Gamboling

So, here's the deal: I can go down to the local card room and sit down to a "friendly" game of Texas Hold 'Em. For money. Real money. Real winners. Real losers. They are quick to point out that they don't participate in the play at any level, except to give folks a place to sit down and play a friendly game of Texas Hold 'Em. For a little fee. And they'll bring you cocktails. Just like they have since 1895, the year my house was built. It's historical.
And it's hysterical. Because, if the Oaks Card Club did participate as "the house," then it would be a casino, and it would not be legal. Unless that casino was on property owned by Native American tribes, then it would be legal, since they are considered sovereign nations and they make their own rules. Like they have to hit a soft seventeen. In a "way too little and way too late" kind of solution, we are letting Native American Tribes use legal gambling as some sort of karma leveling for the atrocities we waged upon their people and lands. Loose slots indeed.
But that isn't really what I'm confounded by. There are rules and laws governing those enterprises that make some sort of sense. Just like there are rules defining how much I can win or lose in my Fantasy Football League. I know that there are people making lots of cash by getting involved in the exploits of their favorite and not-so-favorite professional athletes. Using sports figures as avatars is nothing new. What is new is the way we have become suddenly used to how we play. Friendly little twenty dollar entry fees are no longer in vogue. That used to buy you in for a season. Now you can spend hundreds of dollars each week on the Fantasy Football Sweepstakes. Sure, some will win. That's the nature of things. Some will lose. Big. That is how we get big winners. And some will cheat. Big. DraftKings employees have won millions of dollars playing on their rival's site, Fan Duel. Sounds like insider trading to me. Of course these are all enthusiasts who love the game so very much that they can't keep their gaming impulses to their own jobs, so they feel the need to spread it around, right? Or maybe they are using an unchecked system of barely legalized gambling to profit from those same schlemiels who are buying fifty dollars worth of Lotto tickets each week in hopes of making it rich. Quick.
Why not just send the folks at Fan Duel or DraftKings a check. Sooner or later I'm sure they will send you one with an even bigger number of zeroes. What the heck. Take a chance.