I’ve never been much of a gambler. In fact, I suck at it. My shortcomings have mostly to do with lack of interest, in the same way someone else might have no interest in watching “sports games” or doing needlepoint.
It goes back to when my high school girlfriend’s brother, a few years older, would invite me to play poker with him and his buddies. He and I were friends. But they knew I was an easy mark. Exploiting my naivete was a sport unto itself.
Come to think of it, card games in general aren’t my strongest suit, so to speak. Like a primitive, I find myself wading deep and innocently into the situation at hand, not so much a strategist as a survivor, stumbling into the occasional victory only when it’s staring me in the face, as my fellow competitors grow concerned about my comprehension. Years ago, when I willingly signed up to be part of a game of bridge with experienced players at the table, I was the living definition of a dummy hand.
Casinos aren’t my jam. All I see is assuaged boredom, degrees of desperation and sadness masked by bravado and that incessant marimba tone that’s supposed to connote winning. Lottery tickets? Nah. Happy to buy some stocking stuffers. But thinking I have lucky numbers — especially numbers generated at random — is like seeking answers in the universe’s arrangement of stars. Yes, you can get from A to B with celestial navigation. Just don’t ask them who’s going to win the World Series.
Ah yes, the scourge that is sports wagering. If it hasn’t already ruined your favorite spectator sport, I predict it will soon, either because of intrusive behavior from what used to be called fans or from influencing competition outcomes.
Someone somewhere is always trying to put a foot on the scale. Sports betting now has given way to prediction markets, which some actually go so far as to call an industry. The word “industry,” fittingly, is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. To me it is the laziest form of trying to get one over on the rest of us. It’s gaming the system to the point of paralysis, promulgated by allegedly whip-smart individuals who really ought to be doing something else with their time.
Some think the job of business publications is to predict things. But let us revisit the fine print on every prospectus: Past results are no indication of future performance. We try to accurately describe what just happened. We document what’s unfolding before our eyes. We do so in the name of learning and discovery, to inform decision-making and perhaps prod our readers’ curiosity. But, even at a publication founded by a self-described futurist, I submit that claiming to foresee the future is mostly an ego trip.
In these pages, we seek to bypass laying odds with the clarity of facts, expertise and the lived experience of those we interview. What we all learn may help shape the future. But there’s no reason for prediction when mere diction will do.
