It has been a tumultuous year on Twitter, as evidenced by the fact that Twitter isn’t Twitter anymore. It’s X, because that’s what Elon Musk, who finalized his purchase of the social media site in October 2022, says it is.

(But since nobody I know actually calls it X — everyone still refers to it as Twitter — for the purposes of this article, I’m calling it Twitter. Apologies, Mr. Musk.)

Anyway, Twitter has been in flux all year, from alterations to the algorithms, to the decision to charge for blue checkmarks and thus defeat their verification-related purpose, to the owner endorsing an antisemitic post and leading advertisers to pull support, to the removal of headlines from link previews, to the banning of political ads and then the lifting of that ban, to the site’s decision to brand NPR “U.S. state-affiliated media,” and on and on.

But one thing has remained the same: Twitter remains a vital part of the sports betting discourse, despite concerns to the contrary a year ago. It is a place for information. It is a place for conversation. And sometimes, it is a place where that information and conversation shape the news.

Here then, presented in chronological order, is a look back at four times over the course of the year when Twitter made its impact felt on the sports betting industry.

A host and analyst for SuperBook Sports, Taylor Mathis spoke in March to a class of second graders about the math behind NCAA March Madness brackets. She says she made no reference to any odds or the concept of wagering or any betting apps. She just talked about seeding and the process of filling out a bracket and related probabilities.

Then she posted a picture of herself with the class on Twitter.

A representative of a gambling reform group emailed SuperBook, which emailed Mathis and told her to delete the tweet and apologize. She did, and hours later she was let go anyway.

Debate swirled over whether Mathis had done anything wrong and whether she’d violated responsible gambling protocols, and even the man who reached out to SuperBook about her tweet in the first place said he felt firing her was an overreaction.

What’s the lesson here? Don’t talk to kids about March Madness brackets, I guess. But more so, don’t share every little thing you do on social media.

One of the biggest sports betting industry stories of the year — the suspension of Colts defensive back Isaiah Rodgers for betting on NFL games — took a brief detour on a Monday afternoon in June, when, before Rodgers’ name had been publicly attached to the news, wide receiver Michael Pittman was outed as the Colts player caught betting on his team and was being punished with a year-long suspension.

Through 14 games of the 2023 NFL season, Pittman is third in the league in receptions with 99. So, yeah, not so much on that year-long suspension.

The Pittman “news” came via a tweet from @adamscheftrrre, a handle that has since been changed to @MaddenGMSkol. On first glance, it appeared to many as though ESPN reporter Adam Schefter had broken real news about Pittman. On anything more than a first glance, it was clearly not Schefter and not real news.

Nevertheless, some folks in the handicapping space began speculating about Pittman throwing games to win his bets. And it seems reasonable to assume someone somewhere banged a Colts win total under before realizing “Scheftrrre” was a phony.

Shams Charania is widely recognized as one of the top news breakers in the NBA reporting sector, but everyone gets it wrong sometimes when it comes to projecting draft picks.

The problem is, FanDuel is one of Charania’s employers. So when he tweets out information about a draft pick, and betting odds at FanDuel and elsewhere move accordingly, and it turns out to be wrong, that’s not a great look.

On the day of the NBA Draft in June, Charania tweeted that Scoot Henderson was “gaining serious momentum” to go second overall to the Hornets. Previous indications were that Charlotte was locked in on Brandon Miller, leaving Henderson to go third to Portland. Those previous reports proved correct.

The conflict of interest was obvious. Even if Charania had no ill intent — and no subsequent reports found any — the fact is that a FanDuel employee had shared incorrect information that may have aided FanDuel in winning money from customers.

All things draft betting/reporting create a slippery slope, but the Shams/Scoot incident was the steepest such slope we’ve seen yet.

As noted in the Shams section above, everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone makes mistakes as obvious and egregious as DraftKings creating a special parlay bet tied to the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

When DK promoted the “Never Forget” parlay of three New York teams all to win, the criticism came swiftly on Twitter. In a pre-social media age, it’s possible that the complaints wouldn’t have been heard in time to nix the parlay before the games started. But thanks to Twitter, DraftKings removed the parlay and issued an apology before some people even knew the parlay had ever existed.

“We sincerely apologize for the featured parlay that was shared briefly in commemoration of 9/11,” read the DK statement. “We respect the significance of this day for our country and especially for the families of those who were directly affected.”

As of this writing, Elon Musk has yet to controversially tweet his support of the “Never Forget” parlay or bemoan the cursed woke cancel culture to which it fell victim. But the year 2023 isn’t quite over yet.