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| HARRIS: Tried to take Ill. lead on issue |
Yet I
can’t help but think that for many people, the idea of going to an
officially-sanctioned betting parlor to place a few bucks down on a sports
event won’t have much appeal.
FOR
THEM, THE notion of the bookie and the illicit nature of their act IS the whole
point. The last thing they want to do is partake in an event in which the state
would take a cut of the proceeds – and would be responsible for guaranteeing
that the prize is actually paid off if they win.
Because
for the kind of people inclined to want to place bets on sports events, the
motivation is the payoff. They want to win the prize, and likely could care
less about the ball game itself.
So long
as they beat the spread, who actually wins is irrelevant. Just like in the
early days of riverboat casinos when some thought people would enjoy the idea
of a cruise while placing bets – only to find out people only cared about the
bet and those “boats” are all now land-based.
As for
those people who all those years showed their devotion to Chicago Cubs baseball
placed a bet annually in Las Vegas that their favorite ballclub would win the
World Series? Suckers!!!
SO I WAS
somewhat amused to hear some people react to the Supreme Court’s ruling by
saying that sports betting could actually increase interest in sports events.
Not likely.
Unless
you want to think of sports fans as the ultimate chumps eager to waste their
time and throw away their money by playing the odds of how a particular
ballgame goes.
I don’t
know how Illinois will wind up structuring a sports betting system, although
I’m sure our political people will be greedy enough to want to have another
revenue stream to tax. They’ll probably also try defining the concept as being
something similar to the Illinois State Lottery and all those games people can
play on the potential promise of a payoff. State Sen. Napoleon Harris, D-Harvey -- himself a one-time professional football player -- already has a bill introduced on the issue.
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| How many placed bet, for kicks, and wound up winning? |
Fantasies
of being set for life financially, just by picking the right set of numbers.
I MAKE
THE lottery comparison because I can recall my own time as a full-time police
reporter-type person – which was in the late 1980s and I can recall the
occasional stories I’d write about busts and raids that were conducted related
to the “illegal lottery,” which is what once was commonly known as the numbers
racket.
You play
your number and place your bet with a bookie – who in some cases would take as
little as a nickel bet, with the potential payoff of $30-40 if you got the
right set.
Or nothing,
if you were in the majority who didn’t get the right number.
Of
course, you’d have to take the chance that the bookie was an honorable sort who’d
actually pay up on the people who “won” and wasn’t just counting on all the
nickels of losers to add up to dollars that would enrich themselves.
YOU
MIGHT WONDER why anybody would keep playing numbers when they could just plop
down a dollar or two for lottery tickets and a potentially larger prize. Yet
for some people, the official lottery came with too many rules and too much
structure and regulation. The illicit overtones are what make it worth doing, while those who prefer a so-called "legitimate" bookmaker probably aren't going to bet enough to make it worth anyone's while financially.
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| How sport, and gambling really don't mix |
Gamblers preferred the informal and unofficial nature of the old numbers racket. Just as
I’m sure they’re going to prefer to place bets through a bookie on whatever
basketball or football game catches their attention.
So for
all the people who think that sports betting will make the state of Illinois
wealthy (or at least capable of paying all its bills in a timely maner), I
suspect that listeners of the old WMAQ-AM radio had better odds of achieving
wealth.
Remember
back when one could win a prize if the station called you, and your unsolicited
response was, “WMAQ’s gonna make me rich!”
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