I have never had much interest in gambling, other than in matters like eating dicey leftovers from the fridge. “I have an iron stomach,” I tell my wife and chief risk assessment officer, Dede, who does not always approve.

As for sports gambling, which is increasingly hot these days, I have had no need. It was enough to stake my hopes and dreams on the Boston Red Sox, who for many years failed in heart-crushing fashion. We fans were squirrels scrambling for our place at the top only to find out we’d reached a transformer.

Zap!

The Sox won it all in 2004 and I have since been a satisfied man, sports-wise. Everything changed. From then on, my cars passed inspection. Bosses told me to do whatever I wanted. The weather has been temperate and the seasons delightful. People on the street look at me and sense that I am a fan of a champion. Even Yankees fans tip their caps. All problems, financial, medical, personal, philosophical, are small. I always walk on the sunny side of the street.

My boyhood morality was influenced by reading about the disgrace of Shoeless Joe Jackson, tarnished in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, when players were accused of conspiring with gamblers to throw the World Series. A young lad was said to have cried out to his hero, “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” which seemed to me one of the saddest things I’d ever heard. I grew up thinking that gambling and sports were a match and powder keg.

Somewhere along the line morality changed. Major sports leagues are getting cozy with gambling. So are states. New Hampshire and Vermont have OK’d sports betting. Lebanon is going to have a “charitable” casino on the Miracle Mile. (Some charity. Some miracle.)

But this is our nature. Humans have been gambling since the cave days, when Homo sapiens took advantage of Neanderthals, who were suckers for three-card monte. This led directly to office Super Bowl betting pools, through a process called history.

For all we know, aliens in space gamble, perhaps on asteroid races, or the foibles of humans. What might be the over/under on us boiling our home planet, or a madman hitting the end-of-world button?

The odds don’t seem so long to this non-betting man.

I suppose gambling on pro football and baseball is interesting enough, but the real action could be in other sports. As a former coach of the Ricker Funeral Home Rangers, I’d say that nothing is more random than T-ball, where every ball in play is an adventure. A bouncer back to the pitcher might turn into an inside-the-park home run. A right-fielder picking dandelions who is startled by fans yelling about an approaching fly ball might do anything, from catching it, to freezing, to tossing a glove in the air after the speeding sphere. In the fantastic world of T-ball, there’s a chance that the ball would land in the glove which would then drop into the player’s arms.

If the player makes that miracle catch and doesn’t lose the dandelion in her hair, it’s a perfecta! It should pay off big.

On the other end of the age spectrum, senior bingo is for small stakes, but what if outsiders could make side wagers on the players? Would the smart money be on Mildred, or Madge? Watch out for the lady in back with a purple streak in her hair who entered at the last second wearing aviator glasses.

As it happens, Dede and I went to a bingo night recently at an area senior center. I gave her one of my cards to play, because keeping watch over five was almost like work. Immediately, the card was a winner for her. What are the odds?

We came out even for the night, a satisfactory outcome since we had some laughs. I have bought a few lottery tickets, but I know in my heart I wasn’t meant to be a billionaire. I would probably give most of it to good causes. What’s the fun in that?

If the states get more heavily into gambling, there should of course be an app. They could localize it. Lebanon players should be able to place wagers on the annual number of fender-benders on the previously mentioned Miracle Mile, for starters.

There could be proposition bets on the weather, local fairs, landfill tonnage, tax rates and the high school valedictorian.

This all may seem unlikely, silly, or even stupid, but look at recent trends. And as Gonk the Neanderthal once said, “How can I lose?”

(He lost.)

Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.