True, but arguably gambling is worse. It is addictive more like crack and meth and opiates than alcohol and certainly more expensive than being an alcoholic. Alcohol can certainly destroy lives but gambling tends to do it much faster.
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You equate the two, and I disagree. They are each regulated differently for a reason as well.
Gambling is far more addictive than is beer, for alcoholics generally have moved on to the harder stuff at that.
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Original Quote by my mom when my parents visited me back when I lived there:
"This town was built by LOSERS!"
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I learned that one sure fire way to tell a problem gambler is if all they talk about is their winnings. Other than poker for a select few, the fact is that any gambler will always lose money in the long run.
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i only gamble when there is beer involved lol 
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Truth - I have an uncle that has never lost - ever - he has always won when gambling - I don't know how much him and my aunt (RIP) lost in their time together as they were regulars at the casino, that said it was how they spent their off time.
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I think that people are starting to get into gambling at a way younger age also - I have crossed paths with people in their late teens and early 20's who seem to be gambling with what I would call alarming frequency - but the phone app is there - back in the day I think that with the need to be 21 it allowed a person to develop as an adult a little bit before they started to gamble - now you are not having fun unless you have some action on the game - You need to have some vested interest in the game or match - or at least this is how the advertisements have framed things.
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They have been breeding the next generation of gamblers via minors, which will be the biggest one ever, via the games on phone apps.
The psychological triggers are the same for most with free games as with real money.
It was the reality long before phone apps that the psychological reality is that most gamblers play primarily to play and do not merely play to win. That is why overwhelmingly most lose and many of even the winners don't stop playing and of course lose.
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hey if the ad shows Wayne Gretzky and Jamie Foxx winning and being all rich then it must mean gambling is for winners who want to win more
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The problem for the minors or the entitlement generation is that they will need the cash to gamble once itâs not free. It is unlikely that mommy and daddy will bankroll juniorâs gambling habit.
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The way they are going with that cheesy crap next up, right in the same break, are ads by them for laxative products.
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Ah well it's another blog and don't get me started on "modern parents" - I've seen far too many enablers of the addictions of their children over the years.
The pattern starts long before addiction with little or no consequences for bad behaviour by the weaker enabling parent, including sadly some who have their own issues to battle as well.
When a kid is young enough, with the average woman not at full mental maturity until age 21 and the average guy not at full mental maturity until age 25 with great variations in these regards of course (i.e. I've met 30+ year olds who still hang out with friends from HIGH SCHOOL, and run into college students or members of the military whom you would think mentally are pushing 30), there are those occasions when much of the blame is not on the kid.
haha hey i might buy those 
Here's the draft of my corporate sales pitch to them.
A new market niche is born for those who want to bet and go more AT THE SAME TIME!
Now that's maximization of profit and increased return on investment!
Literally IT IS CRAPITALISM! WOO!
This message was brought to you today by the CFL Forum.
The More You Know folks!
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These are impressive ratings and one key number, not the increase over 2021, is 33% more streamed to watch the 2022 edition than in 2021.
Given the potential, I don't see these games staying on cable once the college football playoff contract is up for ESPN starting in 2026.
All the same I feel it is likely some games will be simulcast to ABC depending on the date, for in 2024 the college football playoffs expand to 12 teams.
The CFP semifinal game between No. 1 Georgia and No. 4 Ohio State at the Peach Bowl averaged 22.1 million viewers on ESPN networks, according to ESPN. Viewership peaked at 23.9 million viewers from 9:45-10 p.m. EST. The Fiesta Bowl game between No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 TCU averaged 21.4 million viewers, with viewership peaking at 26.4 million from 7:45-8 p.m. EST.
Together, the two semifinals averaged 21.7 million viewers, up 28% from last year and the highest since 2018. They were the most-watched semifinals in five years and became the most-viewed non-New Year's Day semifinals of the CFP era, which started in 2014.
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Limits On NCAA "College" FBS ("Division 1A a long time ago and apparently they are still using the term "Division 1") Football "Free Agency"
"Transfer Portal"
What a clever Disney corporate or ESPN-generated euphemism for what student athletics have not been for a long time. It's free agency, people!
And now the NCAA has decided to return to placing a limit on it for the second transfer.
Hmmm...
By the second transfer, hasn't the player confirmed they are not really there to "play school" as if that were the case before?
How about we stop with the smoke-and-mirrors here for what has been also pro football for some time?
Unless it's a graduate student transfer which would be allowed otherwise, which usually means the player is not good enough (yet?) to play NFL or CFL ball and which I can't stand unless perhaps it is a lineman, punter, or kicker pursuing a graduate degree, I figure by the second transfer most of these players who have great talent, but are having issues with "school," are going to move on with life and perhaps the spring football leagues as long as they might exist as pro athletes.
Note that "Division I" means FBS only, so the most talented of players in lower levels of college football can still find their way into FBS pro football if desired.
The NCAA Division I Council approved legislation on Wednesday to limit waivers for second-time transfers. Now, undergraduate players who transfer will have specific guidelines they must meet in order to be eligible for immediate playing time starting with the 2023-24 season or risk sitting out a year in between transfers.
First, a player can receive immediate eligibility if they have a physical injury or mental health condition that pushed them to transfer from a school. Additionally, the NCAA will consider "exigent circumstances" that could force a player to leave an institution -- like sexual assault or abuse. No other factors will be considered, including academic considerations or playing time.
I am waiting for this shoe to drop.
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Yes indeed. I have been watching this news too, which did not excite me enough to post it before the matter has developed now to this level.
More of the public does not give a rip about NCAA Football at very large levels outside of certain pockets that include much of the expanded SEC (i.e. Texas and Oklahoma wisely went there), some of the expanded Big Ten (ditto USC and UCLA [with Cal-Berkeley getting its share of indirect action via UCLA, which is not to be ignored]), and Notre Dame.
With the decline in cable subscriptions and over-reliance on ESPN for exposure, a whole lot more shoes will drop with a whole lot more have-nots.
A friend and I have commented for years, since I began to make observations that much was wrong after a fun trip returning to my alma mater Notre Dame for a game in 2018 for the first time in decades, that the current FBS needs to be split up into two divisions.
We had discussed in this thread months ago of course the prospect of a formally professional such league, with heavy regional appeal and without the need for ESPN for exposure any more, for what might turn out to be a combination of the SEC and Big Ten and others for a 40-team league.
Note that number is a wild guess now, but that's the direction in which NCAA Football is going given the heavy regional Saturday draw, and this trend was one basis for me to even have started this thread.
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I prefer to look at financial forces, actual or potential, in analyzing many matters and of course that's not a unique approach.
When there is a heavy public appetite for better competition, some group at some point will recognize it and accumulate the capital to back it given a presently record number of revenue streams to be had from live sports.
We are seeing this momentum anew already for the European Super League 2.0 given the increasing lagging indicators for preservation of the status quo, and we have already seen this momentum via the Big Ten expansion and via the record new broadcast deal that begins on 1 July 2023.
In late 2020 Disney and ABC struck a new 10-year SEC deal that starts in 2024 that goes on top of the existing ESPN deal through the same timeframe, and that deal was done BEFORE Texas and Oklahoma annoucned in 2022 that they were coming aboard the SEC. The catch is what becomes of ESPN before too long given the Disney reorganization and then how will the ESPN deal be modified?
Anyway, it may be for the next decade given these recent record deals that secured the screen experience for NCAA Football for this decade, and Disney not merely ESPN had enmeshed itself to be the kingmaker on this front for any future formal pro league expansion.
Imagine the best teams playing each other every weekend, which in many regards has already been the case in the SEC in some seasons. I see it happening all-around in time especially as the audience gets younger and younger. Far fewer in 2030 will want to see the cupcake games for sake of "tradition" or whatever. Far fewer give a rat's behind about any bowl games on TV that are not playoffs or played in January, and about ten years ago it definitely was no longer a popular tradition in more of the US to watch games on New Year's Day.
Though ABC and all the other networks will be promoting college football nationally, even on broadcast the games no longer have broad national appeal akin to what has become of the SEC on CBS in recent media times.
All consumers simply have far more sports and entertainment options on Saturdays than ever, and many more of those options than ever do not involve sitting on the sofa watching a TV screen especially when the weather is nice outside.
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