Nostradamus I am not. For this, and many other reasons, I am not rubbing my hands together in anticipation of nationwide legal sports betting.
That puts me somewhere in fuddy-duddy territory. A recent poll found that the majority of Americans—55 percent—now support such activity, a reversal of attitudes from just 25 years ago. And that shift in mood coincides with the Supreme Court ruling in May that struck down a 1992 federal law prohibiting most states from authorizing gambling on sports.
Teams and leagues, so opposed for so long to betting as a risk to “the integrity of competition,” suddenly are rushing to arrange partnerships with casinos. Calvin Ayre, a Canadian-Antiguan entrepreneur and founder of an online gambling company, has cited an analysis that sports betting can be “the cure to declining TV sports viewership.”
Having money on the line, the reasoning goes, will draw gamblers to tune in and monitor the progress of their investments. Those self-proclaimed oracles and clairvoyants out there, convinced they can see around the corner, will want to track their potential windfalls.
But I tend to subscribe to the argument that gambling is a sure way to get nothing for something. I confess to an aversion to barrel apparel. At this writing, my one annual attempt at sports prognostication—joining 35 others in a $1 college football bowl pool—reminds again of the financial ruin I would face as a serious gambler.
Of the 21 games played so far, I have correctly foreseen the winner of nine. (A losing percentage of .428.) Over the pool’s 20-year existence, I never have finished in first place, while my friend’s daughter won the whole thing when she was 3 years old! She did so by prophesying results based on which opposing teams’ mascots would be natural predators of the opponent’s mascot. As reliable as any betting system available, I suspect.
Furthermore, I cling to the outdated belief that the unscripted theater of sports—the sheer unpredictability—provides quite enough action. And to apply such an outlook precludes involvement with the soul of the betting industry—point spreads. Since the purpose of sporting contests is to determine a winner and loser, the exercise of divining—guessing?—by how much a team will win or lose strikes me as (sorry) pointless.
And don’t get me started on fantasy sports, in which wagering on the statistics of individual players takes precedence over team performance—a clear devaluation of the very idea of sports competition.
One final thought, after struggling to compose these thoughts on the vacuous—and fiscally perilous—racket that is sports betting: The English author and critic M. John Harrison has judged that “writing is like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted. Not less.”
Hmmm. But I haven’t lost my shirt.