Gambling is Evil. Get It Out of All of This.

Not only is gambling evil, but any formally arranged business organizations that do any of it should be strictly prohibited by law. Of course people will still make small recreational wagers with themselves, and there will be something of a deep underground betting network going, I get that.

But the fact is gambling destroys lives and livelihoods. 

"Oh but don't be such a prudish moralistic busy-body! Mind your own business! This doesn't concern you!"

Um, and your point is? Still, the truth:

Enabled organized gambling operations destroy lives and livelihoods. They are categorically evil and should be made firmly against the law.

"Come on don't be so judgmental! There is really nothing wrong with any of it. It's just harmless fun!"

Excuse me. Let me start over again, tell me where I lost you.

This kind of gambling is evil and should be fully legislated against and properly adjudicated accordingly.

Please, it already is. Look at what was announced today, the purpose of this blog post. The NBA is in hot water for allowing coaches and players to be involved in organized crime activity related to gambling. Of course they will squawk about how much the NBA this and the NBA that hold to the highest standards of integrity and decency and going-really-really-really-hard-at-not-permitting-that-kind-of-thing and yadda yadda yadda ad nauseam.

And yet...

They have official associations with things like Fan Duels and Draft Kings and all the others.

Wickedly evil organizations that should not only be disassociated from any large sports league operation but should, once again, be completely, thoroughly, totally against the law.

Do we have to go over this again?

How much more shit is going on beyond these take-downs of well-known athlete gambling associates working with organized crime syndicates? Is that it? Is it just those guys? Really? How many have been tempted to give into any request that they adjust outcomes to earn a few extra bucks -- or worse, to evade having something very bad happen to them? How many times has any athlete in any sport been asked to do something to affect outcomes in however many uncertain terms but very clearly related to doing that something for those unsavory purposes?

What do you think?

Besides how much (sorry to belabor the point...) it all destroys lives and livelihoods, the integrity of all these games that are played on those fields and courts is always in question with the presence and influence of these insidious associations. Always. This then represents a huge fetid deceit that is woven into all of it. 

Already look at the baseball Los Angeles Dodgers. They've zipped right on into the World Series yet again, being given all kinds of advantages no other team gets, simply because they have a gargantuan fan base and can generate that much more money for everyone. Yes, all the things that have happened for them to get where they are, that's deceit. It is lying to all the people who pay to see a sport with the idea their team has a chance.

The World Series starts tomorrow night. After today's events don't you think there will be some kind of wondering what may be happening? Or will there just be so many Dodger fans pouring into the stadium and pouring mind-numbing alcohol down their throats and pouring their dollars into the Dodgers (and by default all of the MLB) screeching like banshees for their team that no one really gives a rip about real competitive integrity and how it may be fully compromised?

The gambling connection to that? It is important for these power-brokers that when they can, game outcomes are also tweaked so everyone believes it is all on the up-and-up. I can again point right at that ridiculous game the Chiefs played a couple weeks ago against the Jaguars. The Chiefs should have shredded that team. But it had to be at least a lot closer for the prime-time audience. So the Chiefs got hosed on officials' call after call after call.

What about all the patently stupid things the Chiefs did in that particular game, like Chris Jones just standing there on the last Jaguars game-winning play when he might have tried to tackle the guy? Could it be possible he was getting the call, the nod, the signal to shirk on that play to make some outcome more likely?

"Say it ain't so, Joe!"

Maybe, but I don't think so at all. His brazen inaction was just too obvious. Jones has also always comported himself as an upstanding individual (they all try to do that, I know). I'm also convinced that he was just frustrated with the idiotic ways the Chiefs were being screwed in that game -- now that's just my own personal take. Whatever it was it was still no excuse, again, Jones admitted that himself.

The reality of the Chiefs versus the Dodgers is that the Dodgers have been handed all kinds of unfair advantages to keep them winning on behalf of everyone, while the Chiefs have to do exceptionally well in spite of the massive NFLer antipathy towards them. Patrick Mahomes, Brett Veach, and Andy Reid are phenomenal at their jobs. Veach can't just go out and buy players and have the NFL give them favors as the MLB has done for the Dodgers, much of that is again handing them the keys to buying the best players.

It is funny, the Dodgers are playing the Toronto Blue Jays in the Series, and two years ago when I heard about the best player in all of baseball, Shohei Ohtani, deciding who to play for as a free agent, a radio show I was listening to initially got it wrong. They announced he was going to play for the Blue Jays. I thought immediately, "Not even. He is not going to play for the Blue Jays. I do not for a second believe this news report." Now I don't know how the radio guys got it wrong, maybe they were just joking around, but sure enough, later we all discover he went off to the already stacked Dodgers.

The Chiefs GM Brett Veach, on the other hand, has just done an absolutely terrific job getting his players fair and square in the draft. The Chiefs coaching staff has done an absolutely awesome job of developing those players to go out and play at the highest level. And Patrick Mahomes is simply the GOAT. He is. Truth. Sorry Tom Brady-favoring blitherers, but it is Mahomes.

And because of these things, the Chiefs should be obliterating every team in every game they play. This past Sunday they annihilated the Raiders 31-0. But again, this simply cannot happen too often. In the NFL's case, games must be close and the Chiefs must be reeled back in. The MLBers don't have to worry about that with the Dodgers because as long as they are winning, everyone wins.

What about all the gambling stuff? All of that just makes it more likely outcomes will be tweaked to please any powerful interests who infect the hearts and minds of those whose competitive integrity must be elevated to the highest possible level to keep everything honest, for all of us. 

Could the Chiefs be involved in any of that? Maybe. I don't know. I like my team. I want them to win. I like cheering for them. If their players are doing criminally unprincipled things in and around any of this, it is very bad, I agree. In fact, I will confess that I'm saddened every time I see a wide shot of the inside rim of Arrowhead Stadium and I see "Bet MGM" video-streamed all around it.

That stinks. Even if it is the Chiefs.

It is still evil. They simply don't have to do that shit, they don't. Get out of all of that and restore total, complete, full integrity to all of the competitive activity that we can all truly trust is being upheld.

But when it isn't, then yeah.

Sorry.

Lives and livelihoods are destroyed.

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Shortly after I published this post, I toured through my social media feed, and sure enough there is a ton on all of this. This was a good one, shown there on the right. You can see that while the ESPN dudes were announcing what happened with the gambling scandal, right underneath them was a chyron ad for "ESPN Bet."

There you go. 

The infection is everywhere. You can say this or that about any of it, but the deceit, the hypocrisy, the greed, the exploitation, the manipulation, the grandstanding, the sophistry, the fraud, the smarmy virtue-signaling smothering the criminality of it all, the addictive behavior, the sick obsession, the destruction of lives and livelihoods... it is all right there. No one can miss it.

How much more is happening in all of this that we aren't seeing right now?

And yes, how much complicity do any of the Chiefs people have? If they have any I will be despondently disappointed, for sure. I don't know! How much don't we know? For the Chiefs, and really for everyone, it'd be a start not only to take down the "Bet MGM" ad like ESPN did with its chyron ad there, but to get rid of all of it. Summarily. Courageously. Explicitly. Completely. Immediately.

I don't know -- maybe, just maybe, they will. No more of any association -- Fan Duels, Draft Kings, any of them -- all of them thrown to the curb where they belong. Will they have enough balls to do that? Especially with this stuff that happened today -- will they? 

This ESPN thing with the chyron, damn, that just says tons...

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Annnd... then a little bit later after that addition to the post there was this. You can always count on the fake news Babylon Bee to tell you the truth about things.

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Annnnnd forgive me, one more. I can't help it. Here is Warriors coach Steve Kerr amplifying the truth about the ridiculous pressures on all of them, the evils done by those given over to the entire gambling hellscape. What it must be like to be any of these people. Again, how about it...

Do the right thing.

Fully jettison all of it, every last smear of it in the dankest corners of all of professional sports.

Do they have enough principle, enough character, enough -- yes -- cojones to do it?

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Forgive me but I don't have the wherewithal to just embed the "X" posts there so they may be links. I've merely screenshot them just to post the information. You'll have to go there to find out more. Still, there is now so much out there about it all, you can't miss any of it. Again, how much more will we discover?

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