Did a video showing a man asking a city council to legalize sports gambling after he made money betting on transgender athletes capture a real-life, authentic story? No, that's not true: The man participated in the production of a comedy show hosted by a comedian known for orchestrating bizarre appearances at various public meetings. Both men spoke on the same day, and the recording was streamed on their comedy show.
The event appeared in a post (saved here) on Instagram on March 28, 2024. It began:
This has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen 😂😂😂
The post shared what looked like another post containing a video of a man paired with the following caption:
This man became nearly a millionaire betting on transgender men in women's sports 😂😂😂😂😂
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Apr 25 15:05:09 2024 UTC)
The man in the video began:
My name is Tiny, and I'm a professional sports gambler. But, unfortunately, my career is at a standstill because I got six baby mamas all in the DFW Metroplex. So I can't live in a state that's got illegal gambling in the sense it will be March Madness. I'm coming up here to beg y'all to make sports gambling legal in the city so I can stack my paper and pay for the illegitimate, il, illegitimate childrens. ...
He continued:
I became almost a millionaire, betting on Lia Thomas ...
The post implied that the shared footage captured a genuine life story of an ordinary citizen talking at a public meeting, but that wasn't true.
On March 27, 2024, the video was shown on "Prime Time with Alex Stein" (archived here), a comedy show whose host is described as a "troll" on the show's channel on YouTube (archived here).
Stein is a guest on right-wing shows (archived here). He has been attending city council meetings since the beginning of the pandemic (archived here), mocking different issues discussed in the news, ranging from vaccination against COVID-19 to aid for Ukraine.
On March 21, 2024, both "Tiny" and Stein spoke one after another at the city council meeting in Irving, Texas (archived here). (The segment from the post on Instagram begins at the 1:26 mark in the Citizens' Forum section.)
City Secretary Shanae Jennings referred to them as "some special guests."
"Tiny," who also goes by "Big Nasty" on X, had participated in at least one more sketch in the city council setting (archived here) for Stein's show.
Contrary to the caption in what looked like the reposted entry on Instagram, Lia Thomas is not a man but a transgender woman. In January 2024, she initiated a legal action (archived here) to challenge an international competition policy that only allows people who completed the male-to-female transition before the age of 12 or before advanced male puberty to compete in women's categories. Thomas began transitioning while already in college (archived here).
Other Lead Stories fact checks about sports can be found here.
