[Disclaimer: This is a satirical news piece, just for fun, read at your own risk!]

Pete Rose Selected Posthumously as Ambassador for Online Sports Betting

Pete Rose is infamous for betting on MLB games while he played in the league.

Following the death last Monday of legendary Major League Baseball hits leader Pete Rose, the American Gaming Association announced they had selected the former Reds and Phillies star as their posthumous world-wide ambassador for the burgeoning online sports gaming industry.

Pete Rose
Photo: Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, CC BY 2.0.

“Pete frequently hit rock bottom,” recalled Nancy Dru Rose, Pete’s 8th wife. He sold everything he ever won, everything he ever owned, everything I ever owned; his was a severe addiction. Dru said that Rose even sold three of the couple’s 14 children, to white slavers in S. Africa. “Got a pretty good price for them, though” she remembered.

Online sports gaming has mushroomed in popularity — and profitability — over the last 6 years. In 2018 the United States Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, opening the floodgates to online sports betting.

Members of the Supreme Court were questioned about the decision Monday afternoon in D.C. When queried, Justice Clarence Thomas remarked that, inasmuch as online sports betting could lead to deleterious results for the American people, “It was only natural that we give it the green light.” Thomas was placing a bet on his cell phone in his office at the Supreme Court Building as he spoke.

What accounts for online sports betting’s increased popularity? Experts contend that, aside from the Supreme Court’s decision, it is increased exposure to advertisements, special promotions and celebrity endorsements that are most responsible for more and more Americans, particularly young males, being indoctrinated into the cult of online sports betting. Endorsements have sprung from the likes of Paris Hilton, Mike Tyson and Kanye West, proving, says the AGA, that the industry is able to draw on the cream of the crop for its celebrity endorsements.

According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, “In the National Institutes of Health, there is an agency for drugs, an agency for alcohol and and agency for mental health. We have no agency for problem gambling.” According to NCPG statistics, Black men are more likely to become addicted to gambling than non-Blacks.

Emter preeminent sports gambling spokesperson and flashy man-about-town actor Jamie Foxx, appearing before reporters clad in a suit which probably cost more than the car driven by the average American, “There is no problem here, bro’,” he said in an oily voice. And he flashed that Hollywood smile.

According to NCPG spokesman Ted Winkle, 61% of young men bet either daily or weekly. Justice Alito, who also voted to rule the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act unconstitutional in 2018, said that “That means we’re all coming together in a positive way, and that’s a good thing!”

Justice Gorsuch elaborated: “It’s like guns; in the wrong hands, or with the wrong attitude, a gun can blow your freaking brains out, but we don’t ban guns just because 50,000 or so American were slain last year, do we? Half those,” added Gorsuch, “were suicides, and we won’t stand in the way of a citizen’s expression of self-determination; unless, of course, it has to do with reproductive freedom.”

Said Thomas, a known Constitutional institutionalist, “Reproductive freedom for chicks is not in the original Constitution!” When reminded by a reporter than more than 6,000 children died by gun violence in 2023, Alito snapped that “That’s nothing compared with the lives lost to transgenderism.”

Even Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump has gotten into the act. At a rally in Tolstoy, New York this morning, the former president said that the gaming industry, which profited to the tune of some $31 billion last year and which stands to generate some $180 billion annually by 2030, “Would help settle the national debt. I’ll still be president in 2030,” he added with an orange grin.

When confronted with the fact that the average 18-24 year old who is addicted to sports betting is in debt for between $55,000 and $90,000, Trump scoffed. “That’s peanuts,” said the former president. “I love debt!”

According a survey conducted by NCSG, 1 in 5 young men put aside as much as a quarter of their paycheck for sports betting. The AGA conducted a similar survey, but surprisingly, came up with a figure of just 1 out of 500.

Trump told reporters that Trump Industries is introducing a betting app in time for the 2024 election. The former president has some experience in the gaming industry. He went bankrupt multiple times from losses suffered in his Atlantic City, New Jersey casinos.

The only wager on his new app, said Trump, will be on who wins the presidency. “If the better bets on Crooked (Ku – MOLL – Uh), then I win, because I can’t lose. And if they bet on me, I’ll just stiff ’em.” He cackled. “Of course,” he said, “after the election, I’ll change the law so that their losses will be tax deductible — if they’re billionaires.”

When informed by reporters that Pete Rose had recently died, Trump expressed remorse. “I’d known he wasn’t feeling well,” he explained, “which is the reason I didn’t choose him for my vice president. Now, if only I can get Vance to catch whatever Rose had…”

Bill Tope
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