By MONTE DUTTON

We’ll all know that gambling –oh, I’m sorry, it’s not gambling, it’s merely gaming – has completely taken over when folks can put money on the outcome of a Trump trial.

Maybe even a parlay.

Gambling is one of many areas of life that seems to be relentlessly out of hand.

As the long-late Gary Stewart sang:

Some time to wait, so just a taste
Was all that I had planned
And I never intended
For it to get so out of hand

Tom Jans and Jeff Barry were not writing about taking the over on the Mavs, but it was recorded in 1974 before the Mavs were a thing.

I’ve seldom gambled on sports. It muddies my waters. I don’t even like, I don’t know, are they still called rotisserie leagues? I did enjoy Strat-O-Matic Baseball for a time when I had it (the time).

The bottom line is this: I don’t want to hope a New York Yankee gets a game-winning hit because I need the pitcher to get rocked. I want him to take a called third strike.

The last time I bet on sports, Texas came through for me in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. I was in Vegas writing about a stock car race. I think it was worth a cool 10 bucks.

Mainly I just dabbled in the slots and occasionally played blackjack. Nothing too risky. Usually I broke close to even. One year I hit a slot machine at Dover. That’s the main reason that, for 20 years, in Delaware and Nevada, I was in the black.

Betting on sports has not diminished the use of profanity. My observation is that money leads to crudity, particularly when a bettor just got it or lost it.

It’s not that sports gambling just magically appeared. States just started making money off it, which means other states are falling like dominoes. South Carolina will wait a while, as it traditionally does. This great state hasn’t gone first since the Civil War. How’d that come out? I get a little uneasy when the Palmetto State breaks new ground.

When I was in high school, fans bet on our games. “Parlay cards” (strictly for amusement purposes was printed on them) circulated at filling stations, eateries and mill gates.

I was trying to come up with a silver lining in sports gambling. Maybe it takes the heat off the high-school kids.

Many years ago, I went to a Clemson bowl game in Orlando, Fla. The Tigers won but missed the last extra point. When my nephew and I stopped in the facilities on the way out, we discovered the missed kick prevented Clemson from covering the spread. This minimized the joy of victory and maximized the incidence of bad words.

College athletes are becoming wheeler-dealers in more ways than out on the edge. They’re hiring fancy lawyers and skipping minor bowl games. What’s next? They deem a game against Charleston Southern as unworthy of their attention?

Scandal is unavoidable in a world of NILs, the transfer protocol and brand-new money.

I’m not against college ballplayers earning money. The problem is that college football and basketball have developed the same way Dodge City, Kan., and Tombstone, Ariz., did. Gunfighters square off in the dusty streets, taking athletes as the notches on their belts.

Now the NCAA has passed a new set of rules, regulations and requirements. I expect, being the ruling body’s typical policy, it is not enough.

A 19-year-old quarterback making seven figures is not as likely to be motivated by his studies.

Of course, it just filters down. The colleges are recruiting one another as much as high-school kids. Demoralized, they go anywhere they can catch on. If they do well, they move on. If they don’t, they leave after a semester.

Of course, magnificent exceptions occur, but it’s a tough row to hoe.

Trying to make things better has gone out of style. Now folks just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

The voices are out in the wilderness.

Decision time is approaching. What’s next? Do I keep doing it the way I am now? Do I amend this site? Do I continue to concentrate on local sports coverage, or do I change my priorities?

I’m thinking. I’m thinking.

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