Is This Really A Good Idea?

Since we are being relentlessly urged by about a billion ads every day to BET ON SPORTS-it's fun-it's easy-everyone is doing it--perhaps we should take a deep breath and ask ourselves,

"Is this really a good idea?"

Because, and let's be brutally honest here, many (if not most) Americans are mathematically illiterate.

If you don't believe me, watch someone try to make change without an electronic aid of some kind. It's very entertaining. 

Things like probability theory, vigorish, odds formats, etc. are way beyond most people.

But even more important, in the long run, the house always ends up winning. That's why casinos have huge chandeliers, and dancing waters, free drinks, and Britney Spears appearing nightly in the Main Room. And you don't.

Regarding a casino's relationship with its customers, I'm reminded of a line from a W.C. Fields' movie. During a card game Fields is asked "Is this a game of chance?" He responds, "Not the way I play it, no." 

(By the way, it takes a real fucking idiot to bankrupt a casino. They are designed to make money, after all. Guess who bankrupted a couple of casinos? Yeah. Lil Donnie Trump. Probably too busy laundering some Russian's money to pay attention.)

Of course, now you don't even have to leave the comfort of your home to lose.  Forget the free drinks and dancing waters. Forget Britney Spears. Just pick up your cell phone and start placing bets!

You may win once. You may even win twice. But eventually you will lose. And lose. And lose again.*

I think they better add a couple of phone lines at Gamblers Anonymous.

To continually encourage people to get mixed up in this borders on madness.

And to use wealthy celebrities, who can afford to lose large sums, to encourage we commoners to get mixed up in this borders on the criminal.

But, what the hell? It's a free country and like they say, "a fool and his money will soon be parted". 

Even while seated in his Lazy Boy, with an energy drink in one hand, and a bowl of chips nearby.

*Sure, there are "professional" gamblers. They make a living at it. They study everything, every angle. It's their job, after all. But they lose, too, sometimes. And there are just a few of them in a nation of nearly 400 million people. You like those odds?