Makers Are On The Endangered Species List

OTB put a dent in neighborhood bookmakers. This will wipe them out:


I am not sure how Wall Street’s gambling casinos will deal with sports betting. Betting in Wall Street casinos is called investing. Wall Street sharpshooters can hardly call sports betting investing.

NOTE: A long time ago —— when the press was half-ass legitimate —— they put the daily stock market report on the same page as thoroughbred racing results.

Do not get me wrong. I have no objections to gambling. I do object to the government shilling for the casinos.

Wall Street brokers were always crooks to be sure; nevertheless, the reputation Wall Street enjoys today is due to the S.E.C.’s cloak of respectability —— not for any contribution stock markets make to society. I do not have to list the scandals, the thefts, the bailouts, etc. that went on right under the S.E.C.’s nose in recent years. At least taxpayers did not have to bailout the crooks in 1929.

In the 1920s, the stock market was as crooked as a snake with arthritis. Today’s stock market is just as crooked, but you will never hear Socialists complaining about their creation. It has taken the parasite class 89 years to convince Americans that the crash in ‘29 was the primary cause of the Great Depression. They will not discard the myth for any reason; hence, talking heads get their scare tactics from Wall Street:

1. The global economy is on the verge of Armageddon.

2. Money will be worthless.

3. Everybody will starve to death if the global web of financial markets collapses.

QUESTION: Are stock markets rigged? ANSWER: Of course they are rigged! They have always been rigged!

Wall Street firms are gambling casinos. Gambling casinos always stack the percentages in favor of the house. Wall Street does not operate on percentages although the commissions charged for buying and selling are fixed percentages. Churning customers’ accounts is quite lucrative even with a fixed percentage in place.

How is the stock market rigged?

The cloak of respectability provided by the Securities and Exchange Commission is the most subtle method.

Do percentages mean that the tables in Las Vegas gambling casinos are rigged? Of course not. The percentages will grind you down fast enough —— some forms faster than others.

Slot machines are the worst. Not only are the suckers bucking brutal percentages, they are getting ten decisions a minute on average. That means the house’s percentage is eating you alive every time a decision is made.

Also, slot machines do not require dealers, croupiers, etc. One man can service a thousand one armed bandits. That makes the slots the most profitable game in the house in terms of labor costs.

The galloping dominoes, blackjack, and roulette devour you at a slower rate than the slots. The house percentage is not as savage as it is on a slot machine; nevertheless, every form of casino gambling will pick you just as clean with fewer decisions.

NOTE: Every system to beat the house works. The worst betting system ever invented will payoff once in awhile. The best so-called system in the world will not payoff enough times to beat the percentages.

Punters only get nine decisions a day at a race track assuming they bet every race. So how many wealthy horse degenerates do you know?

It is the jerks who read the Daily Racing Form and the Wall Street Journal trying to predict the future who holler "Rape" the loudest when it comes out that the insiders rigged the game.

Gambling is gambling. Poker or pinochle —— golf or tennis —— are GAMES. Every game requires precise skills; hence, the most skilled player on any given day will always win. Conversely, good game players are notoriously poor gamblers. The best poker player in the world cannot predict the winner in a walkover.

Betting on the gees-gees, or the galloping dominoes. or buying stocks is gambling. So do not send for the gendarmes when you lose.

Finally, lotteries are NOT that big of a sucker bet when you analyze this old axiom: Never bet a lot to win a little. (You win an awful lot for a buck.)

William Hill is off the mark. States are going to tax the piss out of sports betting.

VIDEO ▼

William Hill US CEO on sports betting ruling | On Air Videos | Fox News


In the early years bookmakers covered the bets on race tracks. In 1927 pari-mutual machines eventually put them out of business. The last time I paid attention the government’s vigorish was 17 percent. You can be certain the vig will go that high on sports betting before very long.

For those who are unfamiliar with the sport of kings, ‘Beat the Favorite’ is still the name of the game for the mighty midgets.

It was the camera that cleaned up thoroughbred racing. A leg-lock was a tactic that was common in the years before race tracks installed cameras. A jockey on another horse would lock his leg in the leg of the jockey riding the favorite. Regardless of how fast a horse can run he ain’t going nowhere when his jockey is leg-locked. I do not see a camera cleaning up shaving points in order to beat the spread.

My point: The spread leaves a lot of room for larceny, but with the gees-gees it matters not if the race is fixed. Bettors have as much chance of cashing a ticket on a boat race as they have of collecting on an honest race.

NOTE: The camera cleaned up one aspect of thoroughbred racing. Not so with stagecoach races. A trotter will legally lose a race by breaking his stride under the watchful eye of the camera.

Let me close with two bits of trivia.

Jim Dandy upset Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox in the 1930 Travers Stakes. To this day experts claim that was the biggest upset in the history of thoroughbred racing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/sports/horse-racing-the-day-jim-dandy-danced-in-the-rain.html

Many people who know about such things consider this the greatest sports photo ever taken:


https://www.courier-journal.com/sto...ountdown-kentucky-derby-brokers-tip/24341975/

No, I don't think this will wipe out bookmakers any more than legalizing pot wiped out the illicit weed market, and here's why: Once you legalize a previously illicit activity, everyone wants a piece of the action. In the case of pot, the states are heavily regulating growers while taxing the dog piss out of them. The small fry have a difficult time complying with all of the regulatory b.s., so they just operate in the black market where they always have even as they undercut the regulated dispensaries where it counts most: in price.

It's a given that the states will use agencies to regulate and tax bookmaking. Meanwhile, everyone else--the Feds, the sports leagues, associations, players--will want a piece of the action. A high-tax, greedy state like New Jersey is going to sock it to the Vegas-style sportsbooks in what is in reality a low-margin business. The bookies operating in the shadows won't have that problem, because they won't concern themselves with taxes or regulations. The ones who worry about government generally just buy a federal tax stamp while giving the states the shaft. Thus, they'll be able to offer their customers a very competitive product.

So I think it's premature to announce the death of illicit bookmaking.

Ahlevah said:

In the case of pot, the states are heavily regulating growers while taxing the dog piss out of them.

Click to expand...

To Ahlevah: I disagree with your analogy. Here is why taxing Mary Jane is not feasible as well as being self-defeating:

1. Individuals are legally entitled to make a certain amount of beer, wine, and whiskey for their own consumption. Not many American drinkers make their own hooch; so taxation was not a problem for the tax collector. Not so with Mary Jane. Assuming that Mary Jane will get the same personal-use exemption John Barleycorn enjoys, tens of millions of grasshoppers will grow their own. All they need is a flower pot, a little water, or a backyard (no one knows how many are already into creative gardening). I fully expect “How To Grow” books will quickly outnumber diet books on bookstore shelves.

2. Grasshoppers receive a product for their money, while money alone is the product between makers and their customers.

3. The alcohol lobby and the church worked together to keep marijuana illegal. That opposition is a losing battle.

The lyrics in that very subtle song Cocktails for Two represent a nice little peek into what the public (minus teetotalers) was really thinking after Prohibition was repealed. The hit song written in1934 was a ballet. I still crackup every time I hear Spike Jones’ rendition:



I do not have the breakdown on homemade beer, wine, and hard liquor, but you be sure that drug cartels going legit as did Prohibition era bootleggers will not have it so easy because of the aforementioned personal-use exemption. In short: Bootleggers never worried competed against millions of self-suppliers; so it is logical to assume that a few million will share the sunshine with friends. So long as they are not selling there is not much chance they can be caught or stopped.

Even if the government levies hefty fines on pot miscreants, the expense involved in catching and prosecuting every weed-whacker who shares his crop would defeat the purpose. And can you image eight or nine million grasshoppers demanding jury trials every year?

Happily, legal pot taught dirty little moralists a lesson —— they cannot legislate good behavior anymore than they can legislate love?

I will admit that legal pot will follow the XXI Amendment in one sense. After the XXI was ratified one joke went something like this: Repeal is a con job. There is no more booze available now than there was during Prohibition.

On the negative side, watering holes are an integral part of the culture not to mention the huge amount of money spent on barroom decorations, food, etc.

There is a time-honored, acceptable, social intercourse involved in collectivist drinking. I think public drinking will be hit hard because grasshoppers do not have to do their smoking in bars. If, as I believe, tens of millions will grow their own they will not be welcomed in “Pot Bars” anymore than tipplers can bring their own booze into drinking establishments.

Discounting a small number of closet drinkers, there is a social activity in play even if one goes to a tavern and sits alone. On the other hand, the only social activity involved in blowing steam is blowing steam. In short: Drinking is wrapped in social mores, smoking grass is not and never will be.



If smoking pot ever hopes to become a cultural mainstay grasshoppers need a body of classic drinking songs. Puff the Magic Dragon cannot compete with drinking song classics:



https://youtu.be/OI3Bcgh4Jko

https://youtu.be/ug8p5pVsj9U

Remember this one?


Grasshoppers in general might try to go the same route gays went with artists if scientists prove Shakespeare enjoyed a pipeful now and again.

Finally, now that Mr. Happy Weed is legal in California I expect Governor Moonbeam to replace the Dogface Butterfly with the grasshopper as the state’s official insect.