A former Oklahoma football player is going to prison because of gambling.

Blake Ferguson pled guilty to bank fraud after stealing almost $700,000 from his employer, Firstar Bank, to pay off his gambling debts. Ferguson, who was a senior vice president at the bank, was sentenced to 31 months in federal prison. When he gets out, he will be supervised for five years.

He has to make restitution to the bank and individuals for about $144,000.

What went wrong?

Ferguson was a star at OU. He had everything going for him – a great reputation, a fantastic job and a bright future. That is all diminished if not evaporated.

No one is to blame for his crimes but him.

However, this is a story that on one scale or another is being repeated constantly in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has more than 115 tribal casinos and they are all in the stages of re-opening. Large, anxious crowds line up six feet apart to get back in to gamble.

Gambling has proliferated in Oklahoma. Tens of thousands of Texans flock to Oklahoma’s southern counties to waste their money on gambling.

Oklahoma’s gambling laws are like putting an alcohol treatment facility in a vineyard.

And state voters made it even worse by passing a state lottery. You can waste your money on gambling at a gas station, a convenience store, a pharmacy and other retailers. It’s hard to escape the pull of gambling for someone like Blake Ferguson.

Again, Ferguson can’t blame gambling for stealing from a bank. But if gambling were illegal in Oklahoma and we didn’t have these casinos, it would have taken a lot more effort for him to lose so much money that he felt he had to steal to cover his bets.

There are a lot of Blake Ferguson stories that aren’t being told because the casinos and the lottery spend so much money on advertising and the “new media” treats that industry as a “sacred cow.” A state senator and a football hero have been sentenced to federal prison. Who is next?