Excuse the b-word, but I bet you didn’t imagine it would happen this fast and so completely. Avalanches and sisters-in-law arrive more slowly. And there now seem to be more operations soliciting your bets than there are bets to make.

Worse, it has infected almost everything attached to a chance.

Consider that with broadcast journalism trending dead, colleges that charge for courses or majors in broadcast journalism should be indicted for fraud. What these schools teach and preach, if put to on-the-job application, could only lead to ruin: expulsion for corporate noncompliance and reporters’ disloyalty to the bottom line. Better today’s classically trained broadcast journalists enroll in Obedience Schools.

Sunday morning, WCBS Ch. 2 News included a long segment during which sports anchor Steve Overmyer, with a degree in journalism, interviewed a “Sports Investment Analyst.” Huh? Someone who provides advice on say, the sale of ball clubs, tennis and golf club real estate?

No, this particular SIA is better known as a gambling tout. And I figured he couldn’t be the worst because he wasn’t wearing a barrel supported by suspenders. He wasn’t the old Sports Investment Analyst, Bouncy Checks.

The issue on that morning’s news? The point spread in the Raiders-Jets game, which, as we were reminded, would be seen later right there on Ch. 2. Of course, without a bet, there’s not much reason to watch.

In other news …

Again, when the green light on legal sports gambling flashed, you never imagined it would become anything like this, did you? You worked to become a journalist? Not a gambling shill? Too bad. You’re in or you’re out.

It’s the Gold Rush, only for fool’s gold. What used to be all-sports WFAN suddenly has become all-day come-and-get-it, get-rich-quick gambling infomercials. Pregame shows, once produced to encourage you to watch the game, now load up on come-ons to encourage you to make a bet or three then watch your action.

When the pandemic lifts, arenas and ballparks will be revealed to have on-site wagering kiosks so one can bet inning-by-inning, quarter-by-quarter, period-by-period, score-by-score — and many more opportunities for those who get the “action shakes.”

Will taking a kid to a game become a moral decision?

Now consider the wider, taller picture:

Is there now a greater invite to fix games or shave points? Certainly not. But I think the fixers will change, from “mob” guys chomping cigars beneath fedoras to more modern gangsters: shot-callers — some literally — in powerful urban street gangs that hold life or death sway over young members, associates and families.

I see a near future in which one or two top scorers for a college basketball game, under threat of death or promise of riches, dump a game or two, as the “inside” action can now be spread so far around the country’s and the world’s sports books that detection will be beyond difficult.

And the kids being recruited to play big-time basketball have never been more vulnerable to dark forces that surround them or already have invaded their blood streams. The next college gambling scandal will be the work of a street gang, one of many that have grown more sophisticated and threatening by the week.

What does a kid who came from nothing and recruited with a pair of sneakers and a shiny warm-up suit — if not a little cash, in addition — have to lose? Library privileges?

I hope I’m wrong — dead wrong — on this, but I’m a lot better at predicting the weather than the score. And I know that what gambling can do, it will do.

All that’s needed to cause calamity is one episode. Looks like we’re in for nasty weather. As the ads for DraftKings urge, “Let it rain!”

When new Iona coach Rick Pitino says, “I do believe in the Gonzaga model of recruiting, the St. Mary’s model of recruiting, that 40 to 50 percent of your team has to be foreign players,” what does that really mean?

That Division I colleges operate under false pretenses, that they pretend to be academic institutions, but they’re committed to scouring the world to recruit a winning basketball team? In a word, yes.

The full scholarship recruit may be in his mid-20s or speak no or little English. Who cares as long as he knows when to show for practice? The ends justify the means, even if the ends hold no intrinsic educational value or reflect the school’s declared values.

Pitino’s first Iona roster includes recruits from Germany, Senegal, the Netherlands, Sweden and Rwanda. One of his American players, from Florida, is now at his third college.

But here, there, everywhere that’s the state of the art. That’s where the most money is spent — even if there’s no mention of sports in Iona’s lofty, soulful education-first mission statement. But Iona didn’t hire Pitino to teach civics, did it?

Follow the TV money! As for those “Good Investment” Roger Goodell PSLs, Week 15’s Giants-Browns has been “flexed” (baited and switched in the time of spectators) from 1 p.m. to 8:20 for NBC’s Sunday night purchased preferences. The average East Rutherford weather on Dec. 20 nights is just above freezing.

Phil Linz, who died last week at 81, was always disappointed he wasn’t invited to the Yankees’ Old-Timers’ Day.

Most shocking story of the week is that former Bengals’ mayhem and maelstrom manufacturer Vontaze Burfict was arrested for assault in Las Vegas. The arrest wasn’t shocking, but that it was only for a misdemeanor was.

From his L.A. home via phone, Al Michaels on winning the Ford Frick Award: “I’m just happy it wasn’t posthumously.”

So whatta ya think? When Nike execs see young men on TV or in photos arrested, stabbed or shot in clothing that carries the Nike logo, are the execs distressed or thrilled, as in mission accomplished?

Reader Don Reed: “College football is the only business in the world when, for one reason or another, half the employees vanish after Christmas.” Same with college basketball after the NCAA Tournament.

Notre Dame lets the kick bounce through the back of the end zone. Reader Ray Starman: “Is that the touchback of Notre Dame?” As they say in Gaelic, “Oy!”