Like saloon duels of the 1800s, or hockey fights of the 1970s, or Wrestlemania spectacles of the 1980s, few images stir the depths of the national soul as watching hordes of the overstuffed masses pile through plexiglass doors onto freon laced linoleum floors in search of that last flat screen or crock pot. Participating in Black Friday is more American than participating in elections; and when Thomas Payne wrote of reaping the blessings of freedom while undergoing the fatigues of supporting it, clawing yourself out from under a mother of three for the last talking Aquaman figure is exactly what he envisioned.

It’s one thing to take this America-loving author’s word as scripture, but let’s step back and judge the pure patriotism of Black Friday by the only metric that matters in America — Las Vegas oddsmakers. Even if you don’t need that new electric kettle or third Kindle, Las Vegas lets you, the citizen, participate by allowing you to bet on everything from total retail sales or total shopper count in store. But the real bets are on Black Friday shoppers themselves.

You can place bets on such things like ‘will the number of unprovoked shark attacks worldwide be higher than Black Friday related deaths worldwide?’