When former Canadian Senator David Braley resigned his seat in November 2013, after being appointed by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in May 2010, some small momentum that may have been gained toward the goal of single-game Sports betting was shattered. In April 2016, the CBC reported on an "about face" by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party. The latest incarnation of proposed legislation that would have seen single-game sports betting legalized in Canada was defeated in Parliament, on September 21, 2016.

Canada currently imposes a "parlay" system, where betters must correctly predict the outcome of three games.

This means that Canadians don't have a way to make a single Super Bowl 2017 pick. Internet gaming sites in the United Kingdom allow residents to not only make wagers on single games, but also offer electronic books, where bets are taken. Predicting the outcome of games, taking advantage of improperly priced odds, and making electronic books in single games is a potential source of income for anyone.

Parlay system protects government revenues

Liberal MP Sean Casey told the CBC that the parlay system protects Canada's "most vulnerable." However, allowing Canada's most vulnerable to play parlay games with such terrible odds, at all, while not allowing those with the ability to offer an even fairer game than exists currently, seems an illogical proposition.

A proposition similar to the one that allows the current situation surrounding shady, revenue-less penny stocks on the TSX Venture Exchange. Did you know that stock in revenue-less firms shares many characteristics with call options? That means that they tend to lose value. People connected to such stocks may carry unpleasant secrets.

Somehow, the Liberal government believes that offering Canada's most vulnerable such terrible investments and such terrible odds is protecting them. Most Canadians are probably unaware that many of the stocks, which I have started calling "specks," on the TSX Venture Exchange appear to be comparable to companies sold by boiler room operators.

Stocks that routinely go on to lose more than 90 percent of their value.

I say, if they want to run a casino, let them run a casino, but call it what it is, don't mix up real stocks, issued by companies like the $104.9 billion Royal Bank of Canada (TSE: RY, NYSE: RY) with specks issued by companies with no revenues like King's Bay Gold Speculation (TSXV: KBG); that is a recipe for an elderly person, objectively among Canada's "most vulnerable," losing their life savings to a con artist.

Investors deserve same protections as gamblers?

How can offering terrible sports-betting odds and investments that might make Jordan Belfort shudder protect Canada's most vulnerable? Wouldn't it be more fair to pay market-based odds, rather than the sheep-fleecing parlay setup that currently exists?

Allow Canada's most vulnerable to keep some of the money they gamble, rather than have it sucked up by the vacuum that is Pro-Line. Allow Canada's most vulnerable to know that when they buy an investment without revenues, they aren't buying stock, they are buying speck, something that may have a snowball's chance in Acapulco of making money and is similar to out-of-the-money call options. Why not allow small investors to short speck and stock more easily, too? Give the same access to the most vulnerable and allow them to participate in the games government and Business do, but with odds and terms that any reasonable adult with agree are fair.

Single-game betting and specks. Together, they could increase economic activity and save lives, while at the same time improving the level of transparency, terms, and odds offered to all parties involved, particularly Canada's most vulnerable.

Problem gamblers already have casinos, horse racing, and lotteries, not to mention Pro-Line, to destroy their lives. Aren't those who continually buy losing shares on the TSX Venture Exchange problem gamblers as well?