In recent weeks, when I’ve fired up the ESPN app on my iPhone, an unpleasant sight has greeted me amid all the scores and upcoming games I’m trying to check in on. There, placed prominently in each entry for upcoming games, regardless of the sport, has been a big, ugly-looking block of betting odds.
The Apple Sports (left) and ESPN apps.
Outside of friendly card games, I’m not a gambler and certainly not someone who wagers on sports. (If you take nothing else away from this article, “Never bet on anything that can talk” is a good piece of advice for anyone to live by.) I don’t begrudge your gambling fix if that’s where you find some joy in life’s slog, but I don’t want it consuming precious screen real estate when all I want to do is check a baseball score.
At some point, ESPN apparently updated its iPhone app, as the odds block no longer appears in the Scores tab, and there’s no mention of betting in the app’s preferences. If ESPN truly went in and fixed that part of the app, then kudos — but it hasn’t stopped me from exploring other alternatives to following my favorite sports, starting with Apple’s very own Sports app.
Apple released the Sports app a little more than two years ago, launching with the sports in season at the time and steadily adding more leagues and teams over time. These days, you can follow most of the same things in Apple Sports that you can via ESPN. Even better from my perspective, you can banish any betting info should you not wish to see it. In the settings of Apple’s app, there’s a toggle to hide betting odds.
