Rigged From the Start: The House Always Wins
By, Patti Vasquez
...I thought about daddy this week because the news is full of gambling. But the men gambling with our lives and our future are nothing like him. Not even close.
Larry was sick. He was consumed by something he didn’t choose and couldn’t control, something his mother handed him before he was old enough to know what it was. And something someone had likely handed her long before that. He lost his own money, and then in his desperation, ours. He was sorry for it every day. The last thing he ever wanted was to hurt the people he loved. He just didn’t know how to stop.
What is happening in Washington right now is not addiction. It is not compulsion. It is not a man who can’t stop himself. It is calculation. It is construction. These people didn’t stumble into a casino. They built one. Out of a war. And they’re making the rest of us buy the chips.
Here is what we know. In the minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social signaling a pause in strikes on Iran, roughly $580 million in oil futures flooded the market. No public news explained it. Sixteen minutes later, Trump posted, oil dropped, stocks surged, and somebody made a fortune. This happened not once but repeatedly — the same pattern appearing before the two-week ceasefire announcement, before multiple major market-moving moments. Two Democratic senators wrote to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission demanding answers. An anonymous trader racked up nearly a million dollars on Polymarket betting on Iran war outcomes. More than 150 Polymarket accounts surged with bets predicting a U.S. strike on Iran the day before it happened. The Financial Times reported that Pete Hegseth’s stockbroker was seeking to make large investments in major defense companies in the days before the U.S. and Israel struck Iran. The Pentagon denied it. The White House sent staff an email warning them not to place prediction market bets on the Iran war.
You don’t send that email unless you know what your people are doing.
On Friday the Dow rose 800 points when the Strait of Hormuz was declared open. On Saturday, Iran closed it again and the Revolutionary Guard fired on tankers. And on Sunday — today — the United States Navy fired on an Iranian cargo ship called the Touska, blew a hole in its engine room, and U.S. Marines boarded and seized it. Trump announced this on Truth Social like he’d won a hand. “We have full custody of the ship,” he wrote, “and are seeing what’s on board.” More than 20,000 sailors and merchant seafarers have been stranded on ships in the Gulf since this war began in late February. The ceasefire expires Wednesday. Watch the market Monday morning. I promise you someone already has.
But the war casino is only part of the story. Because while the insiders are trading on ceasefire announcements, something else is happening to the rest of us. SNAP benefits have been slashed. Medicaid and Medicare are being gutted. Healthcare subsidies are disappearing and people are dropping their insurance because they can no longer afford it. Hospitals in vulnerable communities — rural hospitals, hospitals in medical deserts across this country, many of them in red states whose residents voted for this — are closing their doors. Seniors are being squeezed. People with disabilities are losing support. The programs that let people stay in their homes, stay in their communities, live longer and healthier are being hollowed out in real time, and the money is flooding upward at a historic rate.
That is not a casino where everyone plays. That is a casino where certain people always win, and everyone else pays for the losses.
My father lost money he didn’t have and took some of ours trying to find his way back. He died sorry for it. Before he went, all he wanted was to have been able to take care of us.
These men are not sorry. They are not lying awake wishing they could have done better by the people who trusted them. They know exactly what they’re doing. They built the house. They set the odds. And they made sure they’d never be the ones to lose.
That’s the difference. That’s the whole difference.
I miss my daddy. I wish he was here to see how beautiful his grandsons turned out.
The house always wins. Until we decide it doesn’t.
See you on Mayday.
If gambling has become a problem for you or someone you love, help is available. Are You Really Winning? is a nationwide campaign offering support and resources for problem gambling. Visit areyoureallywinning.com or call 1-800-GAMBLER.
Patti Vasquez hosts “Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez” weekdays 5-7 PM CST on WCPT 820 AM. She’s a mom, wife, daughter, caregiver, radio host, writer, comedian, and professional feeler of feelings.
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