Tag: News

• Declining foot traffic and rising e-commerce have led thousands of stores to permanently close.
• Former household names like Borders, Circuit City, and Blockbuster are now just retail history.
• Here are 49 once-beloved stores that no longer have a meaningful brick-and-mortar presence.

Brick-and-mortar retail is a tough business.

One day, your favorite brand can be riding high and enjoying strong sales from loyal customers, while the next it's fighting for survival and fending off creditors.

The only constant is change, especially as emerging trends, shopping patterns, and e-commerce players take larger pieces of the pie.

Here's a look back at some of the retail brands whose stores once greeted thousands of people each day, but are now consigned to retail's history books — or exist only online or as a tiny fraction of what they once were.

Blockbuster

Blockbuster got its start in 1985, and acquired the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus music chains to create Blockbuster Music in 1992. The music division was sold to Wherehouse Entertainment in 1998 before closing for good, but there remains one single Blockbuster video rental store in Bend, Oregon.

Thom McAn

Thom McAn was a chain of shoe stores that peaked in the 1960's and closed up shop by 1996. The brand's shoes continued to be available at Sears and Kmart.

Kinney Shoes

First opened in 1894, Kinney Shoes had 467 stores at its peak, all of which shuttered in 1998.

Warner Bros. Studio Store

Warner Bros. Studio Store competed with the Disney store until the company closed all of its locations in 2001.

Zany Brainy

Zany Brainy filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and closed all locations in 2003. The educational toy retailer's founder, David Schlessinger, co-founded the discount company Five Below.

Ames Department Store

Debt and poor sales forced Ames Department Store into bankruptcy twice., and in 2002, the remaining Ames stores closed.

Imaginarium was an educational toy store in the 1980s. Stores started closing in the 1990s, and by 2003, its parent company, Toys R Us, had closed them all.

Imaginarium was an educational toy store in the 1980s. Stores started closing in the 1990s, and by 2003, parent company Toys R Us closed all remaining locations.

Hecht's Department Store

Hecht's was purchased by Macy's in 2005 and all locations were either turned into Macy's stores or closed.

Marshall Fields

Federated Department Stores bought Marshall Fields in 2005 and converted the stores to the company's more recognizable flagship brand, Macy's.

Gadzooks

Gadzooks was a teen clothing store that was around from 1983 to 2005. It filed for bankruptcy in its final year and was purchased by Forever 21, which then closed all of the stores.

Kaufmann's

In 2006, Macy's retired the Kaufmann's name, and the brand disappeared.

Tower Records

Tower Records couldn't keep up with the rise of digital music, and all stores in the US were closed in 2006.

Media Play

Media Play was a big box store selling books, movies, software, toys and video games. It closed for good in 2006.

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel's 103 stand-alone stores closed in 2007.

KB Toys

KB Toys announced it would be going out of business in 2008, and by early 2009 all locations were closed.

Sharper Image declared bankruptcy in 2008. But the company still sells merchandise through its website, catalog, and third-party retail partners.

Sharper Image declared bankruptcy and wound down its physical retail operation in 2008.

Levitz Furniture

Levitz Furniture declared bankruptcy twice — first in 1997, and then in 2005. It closed all of its stores in 2008.

Linens 'n Things had over 500 stores in 2006, but by the end of 2008, they were all closed. The company still does business online.

Linens 'n Things had over 500 stores in 2006, but by the end of 2008, they were all closed.

Mervyn's

Mervyn's once had almost 200 locations in the western US. In 2008, the company declared bankruptcy and closed all of its stores.

Limited Too

Limited Too's success began dwindling in the early 2000s, and all stores were eventually rebranded as Justice by 2008.

Tweeter

Tweeter filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and all of its stores were closed by the end of the year.

Circuit City

Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and shuttered all stores the following Spring.

Steve & Barry's

Steve & Barry's filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and closed all of its stores in 2009.

Filene's and Filene's Basement

Filene's Basement's parent company went bankrupt in 2009, and by 2011 all of its stores were closed.

B. Dalton Books

B. Dalton was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 1987, which officially closed the bookstore in January 2010, except for a single location in Oviedo, Florida.

Waldenbooks

Waldenbooks merged with Borders in 1994, and all Waldenbooks stores closed when Borders Group liquidated in 2011.

Borders Books & Music

Borders Books & Music stores closed shortly after the company was forced to liquidate in 2011.

CompUSA

CompUSA started in 1984, but by 2007, Best Buy and other superstores had taken over, and the last CompUSA closed in 2012.

Sam Goody

Sam Goody music stores suffered from the rise of digital media, and most Sam Goody stores were either ultimately shuttered or converted into other brands like FYE by 2012. Two locations remain: one in Clairsville, Ohio, and one in Medford, Oregon.

A&P

A&P filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010 and again in 2015, closing its stores that year.

 

Sports Authority

Competition drove Sports Authority into bankruptcy in 2016, when it closed all its stores and sold its website to Dick's Sporting Goods.

Sport Chalet

Sport Chalet, which first opened in 1959, abruptly closed all of its stores in 2016.

Wet Seal

Wet Seal, a teen clothing store, filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and closed for good in 2017.

Virgin Megastores

Virgin Megastores stopped operating in the US in 2017, but the brand continues online and in select international markets.

The Limited

The Limited abruptly shut down all of its stores in 2017, and the brand is now sold exclusively through Belk.

Teavana's 379 locations were closed by its parent company, Starbucks. in 2018.

Starbucks closed Teavana's 379 locations in 2018.

Bon-Ton Stores

The Bon-Ton stores included its namesake brand, as well as Bergner's, Boston Store, Elder-Beerman, and Younkers.

Toys R Us

Toys R Us and its subsidiaries closed in 2018, but in 2021 Macy's announced that it would open Toys R Us sections in hundreds of its stores, while Babies R Us is opening within Kohl's stores across the US.

Henri Bendel

After 123 years of business, luxury retailer Henri Bendel closed all of its stores in 2019.

Dress Barn

Dress Barn shut down in 2019 after 50 years in business.

Papyrus

At its peak in 2009, Papyrus had 500 stores across the US and Canada, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy and closed its 254 stores in 2020.

Lord & Taylor

Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy in 2020, leading to the closure of its 38 stores. An attempt at reviving the brand as a "digital collective" was unsuccessful.

Century 21

Century 21 closed its 13 locations after going bankrupt in 2020. The company reopened its New York flagship store in 2023 with a greater focus on e-commerce.

Olympia Sports

After a slow decline and a tumultuous stint with private equity owners, Maine-based Olympia Sports shut down its remaining stores in 2022.

Bed Bath & Beyond

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and closed its 896 remaining stores in 2023, though the brand was sold and relaunched online.

Tuesday Morning

The Dallas-based home goods company shut down all of its stores in 2023 after it had only planned to close half of its stores amid bankruptcy proceedings.

Christmas Tree Shops

The Massachusetts-based seasonal specialty retailer filed for bankruptcy in 2023, winding down the remaining 72 locations across 20 states.

Moosejaw

Just months after buying Moosejaw from Walmart, Dick's Sporting Goods closed most of the brand's locations and formed one team that would handle both the Public Lands and Moosejaw brands moving forward. Only three Moosejaw locations remain open.

Foxtrot

Chicago-based Foxtrot abruptly shuttered its 33 locations in April 2024 after it came up $35 million short of its 2023 sales goal.

• Interest rates on federal student loans are increasing for the upcoming school year.
• Based on the latest Treasury auction, borrowers are set to see the highest rates in over a decade.
• The rates are fixed, so they will only apply to borrowers taking out new loans this fall.

New student-loan borrowers are set to see the highest interest rates in over a decade.

Wednesday's Treasury auction dictated the new interest rates for federal student loans from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025 — and they're set to increase significantly for borrowers taking out new loans for the upcoming school year.

According to calculations based on the Treasury auction, these are the interest rates for federal student loans in the 2024-2025 academic school year:

• Undergraduate direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans: 6.53%, up from 5.50%
• Graduate and professional direct unsubsidized loans: 8.08%, up from 7.05%
• Graduate and parent PLUS loans: 9.08%, up from 8.05%.

Interest rates on student loans are fixed, and borrowers will pay the interest rate that was in place the year their loan originated for the duration of their repayment period. So, even if interest rates on student loans are increasing, borrowers who took out loans in years when the rates were lower will still pay the lower interest rate.

However, the high rates for the upcoming school year will likely make student loans more difficult for borrowers to pay off. As Business Insider has previously reported, interest is a primary reason many borrowers have seen their balances surge — if a borrower falls behind on payments or has to enter forbearance, interest continues to accumulate, which could make it difficult for borrowers to even touch their principal balance.

These rate increases are a response to economic conditions in the US. Starting in March 2022, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates 11 consecutive times before pausing in September to help inflation reach the 2% target. The central bank could cut interest rates later this year, though, meaning rates for federal student loans have a chance of decreasing next year.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has emphasized, though, that he's not yet confident about cutting rates this year and it'll take more economic data to show the economy is moving in the right direction.

But for now, new borrowers should be aware of the costs that accompany their debt. President Joe Biden's Education Department has made some efforts to address surging interest — for example, its new SAVE income-driven repayment plan has a provision that would eliminate remaining interest on balances if a borrower stays consistent on their monthly payments.

Additionally, Biden's new student-debt relief plan, which is in its public comment period, aims to cancel up to $20,000 in unpaid interest for borrowers. The Education Department plans to begin implementation this fall, but the election — and likely legal challenges — could push back that timeline.

• When I started college, my mother enrolled, too; she was 42 years old.
• She always wanted to be a teacher, so she studied hard while raising her three other children. 
• When she graduated and became a teacher, she became the woman I always knew she could be.

The year I went to college, my mother did too.

She enrolled at 42 years old after having three children. Some days, she questioned what she was doing in a classroom of kids my age. But my mother graduated at the top of her class with a degree in English and was named the recipient of a prestigious award.

After that, my mother became a teacher and morphed into a woman I'd seen glimpses of over the years — one buried beneath the expectation of sacrificing her own ambition for everyone else's.

Watching my mother chase her dreams and fight the odds has inspired me to this day.

For most of her life, my mother followed tradition

My mother met my father during her freshman year of college. When he transferred schools to be closer to home, my mom left with him. My grandparents encouraged her to go to a secretarial school. It would be a good job until she had a family — her real purpose in life, they led her to believe.

Three months after my father graduated, my parents got married. A year later, they had me. When I was 15 months old, my brother arrived. Two years after that, I got another brother.

My dad worked nights and weekends, coaching and umpiring to subsidize his teaching salary. My mother spent most of her time alone — well, as alone as you can be raising kids. She cooked, cleaned, grocery shopped, mopped the floor on her hands and knees, and broke up fights between my brothers.

Though my dad was a math teacher, my mother knew how to make numbers work. She sat at the dining room table with a stack of bills in her bathrobe and a mug of black coffee. For hours, she manipulated numbers that didn't quite add up, making sure the utilities were paid but also that my brothers' hockey camps and an Esprit sweatshirt for my birthday were too.

Creativity kept her alive — most of the time, late at night. She made a three-dimensional Wonder Woman birthday cake and a World Wrestling boxing ring out of toothpicks. Her sewing machine hummed while she stitched Halloween costume requests: Strawberry Shortcake, a pirate, clown, princess, Raggedy Ann, and a ninja.

When I was in junior high, my mother started doing day care in our home. My sister was a newborn, and my mother could stay home with her and also be around when my brothers and I got home from school. She loved her day care kids but not being in the house all the time.

For years, family members and friends told my mother she'd be an amazing teacher. She was quick to dismiss the thought. Who'd do the laundry? The pick-ups? She was too old, she thought, and missed her chance. Fear crept in. What if she failed? Yet the alternative to not pursuing her dream scared her more.

She finally decided to chase her dreams

While my mother typed my college applications, she was also typing her own — in secret. We both applied to English programs and received merit money. I chose a college in a bordering state. My mother chose an in-state school 20 minutes from home. We registered for classes. My mother was mindful of her kids' schedules; I was mindful that I wanted breaks during the day.

A month into my freshman year, my father said, "You know your mother is taking classes, too." At the end of our first semester, he bragged about my mother's 4.0. She hushed him, but I was in awe.

I complained about big exams and papers, and had endless hours of free time. My mother had three kids at home — one of whom was only 5. If she was overwhelmed, she didn't let on. My father pitched in and folded laundry while he watched the Red Sox, but my mother continued to run point on paying the bills, organizing five schedules, and planning princess birthday parties.

On my mother's college graduation day — a week after my own — her summa cum laude tassel waved to us as she walked across the stage to accept her diploma. I'd never seen her so happy, so proud of herself. A new version of my mother left the auditorium.

She became the woman I always knew she could be

My mother took a position teaching middle school English. After school, she helped students catch up on work and graded piles of papers. She felt seen and appreciated, something she didn't when she stayed home with us.

We ate frozen pizza when she got home late from school, and she gushed about her students and colleagues. "Everyone is so great!" she said. "I wish I'd done this years ago."

After catering to everyone else's needs for years, my mother gave herself permission to do the same. The move was bold. It made me respect her that much more. Her best friend told me recently, "I always wanted to be a nurse. I wish I had been brave like your mom."

We all won when my mother pursued her dream of teaching. She laughed more, hugged us tighter, and embraced store-bought birthday cakes. She loved being a teacher and loved being a mom. Her victory was finding a way she could be both.

• Grammy-nominated rapper Bas talked about AI's role in music at a conference hosted by Harvard.
• Bas said AI can't yet replicate human experiences and evoke emotions in music.
• Bas said human taste is essential to helping AI make music enjoyable.

Grammy-nominated rapper Bas is embracing the AI revolution, but he doesn't think the technology is anywhere near ready to replace humans.

"The core of writing music, you're trying to evoke an emotion out of your audience, whether it's joy, heartbreak, whatever the case may be," Bas said at the "Leading with AI" conference this week.

With AI tools, "when I try to give it those prompts, it's a little tough to get that across."

The "Leading with AI" conference was hosted by Harvard's Digital Data Design Institute and Harvard Business School, which drew leaders in business, technology, and academia to discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI.

During the panel, Bas referenced a song he created with AI. He worked with a producer who created the initial beat, and listening to it, he said, "Instantly in my head, I'm like, 'Oh, this reminds me of meeting a girl at the club, and you're trying to break the ice and maybe get that first dance with her.'"

As he wrote the lyrics and composed the melody, Bas realized that AI couldn't fully replicate that experience. "I'm like, 'man, AI never been to the club.'"

Bas said many artists are concerned about surviving amid advances in AI — especially when there are tools that take seconds to generate tunes, write lyrics, and make music videos.

"There are a lot of people in our industry, a lot of creators, where AI is almost a dirty word right now," he said. "They're just threatened by what it could mean to their livelihood and to the art forms."

But the saving grace for humans, he said, is that they have "taste."

"At the end of the day, there's going to be a certain level of human taste that's still required to prompt the AI to create something that we'll all enjoy," he said.

• America's retirees are stressed about inflation, with 68% fearing they might outlive their money.
• Expert said this is particularly challenging for retirees living on fixed income sources.
• A third of retirees worry that financial stress could affect their overall health due to sleep loss

Inflation is hitting older Americans, leaving many worried about whether they have enough to fund their retirement, according to a recent survey from investment manager Schroders. 

A survey of 2,000 American retirees conducted by the firm found that 32% feel they haven't saved enough, while 24% are unsure of their financial standing, and less than half are confident they've socked away sufficient funds.

The survey showed inflation is "taking a toll" on retirees, with 89% worrying about it eroding their assets and 68% fearing they might outlive their money. The rest are jittery about high healthcare costs and volatile markets.

Such financial uncertainty has 58% of retired Americans admitting they have no clue how long their savings will last, while 63% regret not planning more before retirement.

"Whether it's a trip to the gas station, grocery store or pharmacy, prices in the US have increased noticeably in recent years, and that is particularly challenging for retirees living on fixed income sources," Deb Boyden, the head of US defined contribution at Schroders, said in a note. 

Inflation has been hitting Americans across the income spectrum, with many in the middle class reporting that they don't feel like they can afford their desired lifestyle any longer and that many milestones of middle-class life are now out of reach. 

The latest economic indicators still signal that inflation pressures are lingering even after the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates by 525 basis points. 

The Schroders survey also shows that one-third of retirees worry that financial stress could affect their overall health, with 26% experiencing sleep loss due to concerns about their finances. 

• Footage posted on X Friday shows protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.
• The electric car maker shut down production and told employees to stay home.
• The protesters were rallying against Elon Musk's plans to expand the site by clearing out local forest areas.

Videos posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday appear to show protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.

The first of three clips shared by the left-wing newspaper Junge Welt shows activists from the Disrupt initiative marching in Grünheide, around 20 miles southeast of Berlin, where Tesla's only gigafactory in Europe is located.

Two other videos posted by the outlet show protesters clashing with officers in a forest and breaking through a police barrier on the way to the Tesla site.

Disrupt is an "alliance" of self-declared anti-capitalist groups that oppose a plan to double the production capacity of the Grünheide factory.

It argues that Tesla's expansion plan would require it to clear out local forest areas and could tighten local water supplies.

On its website, Disrupt calls Tesla's CEO Elon Musk a "misogynistic Twitter fascist" and argues that electric cars are "neither sustainable nor green."

"The production of an electric car creates a huge ecological footprint through the consumption of resources and thus drives the global climate catastrophe even further," Disrupt says on its site.

"Every tree felled for Tesla is one too many, and every litre of water taken from the ground is wasted," it adds.

André Thierig, a senior manufacturing director at the Grünheide plant, said in a post on X Tuesday that Tesla would shut down production on Friday, responding to a story by the German newspaper Handelsblatt that cited a company email.

"Without the explicit instruction and authority of your manager, access to the site or factory will not be possible," the email said, per the outlet.

• My husband and I left our 2,000-square-foot house in Nashville and moved to a studio north of Rome.
• Our 500-square-foot space is small and we miss having a clothes dryer and hosting dinner parties.
• But our cost of living is better, traveling is easy, and we're way less stressed here. 

In 2005, we were a newly married couple living in our 2,000-square-foot house in Nashville.

Although we had steady gigs performing in a symphony orchestra in the US and liked our three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home, we dreamed of living in Italy.

Fifteen years later, in 2019, we applied for Italian work visas as musicians. When they were granted, we sold everything we owned — including our home. We quit our gigs and, by April, had bought a house in a town north of Rome.

By November, we'd officially moved to a tiny 500-square-foot house in Italy with a bathroom the size of a Spirit Airlines lavatory.

Our new place has some downsides, but we've found a lot of workarounds

Our small Italian home is beautiful but it has its issues.

First of all, the entire house is one big open room that's about the size of our old living room — our kitchen, foyer, and dining table are all in the same space.

It was hard to leave behind our big dining room, where we had countless dinner parties. We miss the candlelit, boozy gatherings with family and friends we had at our house in Nashville, but we found an alternative.

These days, instead of having our friends over to our house, we invite them to local restaurants.

With our lower cost of living, we can afford to "host" by picking up the tab. Plus, there's no shortage of excellent restaurants in Italy — and long, laughter-filled, boozy dinners are kind of the norm here.

We also really miss having multiple bathrooms and a jacuzzi bathtub, which was great after a long day of rehearsing, recording, and performing.

Our tiny bathroom here barely fits a toilet, a little sink, and a shower box. Fortunately, we live in an area known for its thermal baths that ancient Romans enjoyed thousands of ago.

Whenever we crave a hot bath we head out for an overnight trip to a nearby spa hotel or book a local farm stay with an outdoor hot tub.

Laundry is also a bit complicated here. Electricity is expensive in Italy, so electric clothes dryers aren't common. Instead, people here hang their clothes outside to dry, which means we can only do laundry on the days the weather permits it.

Keeping track of the weather just to have clean clothes can be annoying, but it's a small price to pay to live in this beautiful country.

For us, living simply with less stuff has also made life less stressful

We didn't realize how much living here would lower our overall stress levels.

In our 2,000-square-foot home in the US, there was a constant stream of things that needed replacing or fixing, whether we needed a new roof or had to repair our dishwasher. Something costly always needed our attention.

Here, our expenses are incredibly low. Although electricity is pricey, having a small house makes our bills manageable. We don't pay much to heat or cool our house — and we don't have a ton of upkeep.

Because of this — and Italy's lower cost of living compared to the US – we can afford to dine out and travel regularly. If we ever get cabin fever from being cooped up in our small home, we just hit the road and explore the country.

We have less clutter and fewer things, and we spend most of our time enjoying the spectacular view of a castle and mountains from our terrace.

For us, moving here was the best decision we ever made.

• The economy is flashing warning signs that suggest a downturn is on its way, according to David Rosenberg.
• The top economist pointed to a weakening job market and a slowdown in manufacturing activity.
• Several financial models are already sounding the alarm for a hard-landing, he noted.

The US could be "sleepwalking" into a recession, and signs of a downturn in key areas of the economy are starting to show, according to top economist David Rosenberg.

The Rosenberg Research president pointed to a handful of warning signs that a slowdown is on the horizon. That's contrary to how most investors feel on Wall Street, with optimistic sentiment building as data continues to show a stable economic picture. 

"We're constantly asked when we're planning to throw in the towel on our recession call, but perhaps it's time folks started asking when the rest of the street is going to pick their towels back up," Rosenberg said in a note this week. "We've seen a downshift in the data flow that are starting to indicate that the downturn in the economy may not be as far away as many believe."

The job market, for one, has continually weakened over the past year. The unemployment rate remained near a two-year-high in April, ticking up to 3.9%. That means the job market is even closer to triggering the Sahm Rule, a "gold standard metric" of a coming recession that flashes when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises 0.5% above its 12-month low, Rosenberg said.

Economic activity is also starting to slow. GDP came in softer-than-expected over the first quarter, with the economy growing by 1.6%, well below the previous two quarters' growth. 

Manufacturing activity contracted in April, the 17th contraction recorded out of the last 18 months. That's a strong sign the economy is weakening, as manufacturing has only contracted on two occasions since 1997 without the economy later slipping into recession, Rosenberg noted.

Popular recession models have already signaled a downturn may be on the way. The 2-10 Treasury yield curve, a notoriously accurate recession indicator, has signaled a coming downturn since July 2022. 

The full model, which estimates the probability of recession over the next 12 months, is showing that the US still has nearly a 50% chance of tipping into recession over the next year.

"Don't get complacent. The labor market is cracking, a slowdown in services activity is dragging on real-time growth, and forward looking financial signals still point to a coming slowdown," Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg has been warning of a coming recession for months — and fears of a downturn are rising as investors anticipate the Fed keeping interest rates higher-for-longer. Higher rates risk overtightening the economy and sparking a recession, and markets are now pricing just one or two rate cuts by the end of the year, according to the CME Fedwatch tool. 

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Happy Friday! Dust off that old digital camera for any weekend plans you have. You'll impress the Gen Zer in your life.

In today's big story, we're looking at how a sports bettor trying to hedge a $1.7 million payout shows the gambling world is taking a page out of Wall Street's book.

What's on deck:

• Markets: A boring but promising way to bet on AI in the stock market.
• Tech: Silicon Valley's tech workers are coming to New York for the vibes.
• Business: YouTube insiders describe how it plans to compete with Spotify and Apple.

But first, let's make a wager.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Sports gambling goes Wall Street

How would you like to turn $100 into $1.7 million in a little over a year?

Wayne Shelton has a shot at generating the type of return hedge funds and VCs could only dream of. (It's 1,699,900% if you were wondering.)

A three-leg futures bet Shelton placed in May 2023 on the MLB, NFL, and NBA championship winners is one win away from the life-changing payout.

But Shelton might not need the last leg of his bet — the Oklahoma City Thunder winning the NBA title — to see some cash, writes Business Insider's Matthew Fox. Thanks to a secondary market for gambling tickets, Shelton could sell his ticket to another bettor.

WagerWire, one such market, valued Shelton's ticket at $228,613 after the Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks in the first game of the Western Conference semifinals, according to ESPN.

The value of the ticket is expected to continue to grow if the Thunder advance to the conference finals ($330,366) and the NBA finals ($720,420).

(DraftKings also offered Shelton a cashout, but only at about $75,000.)

It's worth noting Shelton is still up against some considerable odds.

Sportsbooks have the Boston Celtics as a heavy favorite to win the NBA title. And if the Thunder advance to the next round, they'll likely face the Minnesota Timberwolves and Anthony Edwards, widely considered the new face of the NBA.

Futures? Secondary market? Hedging? It's giving Wall Street. (Did I use that right?)

To be fair, you could make the case the two have always looked the same. Multi-leg and same-game parlays aren't really different from out-of-the-money and zero-day options.

And not unlike Wall Street's feelings about retail traders, Shelton is the type of gambler sportsbooks love. A $1.7 million potential payout is nothing compared to the advertising they're getting from his story.

How many people, inspired by Shelton's longshot bet, will cook up their own parlay? And of those bets, how many are likely to win? There's a reason they say the house always wins.

Professional bettors, though, are another story. Unlike mom-and-pop gamblers who often bet on a whim, so-called sharps' systematic approach to gambling can pose a problem for sportsbooks.

And the rise of a secondary market to hedge one's risk is another tool these bettors can leverage to gain an edge on sportsbooks.

That might sound impossible, but so did developing successful betting systems for horse racing and roulette… until professional gamblers did it.

In the meantime, we're compiling our first-ever list of rising stars in the US sports-betting industry. More details here.

3 things in markets

1. The under-the-radar industry set to boom from AI. Utility stocks aren't the most exciting part of the market, but they're well positioned with the rise of AI, according to Goldman Sachs. Data centers, another key behind-the-scenes player in the AI ecosystem, have significant electricity demands.
2. China is pulling a Russia regarding its place in the global economy. The world's second-largest economy is relying less on the West, producing more semiconductor chips and batteries, and reducing food imports. It could be in preparation for long-term geopolitical tension, experts told BI.
3. Sam Bankman-Fried has a new currency to trade in prison. The disgraced former FTX CEO told Puck that his rice has become a medium of exchange in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center. SBF also said he hadn't done anything wrong and plans to appeal his conviction, in his first in-person interview from MDC.

3 things in tech

1. Sundar Pichai explains Google's layoff strategy. The company has gone through several rounds of cuts this year, and Pichai says it's intentional. Rather than laying off employees in one fell swoop, Pichai told Bloomberg the company is "taking the time to do it correctly and well."
2. The tech man cometh. Young tech workers are heading to New York City for the ambiance and the dating scene, and they don't mind paying more for it. Despite high rents, New York attracted the most tech talent from the Bay Area in 2022-2023.
3. Jack Dorsey speaks out. The Twitter cofounder helped launch alternative social media platform Bluesky, but revealed in a posting frenzy on X earlier this month that he'd left the company's board. In an interview with Mike Solana, Dorsey said he quit because Bluesky was "literally repeating all the mistakes [Twitter] made as a company."

3 things in business

1. YouTube has a plan to compete with Spotify and Apple in podcasting. As video podcasts boom on YouTube, the platform is leaning on its ability to offer both video and audio to draw in listeners. Two employees detailed the strategy at an event in April.
2. A failed video game cost Warner Brothers $200 million. The company took a staggering loss on "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League," which came out in February. It raises the question of whether big media companies should get into games at all.
3. Best of frenemies. Google's Demis Hassabis and Microsoft's Mustafa Suleyman first met in London when the latter was still at school. By 2010, they'd founded DeepMind together — but now they're on opposite sides of an AI arms race fought between Big Tech's oldest rivals.

In other news

• Stormy Daniels gives hush-money jury a tutorial in porn: 'The sex is very real — just like the sex in that room.'
• Joe Biden is expected to unveil new tariffs on Chinese EVs. Here's what that could mean for the sector.
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The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London.

• Ukraine says it executed its farthest drone strike yet, hitting a Russian oil refinery 930 miles away.
• Ukraine's Security Service claimed the attack on Wednesday.
• The effectiveness of the strikes is debated. Some argue they put pressure on Russia's oil sector.

Ukraine's latest aerial attack on Russian soil is its farthest one yet, Ukrainska Pravda reported, with officials saying a drone traveled 930 miles to strike an oil refinery far inside Russia's borders.

Unnamed sources within Ukraine's Security Service told the outlet that one of its drones struck a Gazprom refinery in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan on Wednesday.

The region's head, Radiy Khabirov, confirmed smoke was coming from the refinery but said it was operating as normal, according to Russian state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti.

Footage of the aftermath of the apparent attack was also posted on the prominent pro-Russian Telegram account Baza.

The strike, which has not been independently confirmed, would represent a distance record in Ukraine's ever-more ambitious series of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities.

In early April, Ukraine demonstrated its drones' increasing reach after Russian officials reported strikes 620 miles inside their country.

But the ferocious campaign — launched in earnest in January — has seemingly struck a nerve with the US.

Reports claim that the White House has reached out to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to signal its concern that hitting Russia's oil production will destabilize global energy prices.

Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, along with energy analyst Lauri Myllyvirta and Sam Winter-Levy, highlighted in a Foreign Affairs article this week how Ukraine's strikes could hurt Russia without sending global oil prices soaring.

The attacks are largely striking Russia's refining capacity, rather than its oil fields, they said, which actually forces Russia to export crude oil, likely bringing prices down globally.

The strikes have also led to a surge in the price of refined oil products within Russia itself, they argued.

These are some of the exact areas where the West's lackluster sanctions have failed to bite.

But there's some skepticism around the effectiveness of the attacks.

Carnegie scholar Sergey Vakulenko wrote in April that even if Ukraine took out every refinery within its reach, Russia would likely still be able to procure enough oil for its own uses.

Meanwhile, several experts told Business Insider last month that Ukraine would do well to ignore the US' counsel.

Ann Marie Dailey, a geopolitical strategist at the RAND Corporation, told BI that although the impact won't be immediate, "consistently putting pressure on Russia's oil sector would have a significant impact on Russia's ability to fight this war."

Russian officials routinely downplay the impact of the strikes. But there are some indicators that the pain is trickling through: Russia has announced a six-month gasoline export ban, and Ukraine claims that its attacks have reduced Russian oil production and processing by 12%.