BetQL afternoon host Ken Barkley has announced he has departed You Better You Bet to focus on sports betting in a full-time capacity.
To begin the second hour of the BetQL program Tuesday, Barkley revealed it would be his final show with the sports gambling network.
“I’ll go right to the point: this is going to be my last show,” he shared. “This is my last episode of You Better You Bet. I am no longer going to do gambling content. I am essentially retiring from gambling content. So talking, writing, producing content of any kind, which I’ve done for a few years. This is gonna be my last show. Maybe forever. We’ll see how life goes. But for now, could say it’s gonna be my last show, so I won’t be on You Better You Bet going forward.”
Ken Barkley shared that due to his success on the betting program and his wagering victories, he is in a position to attempt to make sports betting his full-time occupation.
“My plan is to try to make a living betting. And I know that sounds crazy to some people, maybe acceptable to others, you’re gonna have a wide range of reactions to something like this. It’s not something normal. It’s not something that everybody tries to do, but this has kind of been my plan for a while to at least try … The show was going great, and Nick (Kostos) and I have done really well doing the show. But also that the betting has gone really well, to the point that it becomes, I think, essential to give betting a shot because of the potential ceiling.”
Barkley continued by noting that the risk is worth the reward and says the reward “is higher than most careers out there.”
He concluded by sharing that “doing a four-hour show every day is a really big time commitment” and he didn’t feel he could properly balance continuing on the program while also attempting to spend more time wagering.
Co-host Nick Kostos called Barkley “irreplaceable”, and shared that a new version of You Better You Bet will debut on Monday, August 26th and stated that he was “very excited” about the hire that Audacy and BetQL have made, but noted that person would not necessarily be a “replacement” for his former co-host.
