Why is there a Gambling Addiction Warning at the Bottom of this AE 3 Ad?

Anthony Edward's new shoe is arriving early with a side of Power Plays, Flex Plays, and Player Picks

While LeBron fires up the Fanatics-branded chopper to film new Polymarket ads and KD defends his FanDuel sponsorship to NBA media, Anthony Edwards was busy signing over his clout to a games-of-chance outfit, PrizePicks. But beyond just picking NFL games or predicting geopolitical outcomes, Ant’s ad had nothing to do with sports picks; instead, it was all about shoes.

Ant Man’s New Power Play

Featuring Ant’s best friend Nick Maddox and the rest of his entourage, with the smallest cameo possible from the man himself on a video call, the PrizePicks commercial is presented visually in the same manner as an adidas ad, with a bald man wearing a PrizePicks chain standing in front of a boardroom with Ant’s friends at the head of the table talking about getting the adidas AE 3 “into the streets.” From there, the ad picks up right where Ant’s real adidas ads left off with its signature sneaker trash talk.

Responding to Nike’s KD 19 campaign featuring Stake rep Drake in a crate telling FanDuel rep Durant that “only four people in Minnesota” want Edwards’ shoes, the AE 3 spot swaps out a Toronto-bound crate for a purple PrizePicks-branded version, with Maddox eventually popping out to toss a purple and pink AE 3 pair to a waiting horde of fans off the back of a truck. At the end, the Daily Fantasy Sports site shows a pic of Edwards holding the shoes and an offer for early access to the adidas AE 3 colorway through the PrizePicks app. Beneath it, a warning in tiny print is the same one we’ve all become so accustomed to seeing on TV and hearing in our headphones lately, offering barely visible support for gambling addiction

From every commercial break during sporting events to the advertisements on the arena facades, courts, in-stadium signage, billboards, bus bench ads, podcast commercials, and every other place marketing has access to your brain, the push to trade money for sports picks is everywhere. And whether it's reports about individuals gambling more than their monthly income and spending life savings on cell phone slot machines or a study that claims more Americans placed a bet last year than read a book, the effects of the gambling boom are already being felt across the country.

Early Access, A Pick Away

Edwards’ new deal with PrizePicks is nothing new in a league obsessed with marketing dollars, but it is particularly notable to us because, as far as we can tell, it is the first time an early access sneaker release has been tied to an app that offers opportunities to win money with your sports picks. You might have noticed that we’re not calling PrizePicks a gambling app. That’s because PrizePicks classifies itself as a Daily Fantasy Sports site, but the site’s Power Plays are awfully familiar to parlays, and the team picks are, well, putting money up to pick a team to win or lose based on a point spread…so, yeah.

Besides the opportunity to lose money, PrizePicks has had threats against employees from players down big and cease-and-desist letters and fines from state gambling commissions that are now a hallmark of the industry.

Using sneakers as a Trojan horse to bring more real-money gaming apps to sports fans’ phones will likely fly under the radar in the grand scheme of corporate cash-grab collaborations and the ubiquity of athletes shilling for sites that trade cash for sports picks, but it stands out to us in the worst way. Ant’s trash-talking ads look much better in adidas orange than PrizePicks purple, but if color is the only thing separating your sneaker ads from your fantasy sports wagering ad, it ends up saying more about the sneakers than the fantasy sports.

Who Asked for This?

Anthony Edwards, like Charles Barkley before him, is not a role model. And if Michael Jordan were allowed to advertise gambling sites during his prime playing days? Well, he might have turned them down for raising too many uncomfortable questions, but it certainly wouldn’t have been a moral stand. And as someone who took home $250 cold, hard cash gambling during bowling league a few weeks back, I would be a hypocrite telling you not to try your own chances at winning a few bucks. But if you want to tap into sneaker culture and try your hand at an early access pair of basketball shoes, it shouldn’t require downloading an app that offers parlay-style stacks on the signature player’s stats.

That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Zach Harris

Zach Harris is a writer based in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, Complex, High Times, and more. He is obsessed with skateboarding and bowling. He is still looking for his first 300. For tips, reviews, and anything in size 10.5 - zach.h@soleretriever.com