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One quote says it all --

Billionaire and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, a Florida resident, is no fan of the recent push:

“Wherever these casinos have come, they have brought nothing but heartache and misery to the communities that have hosted them. I challenge the industry to name me one community in the United States that has benefited from casino gambling after a period of five years.”




Thoughts On Gambling and the Super Bowl
Karl Shmavonian, Forbes Staff

Las Vegas is expecting as much as $100 million to officially be wagered this weekend on Super Bowl XLVI (46 for those of you not wearing a toga) as the Patriots and Giants butt heads. Add in the amount blown unofficially in office pools, bars and living rooms—as well as the dollars devoured on food, beer and football merchandise—and the number will easily rise into the billions. My crazy call: The game will be a stinker, and the Giants will roll, 35-13. Second prediction: Madonna will tear off her brassiere during the halftime show and Dennis Rodman will come tumbling out.

It’s only fitting that the theme for our Thoughts post this time is gambling.

Jay Kornegay, director of the sports book at the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, offers this on football betting:

“A lot of the movement is dictated by the sharps, the professionals, the wise guys—the sophisticated bettors who go with the bigger amounts. They know the value of point spread, while the average Joe just picks who he thinks is the better team.”

Terry Cox, director of race and sportsbook at Peppermill Resort Spa Casino in Reno, Nevada, offers this tidbit on how gender and psychology play out at the gaming tables:

“Women are more measured and intellectual when it comes to betting. There are guys out there who throw down $5,000 on the game without checking the line first. You would almost never see that from a woman.”

Back in 1978, Malcolm Forbes wrote colorfully about Florida’s desire to roll the dice:

“Taking a leaf from New Jersey’s book, Floridians this November will vote on whether to make gambling legal on their Miami-centered Gold Coast. Though by no means as long-gone in decay as Atlantic City, the glitter (and gouging) that made Miami Beach so long a mecca for Big Spenders has considerably tarnished. The profitability of the Fontainebleau-y showtels has disappeared, along with most of the beach itself. So now it’s likely that gambling will put the color back in Miami’s cheeks. One-armed bandits will join the throng of two-armed ones who’ve been wintering there since Al Capone led the way decades ago.”

Thirty-four years later, Florida is trying again to bring casinos to its beaches. Billionaire and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, a Florida resident, is no fan of the recent push:

“Wherever these casinos have come, they have brought nothing but heartache and misery to the communities that have hosted them. I challenge the industry to name me one community in the United States that has benefited from casino gambling after a period of five years.”

W.C. Fields had this to say about wagering on Thoroughbreds:

“Horse sense is a good judgment which keeps horses from betting on people.”

Medieval philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204) wouldn’t approve of Vegas and Super Bowls:

“A gambler always loses. He loses money, dignity and time. And if he wins, he weaves a spider’s web round himself.”

A few years younger than Maimonides, FORBES ASIA editor Tim W. Ferguson has this to say about Americans’ lack of financial restraint:

“Only the occasional parson of prudence— and he is often an economist, not a preacher—will be heard to remind us that it is those who can least afford it who are most taken in. Could a weakening of household fiscal rectitude in the past generation have had something to do with the ‘instant millionaire’ craze?”

I like Ferguson’s turn of phrase—rumor has it that he was a member of a 1980s punk band named Parsons of Prudence.

SOURCES: CBS MIAMI; ESPNW.COM; A TREASURY OF JEWISH QUOTATIONS; THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF HUMOROUS QUOTATIONS; FORBES; FOXSPORTS.COM; THE YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS.