All pro sports, as well as the NCAA, should thank God every day

Host: The night was thick with smoke and sin, the kind that clung to your skin like secrets. The casino floor was alive — a restless sea of lights, money, and murmurs. Dice rolled like whispered prayers. Cards flipped like lies told with rhythm. The air smelled of gin, greed, and faith — the strange trinity that held the room together.

A flickering neon sign outside buzzed against the glass: “LUCKY ACE — OPEN ALL NIGHT.”

Inside, Jack sat at a small corner table, coat collar turned up, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, eyes half-shadowed by the yellow light. Jeeny leaned against the velvet booth across from him, a glass of bourbon in her hand, her posture elegant but coiled — like someone who knew the rules but didn’t trust the referees.

Somewhere in the background, an announcer’s voice bled from a mounted television: a basketball game in the fourth quarter, crowd roaring, numbers flashing. Odds and faith intertwined.

Jeeny: (reading from her phone, voice smooth but sharp) “All pro sports, as well as the NCAA, should thank God every day we have sports betting here… We have the only agency in the world that regulates the honesty of games.”

(She looks up, a slow smirk.) Meyer Lansky. The mob’s accountant turned philosopher.

Jack: (chuckling lowly) Honesty, huh? From Lansky. That’s like asking the fox to guard the chicken and call it divine order.

Jeeny: (swirling her drink) Or maybe it’s the only kind of honesty the world actually understands — the one with money on it.

Jack: (leaning forward) You think corruption keeps the system clean?

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) I think corruption keeps the system. Take it away, and the whole thing collapses from pretending to be pure.

Host: Her voice slid through the smoke like a blade wrapped in velvet. Around them, the roulette wheel spun, its click-click-click punctuating her words. The dealer nearby flipped cards with mechanical grace, his eyes empty, his hands precise.

Jack: (grinning) That’s your philosophy, then? Thank God for sin because it keeps virtue busy?

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze) No, Jack. I’m saying virtue doesn’t survive without sin. They’re business partners. Always have been.

Jack: (scoffing) Sounds like something Lansky would’ve said before laundering morality through a roulette table.

Jeeny: (quietly) And yet he wasn’t wrong. Think about it — sports, politics, religion — they all run on belief. But belief alone doesn’t pay for stadium lights.

Host: The music changed — a slow jazz number, sultry and blue, filling the gaps between their sentences. The bartender wiped down the counter with the rhythm of someone who’d seen every truth disguised as entertainment.

Jack: (exhaling smoke) You ever think about what makes a game honest, Jeeny? The players? The refs? The crowd?

Jeeny: (tilting her head) None of them. It’s the risk that makes it honest. The wager. Because only when something’s on the line do people stop pretending.

Jack: (smirking) You’d make a good bookmaker.

Jeeny: (smiling) Maybe. Or a priest. It’s all the same sermon — confession, risk, redemption.

Host: Her words landed like poker chips on marble — small, solid truths disguised as chance. Jack studied her face for a moment, the flicker of red light from the slot machines painting her features like a living contradiction — faith and cynicism sharing the same smile.

Jack: (softly) You think Lansky really believed in honesty?

Jeeny: (quietly) No. He believed in equilibrium. That’s different. He understood that even corruption needs rules. Without rules, chaos stops being profitable.

Jack: (murmuring) And with rules, it becomes respectable.

Jeeny: Exactly. That’s the oldest trick in civilization — give sin a tax code, and call it structure.

Host: The television behind them erupted — the final buzzer. The game ended. The crowd cheered, somewhere far away. Numbers flashed. The bookies took their notes. Money changed hands in invisible rituals of gratitude and regret.

Jack: (watching the screen) You know what’s funny? They call it a “game,” but it’s really a market. Every pass, every foul, every miracle play — a transaction dressed as emotion.

Jeeny: (nodding) And people love it because it gives them the illusion of control. Betting isn’t about money — it’s about making chaos feel predictable.

Jack: (smiling faintly) That’s faith, then. The gambler’s version of prayer.

Jeeny: (grinning) Exactly. Every bet is a psalm whispered to chance.

Host: The rain outside intensified, streaking the windows in thin silver lines. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, as if heaven itself was taking a wager on their words.

Jack: (leaning back) So Lansky was right — sports should thank God for betting, because without it, belief would die of boredom.

Jeeny: (softly) Not just sports. The whole human machine runs on illusion — the belief that the game is fair, that someone’s keeping score, that there’s a system keeping chaos honest.

Jack: (quietly) And if there isn’t?

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze) Then we invent one. Call it God. Call it regulation. Call it love. Doesn’t matter — as long as it keeps us playing.

Host: A brief silence followed, punctuated only by the clinking of glasses and the distant ring of slot machines. The smoke curled upward, catching the light like fading halos.

Jack: (softly) You ever wonder if the house always wins?

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) The house is the world, Jack. And we keep showing up, not to win — but to feel alive while losing.

Host: The camera might have drifted closer — catching the flicker of her eyes, the faint smile at the corner of his mouth, the quiet resignation disguised as understanding.

The music swelled just slightly — a saxophone cry that sounded both mournful and divine.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe that’s why Lansky was right. Because for all our preaching about fairness, what we really crave isn’t purity — it’s participation.

Jack: (nodding slowly) The game, then, is our only confession.

Jeeny: (whispering) And the wager — our only prayer.

Host: The lights flickered once more, then steadied. Outside, the rain had stopped. Inside, the casino carried on — the endless hum of chance and choice, of people trying to turn risk into reason.

Host (closing):
Because what Meyer Lansky understood — what we all secretly know —
is that honesty is not the absence of corruption,
but its careful regulation.
And in every bet, every game, every trembling roll of the dice,
we find our most human truth:
we would rather live uncertain —
than not play at all.