Government wants in on sports betting - NO!

I have to give credit to @steemsportsnews for bringing this matter to my attention. He/She has a wonderful collection of USA sports information on a regular basis. If you are into American sports, particularly if you are like me and don't live in the USA, subscribe to that page, it is a winner.

That being said, I am horrified that anyone would be supporting the government getting involved in sports gambling.

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It only recently became legal in the USA. I have had a sports betting account for years but it was a really tricky thing to get involved in. I remember being on the phone with the guy and we had to trick my bank or credit card company into letting me put money into the account. It was a strange ordeal. Sometime in the recent past the Supreme Court ruled (overwhelmingly) that sports gambling has to be legal, nationwide. Now, the states can overrule this to a certain degree and that is fine because that is how the US is set up, however, it is available nationwide, even if just in an online sense.

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I am not trying to get into a discussion about how gambling can ruin people's lives - so can a container of gas and a paper bag (or White-out correction fluid as I recently found out while being forced to show my I.D. to purchase some at Wal-Mart.) The thing that I like about the legalization of this and almost everything else is a little thing called freedom and personal responsibility.

I have zero faith in the government to do almost anything effectively. Sorry if your dad is a Senator or something but he sucks too and is a massive part of the problem. You see, I used to work for two different federal agencies and the amount of waste that I saw (and at times oversaw) was an exercise in absurd waste and uselessness. It was quite obvious that public money was being moved into private hands. Plus the officials in charge of the laws can be bought to favor whichever party wants to have an advantage.

Is gambling a good idea? I don't know but I do know that it isn't up to me or you to decide that. At the moment all forms of gambling is kept competitive by the basic fact that there is so much competition on the free market. Put the government in charge and the next thing you know the only kind of gambling that exists is like what they have going on in Australia, the kind where very few people ever win and it is boring (Pokies!)

My main opposition to the government being involved can be summed up in this picture / quote.

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Can you think of any particular reason why the government SHOULD be involved in gambling? I am particularly concerned that this bill is being introduced by a bi-partisan team of Orrin Hatch(R) and Chuck Schumer (D), which means it is likely to pass. Maybe Trump can endorse the bill and then all Democrats can block the bill out of principal.