How America’s favorite sports bet is fueling sportsbook profits

Parlays are becoming more popular, accounting for an increasing share of the money wagered on sports, according to a Post analysis of betting data. Bettors lose billions a year on these bets.

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/inter...

Parlays have become incredibly popular, with many betting apps encouraging these high-stakes multi-leg bets. But as legs are added, the chance of winning drops faster than the growth of the potential payout - which means sportsbooks have the advantage. Explore the math and and try your own bets:

NEW: Air Force jets are doing ICE flights to Africa with transponders turned off, making them nearly un-trackable.

This includes the third-country removal to Ghana and another secret flight. We figured out where it landed.

From me for @rollingstone.com:

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

We analyzed open source ADS-B data which leaves out countless other military aircraft that fly over D.C with their transponders off for reasons of "national security." Still, with the data we had available we could drill down into which neighborhoods are seeing the most change.

During Trump's federal law enforcement surge in DC, Park Police helicopters spent nearly 20 hours hovering over city neighborhoods, up from 3 hours this same time last year -- and flew hundreds of feet lower than other helicopters. With @imogenpiper.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department’s officer count alone already puts D.C. ahead of any other large city in the United States per capita. Including the additional federal officials means there’s currently one officer for every 100 residents in D.C. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

This coulda been a heatmap!

Adding another example to my college class folder of "wtf dataviz"

When you get a government data set and can guess the person who used to regularly publish it took the RIF because it's a totally different messier format...

Some day I will be able to recognize which digits are latitude and which ones are longitude but it won't be today or any time soon.

NEW: The Census Bureau is planning to scale back its Survey of Income and Program Participation — which is used to measure use of SNAP food assistance and other government programs — and start using "non-survey data" to lower costs, according to a budget document
www.commerce.gov/sites/defaul...

Thanks for clarifying. Will the cartographic section be okay?

The National Archives had a message yesterday that their College Park facility would become restricted-access. This would be a horrible. We visited often last year to research Indian Boarding schools and the cartographic staff were so helpful. I saw hundreds of citizens getting help looking up docs.

Changing the :joy: emoji to the :lolsob: one feels right

Latest podcast is out: Get in everyone, we are going to Resistance Summer School!

Thank you to everyone who indicated they would like to take my course on Race, Media and International Affairs 101.

Please fill out this quick interest form to begin to sign up!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Why's Marion such a popular a town name in the Midwest? And Fairview in the South?

Tied between Fairview and Franklin!

Most common by region:

Most common county names across the United States: Washington (31), Franklin (26), Jefferson (26), Jackson (24), Lincoln (24), and Madison (20)

Today, hundreds of our colleagues on the technology side of the company announced the formation of @wapotechguild.bsky.social (1)

💥 HUGE news: Today, our Washington Post colleagues announced @wapotechguild. With a majority of over 300 tech workers signing cards in support, they’re seeking voluntary recognition.

another day, another site refactor completely breaking my scraper! fine!

And then Ns are like, hold my beer

Syncing rows of data between state names and state abbreviations are totally fine until you get to the Ms. Like, wtf is this nonsense.