Knowledge of gambling and fantasy leagues

I've asked this question before so forgive me if it seems like I'm beating a dead horse. I know little about sports betting and fantasy leagues and care even less about them. At this point in my life I have no desire to become a beat writer for a professional team and for many other reasons, I know I'm not qualified to have such a job.
But just for the sake of argument, if I wanted such a job and were otherwise qualified for it, how essential would a working knowledge of gambling and fantasy leagues be for doing the job? Obviously those things are very important for many readers. How much do papers have to cater to those readers and if you had a guy covering a team who was ignorant of those things and didn't care about them, could he effectively do his job?
For example, is whether or not a team covered the spread an essential part of the story?

 

I can't ever remember reading a game story that even mentioned who covered the spread. The only time you usually see a point spread mentioned in a gamer or preview is as a means to illustrate who the favorite is.

I don't think any beat writer needs to know about gambling or fantasy leagues in his sport.

 

No.