Guest Blog - The Gamblies

Note: This is the husband with a guest blog.

I'm pretty pissed off with the state of gambling in the U.S. I'm a reasonable man who works hard and sometimes I'd really like to play a little online poker or place a bet on whatever sporting event I'm watching. I love sports but you know what makes them better? Having money on the outcome. Thanks to Congress, however, the only way I can do that is if I transfer money three times via a prepaid phone card and have it end up a shady offshore account in the Isle of Man. Nice job Uncle Sam! All I want to do is have a little fun legally and pay taxes on whatever I win. Gamblers are the only people who WANT to pay taxes and the government says "We are going to run out of money in 2 weeks and this would net us hundreds of millions a year but no thanks because our some people 400 years ago were probably against it." I bet the first thing the Pilgrims did when they got out off the boat was bet on who was the first dude to die of starvation and then the guy who took that bet parlayed that with "Will the cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving be jellied or the crappy kind nobody likes?" And that probably got them through that first tough winter.

I used to gamble online and while it wasn't legal, no one cared until they tacked on a part to a port security bill that cracked down on the banks that helped transfer the money. Then no one would do anything with the U.S. and I wasn't able to play anymore. I'm sure people would abuse it and go broke but some people drink too much or buy too many scratch-offs and no one gives a crap about them. I know that government said a couple of years ago that they wouldn't stop online poker so some states are doing stuff to make that happen but I doubt I'd be able to play in NC since they're against fun and think it's still 1825.

I also hope we get 50/50 raffles. Most hockey arenas in the NHL do these where they sell raffle tickets and then pick one winner per game who gets half of the total pot. The other half goes to charity so good job NC - I'm glad you hate children and love cancer because that's what I got out of it. Sometimes these pots gets pretty big and it would be awesome knowing that when the Canes stink and the season is lousy, at least I'd have a small chance of winning some cash each game. They sell lotto tickets at games but this isn't allowed?

Even third world countries have figured out to allow gambling of all forms in a way that makes people happy and gets tax revenue. My only consolation is that all the old people making the laws who are morally opposed to this while taking lotto lobby money will eventually get replaced by people who care about actual problems.