GAMBLING Money
If you’ve been wondering how come it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harry TV commercial you’ve been seeing these days during that favorite sporting event you seem to be watching all the time is either Draft Kings, telling you how THEIR “service” will turn you into an instant millionaire, or Fan Duel, telling you how THEY are the keys to your financial happiness for the rest of your life, a question has probably popped into your head, “Since when did they start allowing GAMBLING?”
GAMBLING is back and completely sanctioned by the powers that rule professional football, and for that matter, the rest of professional sports. GAMBLING is back because professional football has seen the incredible growth and popularity of fantasy football and they have decided that they want THEIR share of the loot. GAMBLING is back because the NFL has allowed the concept of “one week fantasy football” to be considered “gaming” and “entertainment,” even though the entire concept is fed by GAMBLERS, uh, er, football fans, putting up THEIR hard earned money in the pursuit of these potentially huge payouts by them GAMBLING that they can choose a great fantasy football lineup for that week.
The NFL, and most of the other pro sports organizations, are complicit in this support of this sanctioning of GAMBLING by their acceptance of the millions and millions of advertising dollars from the previously mentioned Draft Kings and Fan Duel for both arena advertising, and of course, television commercials. I don’t know how the deals were made to secure the advertising dollars from Draft Kings and Fan Duel, but I can imagine that without these ad dollars, the leagues would not have been so supportive of the idea of their sports condoning this blatant GAMBLING.
Why do Draft Kings and Fan Duel pump millions and millions of dollars into all of this advertising of their gaming services? They are trying to get football fans to pay THEM money to GAMBLE their hard earned money on the pursuit of the hoped for large payouts from this GAMBLING. The two “One Week Fantasy Football” companies sometimes offer a “try us out for free” offer to first time users to try to work over that huge pool of football fans as a hook to bring in new customers the same way Col. Sanders (KFC) puts out coupons in their ads to try to get customers hooked on finger lickin’ good chicken.
Or the same way cigarette companies try to get the pool of young school age kids to sample THEIR product to get THEM hooked on smoking. Like pretty much everything in life, Draft Kings and Fan Duel are just examples of companies that want to do what all businesses do — they just want to separate you from your money. And the greed of football fans that want to get rich quick is helping to feed the “one week fantasy football” business plan.
If anyone thinks that Fan Duel and Draft Kings are sinking all of the millions and millions of advertising dollars into this business plan just because they have this magnanimous desire to pay out all of the “weekly fantasy football” winnings they like to brag about paying every week out of their own pocket, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell them. The people who are actually paying these payouts for those “million dollar winners” you might see advertised in the commercials are each and every person (you and you and YOU) who signs up for these contests.
For every big winner (there are small amounts of winners each week and the majority of the contestants are the losers) you have seen advertised as winning that big fantasy money on TV, there are thousands of GAMBLING losers who have put up the money that the winners have won. And of course the two companies have taken their “vig” as their share of the pot before the winnings get passed out. Draft Kings and Fan Duel aren’t in this business to NOT make money. One can only imagine, though, what damage is being done to families by the GAMBLING losses of football fans chasing the dream.
And that’s really what this is all about. GAMBLING is after all the act of wagering some money so you can chase the dream of winning the big money. The HOUSE, or Draft Kings and Fan Duel in this case, takes their share of the overall take, and they don’t really care who wins. They just want people to play. They NEED lots of losers to make this whole scheme work out. (Isn’t that the same line of thinking as a pyramid scheme?)
The NFL and all of the sports that are taking the advertising money from companies that might have the wording “Not a Gambling Website, For Entertainment Purposes Only” in their fine print, but make no mistake about it, they are promoting GAMBLING. There is nothing wrong with the concept of a GAMBLING website. But the NFL should stop being hypocrites and admit that they have sold their soul to the devil and that they condone and sanction organized GAMBLING.
