Sports betting case a victory over government hypocrisy: Kennedy

There are a couple of axioms moralizing statists can't wrap their heads around: People like to put weird things in their bodies, and they like to gamble. One deals mostly in experimentation, the other in optimism, but regardless of the certainty of both pursuits, leave it to government to try and squash the fun through force.

In 1992, Congress passed a dumb law that basically said only one state, Nevada, could have active, real-time sports betting. Of course it's arbitrary and unconstitutional and it's taken 26 years to finally strike back against the anti-federalist empire.

Chris Christie and the state of New Jersey essentially sued the NCAA to allow legal sports betting in the Garden State, because people love to combine sports and gambling, and New Jersey casinos are in the toilet.

The case made its way to SCOTUS which put the interruptus on the kibosh, and now that lame statute - that excluded every other state but smut central - is as soiled as Michael Wolff’s journalism credentials.

It is laughable for state and local governments to claim puritanical high ground as every scratcher and Powerball has preyed upon the poorest, yet most optimistic, among us. When you've hit a patch of bad luck, it is not inconceivable to turn on the good spigot with some free money, and those state lotteries rely on folks who make less than $10,000 a year who pony up on average about $600 a year on such losing lottery exploits.

Now maybe the downtrodden will make some sweeter scratch with better odds betting on a variety of teams and sports whose numbers aren't stacked against them to the tune of 300 million to one.

Of course this gives controlling do-gooders the vapors, but there are plenty of immoral and corrosive things government does on a daily basis that are far more tragic and financially devastating than sports betting. Leave it up to individual states to decide, and leave me the hell alone with my sin so I can wager in peace.