In an effort to help stimulate his state’s economy, Gov. Jack Markell has reportedly announced plans to introduce a bill sometime soon that would legalize sports gambling in Delaware.

The bill would allow people to put down parlay bets on sporting events and it would be the first time in 30 years that sports betting would be legal anywhere east of the Mississippi River. It could be legal by the time the big gambling season, also known as the National Football League, starts up in September.

Understandably, the bill has supporters and detractors. Eric R. Bodenweiser, a 50-year-old resident of Georgetown, DE, told Delaware Online: “To me it’s a moral thing: Gambling is a sinful thing. I’m sorry that the government has gotten involved in it as we have.”

Bodenweiser set up a petition to block sports betting. It appears as though between 40 and 45 people legitimately signed the petition before a bunch of drunken idiots got a hold of computers and keyboards to one-up each other by signing vile phrases and insults where their names were supposed to go.

I understand where Bodenweiser is coming from. Addiction is an ugly thing. According to the Web site of Clear Lead Inc., more than 2.5 million adults in America are pathological gamblers and another 3 million of them should be considered so. Well over $500 billion is spent on wagers annually as well.

But while I respect Bodenweiser’s opinion, I typically don’t believe it is the government’s job to protect us from ourselves. I also believe that the vast majority of the estimated 148 million gamblers out there, and I am one, are capable of policing themselves – betting for fun and excitement while not risking the mortgage, the marriage, the business or any other major facets of life.

That said, I do have one issue with the proposed Delaware bill. I don’t understand why Markell is only going to allow parlay bets. Parlays require gamblers to correctly pick two or more outcomes on one bet before they can win any money. They stack the odds against the player and are considered by most studied sports gamblers as sucker bets.

The reason is that for each additional selection a player makes, the payoffs get larger – but the odds begin stacking against the player at an even greater rate. Say you bet a three-game parlay. You hit two and miss one. If you bet the games individually, assuming you bet the same amount on each game, you’d be up for the day. But if you bet on a parlay card, two out of three wins you nothing.

While I would enjoy a limited expansion of sports gambling outside the borders of Las Vegas, if you are going to do it, do it completely and give the players a fighting chance.

Or perhaps that’s the part of the plan that would allow Gov. Markell to spur the state’s coffers. Either way, I’ll take $50 on the team wearing blue.

(By the way, if you think you might have a gambling problem, click on the attached link for Gamblers Anonymous)