The Abomination Known as the Lottery

by Mike Rosolio

Hypocrisy is wonderful. To a satirist, hypocrisy is like his insulin. To a diabetic satirist, insulin is still insulin, but hypocrisy is close.

Gamblers across the east coast have been celebrating Delaware’s recent decision to permit betting on sports. They’ve already got racetracks, slots, and tax-free shopping (which is like gambling…without losing…it’s like gambling against an idiot). This has been music to the cauliflowered ears of degenerates of all shapes and sizes who loved throwing down a five-team parlay, but hated dodging transsexual hookers on the way into the Taj Mahal. (sidenote: Atlantic City should be defecating in their suede pants right now. If Delaware goes one more step and permits table games, the stankiest part of America’s arm pit is going to experience a new degree of dead).

The National Football League, as ESPN personalities are forced by threat of electric shock to call it, has taken a number of measures to stop this from happening. This is, of course, because the NFL expressly prohibits gambling on games. You can tell because in every major newspaper in America, they throw a point spread down next to every game on the schedule. But they abhor gambling. They require coaches to file detailed injury reports by Probable, Questionable, Doubtful, and Out, to justify abnormally large or small lines. They claim the rationale is disclosure between teams, as if the Eagles are going to look at the Giants injury report and go, “Oh, Osi Umenyiora is questionable with a groin! We don’t need to block anyone to our left anymore! Wheeeee!” The NFL hates betting so much, they’ll never have a Super Bowl anywhere near Las Vegas, but will have it in Detroit (full casinos), New Orleans (ditto) and Florida (almost as many “reservations” as Golden Corrals). In case they weren’t clear enough, the NFL is anti-gambling.

The beautiful thing about a true believer is that they’re all only minutes away from exposing themselves as frauds.

A week after filing motions in the Delaware Supreme Court to block sports betting as unconstitutional, the NFL has used its free hand to enter into a deal with local state lotteries. The New England Patriots were the first. The Washington Redskins, who also recently won a law suit allowing them to have a racial slur as their mascot (celebrate, Eastern Virginia State University Fighting Ch*nks!) have joined in the fun as well, putting their logos and personalities all over lottos, scratch-offs, and sniff ‘ems, all of which are expressly permitted by the constitution of the United States. Ladies and Gentlemen, we take you to this 1787 Philadelphia living room….

Alexander Hamilton: Okay, so we’re going to have ourselves a country, and we’re going to want to have random games of chance.
Ben Franklin: Yes. Wait, what?
AH: Well, we’re going to have to tax our citizens and we don’t want to overdo it. So why not just enact an additional tax on the poor and give a tenth of the revenue away to one lucky sap a week?
Thomas Jefferson: Oh, that’s a splendid idea! Who wants cake?
BF: Wait, hang on a second. It’s going to be completely random?
AH: Yes.
George Washington: So it’ll be pure luck if they win?
AH: Yep.
William Howard Taft: What kind of cake?
BF: Be still! You’re not even alive yet.
WHT: Oh.
GW: Well, then why not make legal games of skill? Like craps, blackjack, or Addams Family Values slot machines?
AH: Oh no, my friends! That would be immoral!
GW: Excellent point! Now, what do about that business of all men being created equal? Surely we don’t mean black people…
TJ: It’s sort of a bundt cake. We didn’t really have that good of a mold…
And scene.