Illinois is soaked with gambling, from lotteries and casinos to off-track betting and video slots in what seems like every gas station with a few square feet of seating over by shelves of over-priced junk food.

This month, things will probably accelerate, and March Madness is only part of it.

Betting on Bradley, Illinois State or other area teams can start under a new state law permitting wagers at state-licensed sportsbooks on the outcomes of games played by in-state college teams (but not on in-game plays, athletes’ performances, etc.).

Passed last fall, the law set March 5 as the deadline for the Illinois Gaming Board to allow sports bettors to sign up online from their computer or phone instead of registering in-person at sportsbooks at racetracks, casinos, etc. Physically, sportsbooks sites themselves aren’t casinos since there aren’t poker or table games, nor slots, roulette, etc. But since March of 2020, more than 90% of legal bets in Illinois were made online, so letting your fingers do the betting is the default position for most sports betting.

Ever since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the prohibition on states authorizing sports betting, it’s expanded faster than hungry greyhounds chasing a real rabbit around a fenced-in dog park.

Illinois’ legislature authorized betting on sports in 2019, and since March of 2020 Illinois gamblers reportedly wagered more than millions of dollars on college squads from outside the state.

Last March, Illinoisans bet $633.6 million in one month with NCAA and NBA basketball action, so this month, under the lure of Illinois colleges being part of the action, sports betting is sure to grow.

To what end?

To benefit schools (like the misleading promise when the lottery launched)?

To make up for state shortfalls in public-pension funding?

To establish better healthcare or child care? To cut taxes?

Apart from such remote possibilities, sports betting could take off faster than Tom Ricketts unloading the Cubs roster. Already, in just the last several months, Illinois has entered the top three states (with Nevada and New Jersey) in the amount of money wagered, according to the state Gaming Board.

Raising revenue isn’t bad, of course, but in some ways it’s a hidden tax on many people who can’t afford the expenditure any more than they can easily drop dough on a Ponzi scheme or a long-shot corporate startup.

“Everyone starts out a loser, and most stay a loser, as far as betting goes,” commented Bill Krackomberger, who operates the KrackWins website and is frequently featured on VSIN (the Vegas Stats & Information Network).

“I’m trying to help people,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It means more to me to have safe, responsible gambling.”

But gambling is Big Business. Operators (and states) count on the temptation of getting something for nothing. New Jersey gamblers placed $1 billion in wagers in one month for the first time in September. Big Business means political clout and resources to use sophisticated marketing to generate suckers (um, customers, that is).

“Let the buyer beware,” as Gilded Age capitalists sniffed.

In dozens of states that have legal sports betting, corporations are competing online and over the public airwaves in a frenzy comparable to ravenous sharks swirling around chum, and we are the chum. (Not the “chums.”)

Some bettors could lose their week’s take-home pay, a chunk of their savings, or worse. That’s so obvious that — in a minimal concession to risks — broadcast commercials include warnings about “problem gambling” and sports such as the NFL have programs on responsible betting.

It’s a problem as global as pandemics, of course.

“Children as young as 15 are losing large amounts of money gambling online in Ireland,” said Anita Bedell, executive director of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems in Springfield.

“They start gambling around age 11 in Australia, and there are 55,000 problem gamblers under the age of 16 in the UK,” she continued. “These countries are introducing reforms to limit bets and gambling advertising to address increases in underage gambling, suicide and addiction.”

True, sports betting — even about Illinois college teams — isn’t as short-sighted as previous administrations having seemingly made prisons seem like economic-development boons.

However, promoting gambling is neither creative nor without unintended — and potentially harmful — consequences.

The law enabling sports betting on in-state college teams is scheduled to be automatically repealed on July 1, 2023, unless lawmakers extend it.

You can bet they will.