In college, I had a friend who infuriated me by insisting that all words be conclusively defined. I considered constantly defining words obstructive; it certainly slowed down a discussion. After law school and twenty plus years as a lawyer, I am now fully in Roger’s camp. Words must be defined in order to have a constructive discussion.
Today’s, this week’s, this month’s word is “gambling.” The standard dictionary definition of “gambling” is to play a game of chance for money. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/gambling It’s pretty straight forward. No need to define any of the words in the definition, they are common words used according to our common understanding of them.
In case you aren’t a basketball fan, the reason “gambling” is the word of the day and the week and the month is because of the (men’s) NCAA Basketball Tournament. It starts Thursday, despite the NCAA’s insipid insistence on scheduling play-in games on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it has become a national event.[1] Some of you may recall that the NCAA tournament used to play second fiddle to the NIT (National Invitational Tournament), which the NCAA supplanted and then purchased.
Last year, approximately $9 billion was gambled on the tournament. For comparison purposes, consider that roughly $4.2 billion was bet on the 2016 Super Bowl. http://www.bettingsports.com/biggest-events-to-bet-on According to The Sporting News, The American Gaming Association estimates that approximately $10.4 billion will be on the line during this year’s tournament. http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-2017-record-amount-illegal-betting-office-pools/1an4gu7kt7gkt179p9ivcaszlv
There are many different games of chance associated with the tournament. I have a friend who runs a survivor pool. You pick a team to win on day one. If they win, you advance, and select another team on day two. You cannot select a team more than once. I selected West Virginia to win on day one.
Another friend runs a traditional bracket pool. You predict the winner of all 63 games in the tournament,[2] from day one through the championship. You accrue points based on the round. A typical format allots one point for a correct first round prediction and doubles the per-game allotment for each round. That means that each round is worth the same amount of points – because the points double, but the games halve. There are 32 games in the first round worth one point each; there are two semifinal games, each worth 16 points. It’s hard to win if you don’t get the 32 points from selecting the champion. I’m counting on Kansas to run the table.
Another friend used to run a variant of the traditional bracket pool. That pool awarded points based on the seed of the team and the round. If a 1-seed won its first-round game (and no 1-seed has every lost its first-round game), it earned one point – 1 times 1, the seed times the round. If an 11-seed won a first round game it was worth 11 points – 1 times 11, the seed times the round. An 11-seed winning a third round game was a bonanza: 33 points. Unfortunately that pool no longer exists, but it was fun while it lasted.
I have a friend who usually joins an auction pool. Each team in the tournament is “purchased” in an auction. Points are accrued, not unlike a traditional bracket pool. A first round victory is worth 1/32nd (because there are 32 games) of 1/6 (because there are six rounds) of the total pool. A second round win is worth 1/16 of 1/6 of the total pool. Dominant teams have gone for several hundred dollars. That probably won’t happen this year because there is no consensus powerhouse.
There are also pools based on points scored by players. In one version, players are acquired in a draft. Eight participants each draft eight players for a total of 64 players, providing nice symmetry with the tournament. Another version allows each participant to select 10 players (total) from ten different seeds, meaning only one player from among the four 1-seeds, one from among the four 2-seeds, etc.
There are many other ways to gamble on the games, including betting on the winner at a sports book. By far the most common way to bet on the tournament is to fill out a bracket, which the American Gambling Association estimates 40 million of us will do. The AGA also estimates that 97% of the $10 billion or so that will be bet this year, will be wagered illegally. We are a nation of scofflaws.[3] Enjoy the games and the games
[1] Would it be crazy to propose that the Thursday and Friday afternoons of the tournament be combined to form a national holiday? So much productivity is lost anyway that we might as well make it official.
[2] The formula to determine the number of games in any single elimination tournament is N – 1. Thus, a 64-team tournament will have 63 games. Because of the play-in games, there are officially 68 teams in the tournament, meaning that 67 games will be played.
[3] To close the circle (sort of), a “scofflaw” is a person who flouts the law, especially a law that is difficult to enforce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofflaw Arresting all of us for betting in a brackets pool might be slightly easier than arresting every driver who exceeds the speed limit. After all, the tournament only happens once a year.
It certainly is obstructive in a process where establishing a relationship is considered important, but not if the goal is clarity. It is interesting that there is a gender stereotype to be considered with this discussion, but I need go no further into that morass than to point out my own spouse seems to have a subconscious personality trait of confusing the gender of all our pets, to the point I begin to wonder if a malicious pathology is hidden in my continual efforts to correct her manner of speech.