It’s Friday. You’re here. Well done you.
The announcement this week that the NCAA is in various stages of gambling investigations into thirteen different athletes tracks just about perfectly. It is a ringing reaffirmation that this isn’t strictly a pro phenomenon.
Wait: I already need to back up. This is not a phenomenon on any level. This is, rather, a wholly predictable result. You take a profit-making facet of sports that forever existed in the murky bowels of the industry, drag it into the public light, slap a fresh coat of paint on it and declare it benign, then enter into massively lucrative paydays that partner betting companies with leagues and conferences and allow people to lose money directly off their phone apps — did anyone think the kids wouldn’t want their cut?
C’mon. This is America.