SOURCE: SI.com

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And sometimes -- I repeat: $700,000 bet on just one first-round match at a rinky-dink tournament in the bowels of Poland -- do you get the feeling that the whole world is becoming a craps table? People devotedly watching strangers play poker on TV? Who would have believed it? Or do you know they now want to put a casino on Easter Island? What? They'll be dealing blackjack in the Taj Mahal next year. Nevada used to have the sin market cornered. Now 27 states boast casinos that more than one-quarter of Americans patronize every year.

What's the matter with the other three-quarters of you patriots? Get with the program. Casinos, not industry, are touted as the hope for the redevelopment of a city like Detroit. Do you get the feeling that if houses, roads, churches, schools, hospitals and other bric-a-brac are not being rebuilt real fast along the Gulf Coast, not even Hurricane Katrina or FEMA could keep casinos washed out of business for long?

Now get this. In Vegas this season you can legally bet on fantasy football. You can bet that, say, Peyton Manning in one game, will do better than Tom Brady in another. But, ahh, in a real way, this just takes us sports fans back to our origins. For all the talk about how sweet and innocent and pastoral baseball began in the republic, the bald fact is that much of its early popularity came about simply because our dear national pastime was such a good betting game. Gamblers had sections all to themselves, changing the odds every inning, sometimes even every batter. Ah, the more things change . . .

And man, oh man, did you see what the jackpot for both PowerBall and Mega Millions got up to last week?

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