“I’ll be you can’t climb that tree as high as I can,” one sibling said to me. And I replied, “bet I can,” and I did. But that was the extent of our betting as kids.

My siblings and I grew up in a home with a dad who abhorred illegal gambling. In fact, he didn’t approve of most any type of games of chance. There were no poker games with money on the table in our home.

When our school sent home raffle tickets, we were told to politely return them to our teachers. No gambling meant no gambling. Our father’s deep disgust for illegal gambling had him taking on some of the offenders via his writings as editor of the Wheeling News-Register decades ago. It was at a time when Wheeling was known for its wide open gambling, prostitution and other related crimes.

His public fight against the criminals did not win him much favor within the organizations that offered such “entertainment.”

He often spoke of those who got caught up in the throes of owing money to their bookies and the crime families.

There was little sympathy for those who could not pay up, and violence would follow.

We didn’t question his thinking on gambling as we never had enough spare change to throw away so foolishly.

Even as kids, we held summertime and after school jobs to keep some spending money in our pockets. It never occurred to us to drop that money into a slot machine.

My how times have changed. Legal gambling parlors are a dime a dozen throughout our communities. Beautifully acquainted casinos bring in millions of guests each year, each spending as they see fit.

Lotteries in this country have earned state coffers tens of millions of dollars daily, often resulting in prize winnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars for some lucky lotto players.

How much people spend on those lottery tickets climbs to numbers only imagined five years ago.

And then there is Super Bowl Sunday this weekend. Not only is it the biggest football game of the year, it is also the super bowl of gambling.

It is estimated that $1.39 billion in bets will be made on Sunday’s game. Bets will range from who will win the coin toss to what color outfit will Taylor Swift wear to the game.

Gambling is a personal choice. To each his own. Just remember there is rarely a sure bet.

Heather Ziegler can be reached via email at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.