Full Moon Edition November 2025
Gambling. We all do it, one way or another. Take a chance! That’s what we say. Play the market. Cryptocurrency. Finance your home with an ARM. Payday loans. Vote for that politician who says he’s got your back. A friendly card game. A few bucks a hole round of golf. Take the home team and the points. What’s the over and under? That chump in the ring won’t make it past round five. The trifecta at the track pays $200 to one. Three card monte anyone? How about a shell game? Maybe Russian Roulette?
Every gambler I’ve ever known tells you they make money gambling. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them are lying through their teeth. Likely lying to themselves. Put your money at risk and the odds are overwhelming that you’ll lose it. Throw good money after bad trying to get even, as we’re inclined to do, and you can find yourself in very deep very quickly. That’s when the true cost comes calling, often in the form of big guys with scarred knuckles and absolutely no sense of humor. Now you work for them.
The best athlete to come out of my neighborhood in East Denver was a basketball player named Chauncey Billups. He was all-state in high school, an all-American at Colorado University, and the third player drafted that year by the pros. He played 17 seasons and was named MVP when he won a World Championship with the Detroit Pistons (HERE). In retirement he was elected to the Hall of Fame. Currently Head Coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, he was just indicted as a co-conspirator with alleged Mafia figures in crooked high-stakes poker games (HERE). Say it ain’t so, Joe!
When gambling was illegal everywhere but Las Vegas, there was a lie down with dogs attitude toward the gambler’s travails. The wonderful thing about capitalism though is anything that makes money eventually becomes acceptable. Gambling on sports is a prime example. The same sanctimonious professional leagues that foreswore any and all involvement in betting on games, and banned for life one of their greatest players for betting on his team, now partner in enterprises that allow, encourage, and promote betting on every aspect of the games. Why? There are many billions of reasons.
Betting on sports is nothing new. The methods for doing so are new though and there is every chance they may destroy the games (HERE). When the integrity of contests is called into question, it’s no longer competition but manipulation, a ruse performed for the purpose of making the insiders money at the expense of those not in the know. You no longer need to throw the game or shave points to accomplish the goal. That is so old school. They’ve put a finer point on the hustle these days.
Now it’s possible, let’s say again – encouraged – to bet on literally any aspect of the action: how many points a player will score, how many assists, minutes played, so one less pass thrown or one less shot taken and the outcome is changed; you name it, these legally sanctioned oddsmakers will take your bet. And the leagues themselves, the exclusive clubs of billionaire owners of sports franchises, are raking in a generous cut of the action, sums that reach billions of dollars. But greed is good, we’re told, and if you create the opportunities for fraud you are rewarded. If you are a player who is tempted to share in the lucre changing hands all around you, you’ll likely be indicted.
The fragility of professional sports in this age of rampant legal and illegal gambling is being exposed by the current cheating scandal in the National Basketball Association (HERE). The value of insider information has never been greater. We can assume the temptation to share what you know as a player, a coach, a referee, or just a hanger-on who knows things the public doesn’t tests the character of many a soul. Big money will do that to even those who are very well paid because others are better paid still and envy can warp your perspective (HERE).
At this point, the charges in this case are only allegations that are unproven. What is disheartening is the tainting of a hero, and Chauncey Billups is hero to many who know him personally or merely know of him. What is baffling, though, is what might tempt a person of his stature and his means. If this was a fictional story, there would be a hero who’s a closet gambler. He gets in too deep to the bad guys, who then use his celebrity as a lure to bring in the fish. It’s a No Exit situation and he never gets his debt paid but only stays its collection by his treachery until finally the hammer falls.
Gambling is an addiction that can trap any and all, the high and the low. Athletes, and especially successful ones, may be particularly susceptible to the rush it provides. A lifetime of high adrenaline action comes to an end at a relatively young age. Where then does Everybody’s All-American find a way to replace the thrill? The film by that name resonated at a time which seems terribly innocent by comparison with today’s intrigue. Big money, big Mafia, big scandal, and big club owners seeking ever more revenue, even at the risk to the very game itself. Maybe they’ll wise up. Wanna bet?