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If you're a sports fan in general, or a basketball fan in particular, then this week is probably something you've looked forward to -- the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournaments, often referred to as "March Madness" because of the at-times unpredictable nature of the game results.
And while March Madness is nothing new, the meteoric rise of legalized sports gambling is -- at least relatively speaking.
According to an Associated Press story, it is estimated that 17% of American adults (not just sports fans, but all adults) will place a bet of some kind on the tournaments, which actually began Tuesday but get underway in earnest on Thursday afternoon and will continue for the next three weeks.
In the past, that usually meant having a bracket pool in which participants pay an often small entry fee and then attempt to predict the outcome of the games, which will still overwhelmingly be the most popular method of betting.
But with legal sports books now open in many places in the U.S., including Pennsylvania, and accessible to anyone age 21 or older with a computer or smart phone, the wagering possibilities are literally endless.
As we often say, we're not here to lecture adults on what to do with their own hard-earned money.
This is America, after all, and if you want to wager a little or a lot on the tournaments, that's your prerogative.
But we will caution you to set some limits on how much you wager and to only bet an amount you can afford to lose.
Is it exciting to win a bet? Absolutely.
We just urge anyone who wagers to be careful. As the saying goes, casinos don't make money by the public winning often. That applies at the sports book as much as it does at the roulette table.
So, by all means, if you like basketball, fill out your brackets and enjoy the tournaments.
Just make sure if you bet and lose, it won't create a different type of March madness.