Nope.

You gotta leave your house to place a bet, in cash, to a real person.

with the exception of horse racing, I agree.

Unironically, yes. Take away the scale of mass industrialization and this shit is nowhere near the problem it is now.

we ran a book in high school, harmless fun, five dollars on this and that, no crime in that other than the crimes we were doing.

I spent too much money on $10 bets in college along with too many terrible odds parlay cards when I worked in factories.

That and a black jack game with a real shoe and a real felt table that got the dealer kicked off the golf team.

Holy shit, getting kicked off the golf team is some incredible petty-tier degeneracy.

He’s a neurosurgeon now so it worked out.

🏆 Him: "Russ, you're having an aneurysm. We can save you but we need to operate now." Me: "Hold on. Let's make this interesting." Him: "... I'm listening." Me: "Twenty says I don't fully recover, another twenty says the surgical site gets infected." Him: "You're on."

I'm working to a theory that gambling only became a problem when nerds started doing it. (Other than the massive social problems and divorces and bankruptcies.)

The last quarter century of American history, where gambling got more and more ubiquitous and younger and younger people partook in the dumbest games, is a real problem