Don Gavin is responsible for what’s probably one of the funnier jokes anyone’s ever written about the attendant absurdities of gambling, and while the absence of the comic’s old-school Boston accent doesn’t do the bit any favors, here’s how it looks on paper:

“I love the facetious signs they put up in the casinos. ‘If you have a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.’ So I called ‘em up, I said, ‘Lookit, I got an ace and a six and the dealer is showing a seven…’”

Gavin looks like a kicked-over sandcastle, and everything about his appearance and delivery suggests that this is something that really might have happened one night at Foxwoods. In this case, the “problem” he’s facing has less to do with the degenerate’s long, lonely slide into insolvency than a sense of peevish outrage at how little the casino’s management thinks of him. Bostonians may not have invented the concept of no-limit reciprocity, but they sure have perfected it; if you’re going to waste my time with nonsense, expect to get buried by even more nonsense in return.

And hoooo boy, how the world’s reserves of nonsense have proliferated in the post-PASPA era. Now that the sports leagues and their media partners have all gone from pretending that gambling doesn’t exist to actively encouraging fans to risk a few bucks in the name of good, clean fun, Gavin’s disingenuous casino signage has mutated into a series of laughably affected PSAs. Not since FourLoko (aka the Poor Man’s Speedball) advised its target market of teenage dirtbags to “drink responsibly” has corporate messaging given off such a dubious and cynical vibe.

The most recent example of the place-your-bets-but-don’t-go-overboard genre is ESPN’s “The Talk” campaign, and like most commercials, it’s set in a parallel universe. The first spot, which bowed last week, features SportsCenter anchor Elle Duncan as a levelheaded wedding crasher. At first blush, everything in the presented scenario looks familiar enough; a father adjusts his twentysomething son’s bowtie in a mirror in the lead-up to the younger man’s wedding ceremony.

We’re four seconds into the spot and already it feels as if the hallucinations are about to kick in. “Hey, Son,” says the actor playing the dad as he pats his TV offspring’s tuxedoed shoulder, “before you get married, we need to have … the Talk.” This is profoundly weird for any number of reasons, not least of which being the fact that the guy who’s the groom-to-be looks like he’s maybe in his late 20s. This conversation should’ve happened 14 years ago, when placing a bet on a game meant dealing with payphones and gabbagool.    

As the apparently info-poor future husband brushes off his well-meaning scene partner, Elle Duncan walks in and there’s another head feint at the S-E-X talk. But no! This is a classic misdirection play, and instead of regaling the guy with bird/bees intel, Duncan talks up the importance of “setting limits while you bet.” In a chilling turn, Duncan then starts talking about a longshot parlay the groom had recently nailed, before reminding him that he “hasn’t won since.” Unless there’s been a serious data breach at ESPN Bet, this is information that she couldn’t possibly have at her disposal. 

Duncan’s message isn’t necessarily ill-conceived. Just because you’ve hit it big once doesn’t make you Ace Rothstein all of the sudden, and while the dad inadvertently does everything he can to ensure that the sentiment doesn’t sink in—again with the “we still need to have that talk about…”—the ESPN personality manages to wedge in her kicker just as the organist launches into the opening strains of The Wedding March.

OK, then. As one social media wag responded, “Local Heroin Kingpin Launches Clean Needle Exchange Program.”

It’s never easy to pass off a mandated CYA effort as unfettered altruism, but at least the ESPN spot feels like it was made for the generation that’s most likely to blow their paycheck on a sure thing. The most active converts to push-button sports betting are younger men, a class that all but vibrates with impulse-control disorders—as a former practitioner of what my dopey friends and I used to refer to as “Golf Cart Smash-Up Derby,” I am no stranger to the wages of youthful folly—and it probably can’t hurt to nag them a bit.

But how effective can a PSA campaign be in the futuristic-sounding world of 2025? We’re essentially talking about commercial messaging here, and the old tricks no longer seem to work. When was the last time anyone under the age of 40 bought something because they’d seen it advertised on TV? Can the behaviors of an entire stratum of consumer society be influenced by a mechanism that was designed by a bunch of people who’ve been dead longer than the Arizona Diamondbacks have been a thing?

Setting aside the essential disingenuousness of promoting “responsible gambling”—other than teaching an infant how to fire a crossbow, risking the rent on Syracuse (“I’m telling you, man: they’re overdue!”) is the very height of irresponsibility—it’s a wonder that the networks can go along with this sort of thing with a straight face. And the nonstop 30-second pitches for gambling apps aren’t the half of it. During televised NHL and NBA games, logos for the likes of FanDuel and BetMGM are visible for at least 20% of the total in-game running time. How can they tell us to be careful when they’re effectively encouraging us to care less?

Of course, cognitive dissonance makes the world go ‘round, and preaching the virtues of responsible gambling while serving as a sort of virtual, non-thumb-breaking bookie is fairly innocuous compared to [gestures at everything]. Something like 40% of the scaffolding that’s up in New York is only there because it’s cheaper to rent protective shedding than it is to repair a crumbling façade.

Anyway, why raise a fuss when it’s clear that none of this is going away. Since 2018, 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have rubberstamped at least some form of legit sports-wagering, which in turn has led to the generation of billions in taxable revenue. Just as your neighborhood now smells like the late, great Bill Walton’s favorite bong in the wake of the legalization of the devil’s lettuce, $5,000 says there’s no dispelling the funky odor of the point spread and the parlay.

Wanna bet?