Guest Opinion: Gambling websites make it look easy and glamourous
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Pity the poor recovering gamblers, who while struggling to put their demons behind them and wish to find in the reprieve of sports a place to “get away from it all” for a few hours, but yet are subject to an endless string of commercial ads for gambling websites. These sites make glamorous the explicit invitation to take their money in plain sight and callously set them back to their addictive ways.
Imagine a recovering gambler, trying to kick the habit, settling down to a Phillies game and seeing, as I did during a recent game, a stretch of five commercials, four of which were for four different online gambling sites.
Allow me to translate the commercials — they are all the same — in attempt to save the poor recovering gamblers: We want you to send $2 to us because we have this pretty, smart lady and this cool, mysterious dude telling you to do it while walking on water in a tuxedo.
Then we’ll let you win one ridiculous bet, like if someone — anyone — scores a basket in this NBA game, you win $200. To tell the truth, the $200 is really ours because you can’t have it. You have to spend it with us — and quickly, or you even lose what you don’t have — by placing the laughably stupid bets on our website that we know you are going to place.
You simply can’t win, but we know you will keep trying because the lady and dude are so smart and cool. And once we have a few hundred of your dollars, and you have collapsed back into your dark habits and desperation sets into your life, call these people at the bottom of the screen and we’ll move on.
Pity the poor recovering gambler who can no longer even enjoy a ball game.
Don DeLash is a resident of Pipersville.
