Just Pick a Side

Hard Rock, the entertainment/resort company that is prominent in my home state of Florida, has recently been airing a slew of TV commercials, some featuring recording artist Post Malone, that tout their online "service" allowing players to gamble on sports.  I suppose that if you're into that, then good for you...it's just that much easier to put your hard-earned money on the line.  So in this vein I see a company responding to a demand within the population that satisfies them.  I see other companies likewise doing this.  For example, many addicted cigarette smokers welcomed the advent of vaping, which did away with the carcinogenic tobacco elements they would breathe when "lighting up",  but which still provided them that craved nicotine effect.  Again, a demand met by companies' innovations...good for them, again.  Where I have a problem, though, with both of these examples is when the companies go out of their way to create new "needs" among the potential consumer pool that previously did not exist.  Making vaping seem cool to young people who never touched a cigarette in their lives is like this.  Or go back to Hard Rock, expanding the gambling to generally ignorant folks who don't know enough to at least make an educated guess about who will win or lose a sports contest.  With them, their latest pitch is a gimmick they have on their app whereby participants can still lay down their money and bet by simply "picking a side".  It all sounds so fun and inclusive, or at least that's how the ads make it look: come on and join the party!  But here again is a company expanding its consumer base to create a need that simply wasn't there before.  I guess, though, that's the essence of advertising, isn't it, to make the fool targeted potential consumer feel somehow inadequate or less than acceptable if they don't climb aboard with the company's agenda...  

The Players Championship Golf Tournament Was a Classic This Year

The Players Championship golf tournament, played in nearby Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (just south of Jacksonville is one of those PGA events that attract attention beyond the sport's regular adherents.  This past weekend we saw Scotty Scheffler, perhaps the greatest golfer of this current era, struggling to defend from behind his previous year's title in the event.  Starting the final round yesterday, Scheffler was tied for sixth place, five strokes behind leader Xander Schauffele.  It seemed that only an incredible final round, combined with more restrained performances by Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harmon, the last two only one and two strokes behind, respectively, would enable Scheffler to repeat as champ.  But events unraveled exactly as Scotty would have preferred and he won dramatically by a single stroke at the end as opponent after opponent missed their achingly close birdie attempts on the 18th hole...it was a classic to be remembered.  I've never played "regular" golf before, only mini-golf, but I've enjoyed following the professional golf tournaments in recent years.  Before yesterday's action, I tuned in to the Golf Channel to hear their commentary and was dismayed to discover that they only seemed interested in setting up betting odds on the probable winners.  The only time I ever bet on spectator sports was in high school when I went in on an NFL pool for one weekend.  I came close to winning it with my predictions but, fortunately, narrowly lost to another kid...who ended up having to hassle many of the others in the pool to pay up.  I say fortunately because it helped to further steer me from gambling money, something I was already on guard against because my father, although a responsible provider who saved money and kept us all financially floating, had a weakness for betting the dogs at many of South Florida's tracks and seemed often preoccupied on a mind-numbing level with his various betting systems which he often changed around.  So no, whatever vices I have, gambling away money isn't one of them.  On our recent cruise there was a casino and Melissa and I passed through it on the way to somewhere else...the folks there were so intensely involved with their little machines and games that it frankly kind of freaked me out.  A couple of days later we were seated for breakfast at a table where the other two couples couldn't stop talking about their casino adventures and systems.  Well, I suppose if you're helping to financially prop up the cruise industry with your gambling so that I have better options with it, then go for it!  Besides, the more in the casino, the fewer clogging up the pool and deck...

Game of the Week: The Lottery

Whenever I think of the lottery, I think of three things: Shirley Jackson's short horror story with that title, the All in the Family episode when Edith buys what turns out to be the winning lottery ticket for her next-door neighbor Louise, and the Florida Lottery, begun in 1988 after being approved by a wide margin in the 1986 elections.  After my state's fledgling lottery instituted the Lotto with its promise of millions to the winner(s) each week, I would play along and occasionally put down a dollar for a ticket...I always used the same six numbers.  But never more than a buck at a time, nor with any real expectation of winning...it was more of a social "activity" I did with my family back then.  Not long thereafter, I lost interest and it's been many years since I ever played it.  But although the Florida Lottery has the altruistic aim of funding my state's public education system from its proceeds, it is still gambling and as such has infected many with its promises of easy money.  I don't know whether there is a gene that makes one susceptible to becoming a compulsive gambler, but sadly there was one in my family as I grew up and I quickly learned my lesson about gambling's downside.  One of the first Twilight Zone episodes I ever saw, The Fever, has a man reluctantly visiting Las Vegas with his wife.  Feeling morally superior to the "vice" of gambling he sees everywhere, he nevertheless succumbs to the temptation of the slot machine when coins pour out from it the first time he plays.  From that moment onward he is hooked...continually losing at that machine but afraid to leave it for fear that the next player would win "his" jackpot.  That's how I think a lot of habitual lottery players see their weekly ventures...the one week they skip playing just might be the week their numbers come in, and wouldn't that be tragic if they missed out.  When I'm at a convenience store or Publix at the service counter and someone in front of me in line lays down a large stash of dough on lottery tickets, part of me wants to wheel that person around and shout sense into them.  But no, it's all going for education, right?

Optimism Bias

I was watching CNN yesterday morning when one of the guests, a human behavior expert, answered some questions as to why so many people were refusing the COVID-19 vaccine when it was presented for them.  One of the reasons, he postulated...besides fears among the population that the vaccines were developed so quickly and recently without the full, lifelong consequences of receiving them yet known...is that people generally go about their lives with a bias for optimism: they see themselves as healthy, probably not going to catch the virus, and if they do then it'll be like a common cold at worst.  This optimism bias became apparent a few days ago when so many placed their bets for the billion-dollar Powerball jackpot, quite a few taking the occasion to discuss what they would do with all that money when they "won". The odds of winning it are 1 in 292,201,338...virtually zero, yet folks will tell you there's still a "chance" of winning it.  Many of these same people will live lifestyles contributing to heart disease (1 in 6 chance of dying), cancer (1 in 7 chance), and chronic lower respiratory disease (1 in 27 chance).  So you live a healthy life, do you?  The odds of dying of a motor vehicle accident are 1 in 102...better not ever get in a car again if you think you have a chance at winning Powerball!  There's a chart unraveling all these statistics, from the website TitleMax...click here to view it.  So let's agree that we're still going to drive...and also liable to engage in some behaviors that contribute to a higher probability of dying.  The problem I've seen over the past year with people's attitudes toward this coronavirus pandemic is that they say the survival rate after you come down with it is over 98%: those are really not very good odds, especially considering that a much higher percentage of those afflicted suffer damage to their bodies that hasn't and may never heal.  But we're all optimists, right?  For me, I'm optimistically biased that my turn at the vaccine will come soon, we'll achieve some kind of "herd immunity" before long, and I'll get back to eating tasty, unhealthy foods indoors at my favorite restaurants...