apparently a real plan.
K-12 schools ask students to sit still, raise their hand, use fine motor skills, and be pleasers — behaviors that describe girls more than boys. Boys are twice as likely to be suspended for the same behavior, and five times as likely if they're Black. The system needs male teachers, national service, and kindergarten starting at 6 for boys.
Sunk costs are gifts from your former self — and like all gifts, you're allowed to decline them. Godin reframes every stuck-due-to-sunk-cost situation as a single question: knowing what you know now, would you choose this again?
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.