Get Your Gamble On

Posted by Cynical Sarah on October 18, 2007

Today I dumped Sean Avery and decided to pick up Mike Sillinger instead. No clue what I’m talking about? I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have known what I was talking about a few weeks ago either until I decided to join in the office’s Fantasy Hockey league online.

I’m not sure what possessed me to do it. I like hockey, but I’m the kind of fan who pays attention to the teams, and I don’t even bother seeing how the other teams are doing. I’m a Redwings fan and now a Canucks fan as well, and I enjoy watching them play when the games are televised. That’s about the extent of it.

But, I decided to be a team player and chip in $10 to join in the Fantasy Hockey league anyway. I didn’t really put much thought into it other than that I wanted the Sedin twins on my team and then the rest were going to be Canadians because Helper Troy thought an all-Canadian team – aside from the Swedish twins – would be cool.

Draft day came and went, and even though I thought it was fun, I never expected it to affect how much I actually pay attention to the NHL. I was pretty much expecting to draft my players and then forget about it for the rest of the season.

Instead, I’ve developed an interest in checking out the scores for all the teams who played each day. I want to see if my players scored or got assists that will boost my points in the league. I’m disappointed with just a win from my goalie and not a shutout for the extra points I can get from that.

To sum it up, I’m now a much bigger hockey fan in general rather than just a fan of certain teams or players. I completely get it now when people say that betting on sports makes the games more interesting for them.

I also understand why the sports world fought so hard to keep fantasy sports from becoming illegal under the online gambling laws in the United States. However, I don’t get why the different sports leagues are fighting so hard to make sure sports betting online stays illegal.

They’re worried about the “integrity of the game” because there’s room for corruption with sports betting, but people can legally bet on sports in Las Vegas and it doesn’t seem to be hurting the game too much.

They’re just shooting themselves in the foot really. If fantasy sports can suck me in further into the hockey world, sports betting will draw in even more people. That translates to more people tuning into games on television, searching online to learn more about their players, picking up the newspaper to see what’s up in the sports section, and people willing to shell out the money for a ticket to actually go see the occasional game.

Hockey is already struggling to get and keep a good fan base in the United States. Opening up sports betting could be huge for the league. Baseball has pretty much been replaced by football as the national sport, and the MLB could sure use a boost after all the steroid issues that have been coming out, not to mention the league has never fully recovered from the players’ strike several years ago.

If something as simple as a fantasy league can get me more interested, you can bet it and sports betting will work for a lot of people.

Of course, maybe I just get easily sucked into these things. For instance, my job pretty much has me immersed in the poker world. For eight hours a day, five days a week, I live and breathe poker as I write poker news, read poker books to review, watch poker DVDs, so many other poker related activities that I can’t even begin to mention them all.

It’s not that I wasn’t interested in poker before this job. I knew how to play since my family often plays poker during family get-togethers. I didn’t mind the occasional fun home game – for M&Ms or pennies though, not for money.

But now I’ve got all this poker knowledge that is just itching to get put to use. After nearly a year and half of avoiding getting to deep into the poker world, I’m finally going to give in and play in an online tournament next weekend. I avoid the office cash game each week because I prefer the tournament setting where it’s a lot harder for me to lose a ton of money.

Next weekend may be my best chance to check out a tournament and get the poker itch out of my system before I end up just as obsessed with playing because of the work I do as I am obsessed with checking out my hockey players now that I’m in the fantasy league.

So that’s the explanation for the logo that will probably show up on the site later this week. I’m debating on playing in the World Bloggers Championship of Online Poker. It’s free to play in, and could be a fun way to check out online poker firsthand.

- Sarah L. Polson

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Tags: humor, sports

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