8 ms·

Will Supreme Court open a ‘dam burst’ of legalized sports betting?

75 points by stablemap 9y ago

hug 9y ago
As an Australian, living in a society where betting is legal albeit fairly regulated: I sincerely hope not. The reason for that hope is that gambling and gambling advertising, with the rise of online betting sites and smartphone apps, has started to become a fairly genuine social issue. With advertisements like this one (https://twitter.com/sportsbetcomau/status/863634984682233856 https://twitter.com/sportsbetcomau/status/863634984682233856) [note: Ben Johnson recently was found to be on PEDs], or advertisements blanketing one of the busiest train stations in the country, like the following (https://twitter.com/Doc_Samantha/status/786665869787078656 https://twitter.com/Doc_Samantha/status/786665869787078656). These companies are, anecdotally of course, targeting their advertisements to the youngest possible market, in the worst possible way. The pushiness of their advertisements are a 'joke' amongst my friends. Widespread gambling is generally seen as harmful to a society. It would be nice if the USA didn't voluntarily allow its citizens to be taken advantage of for corporate profits, for once.
- Kalium 9y ago
  Speaking as an American, the choice in our society isn't between "voluntarily allow its citizens to be taken advantage of" and not that. It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability.
  - orangecat 9y ago
    It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. Organized crime would probably a step up from state lotteries.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      State lotteries don’t murder people they have disputes with.
  - rectang 9y ago
    Between organized crime and ruthlessly efficient corporate entities seeking endless growth, though, which ultimately results in more exploitation and human misery?
  - opportune 9y ago
    Disagree. This is probably true among your demographic but it's not true of the biggest whales for casinos: really old people. My grandparents wouldn't break the law to gamble but given the chance would blow hundreds of dollars on slots in a single visit to a casino. And they would go as often as possible because they liked the attention casinos gave them and they had nothing better to do. Sure maybe legal gambling will let young people move from sketchy books to more legitimate operations, but they aren't really the ones that get abused by legalized gambling. Casinos will find a way to exploit old folks with this, I guarantee it. Old people often have about as much going between their ears as ~11-13 year olds but have a lot more disposable income.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      Gambling hasn't always been so difficult. It's a practice with a long social history, often including attempts to stamp it out. Out of all of that, my impression is that it is generally not viewed as characteristically a vice of the old. How are things different now? Do you think it's just that if you grow up around legal gambling and you're the type to waste everything you have on it, you won't have any money left to gamble away by the time you're old?
      - Spooky23 9y ago
        Its a nasty addiction that’s been layered with a veneer of legitimacy.
        thaumasiotes 9y ago
        I'm not trying to discuss whether it's a "nasty addiction" or legitimate or anything else. I'm questioning the view that the victims of legal gambling are primarily old people.
        junkscience2017 9y ago
        I'm sorry but this really isn't true. This isn't tobacco, where people become addicted and then industry lies about the health implications. Everyone who gambles understands that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and if the casino lost more than they won, it wouldn't be a casino at all. No one is told they will always win. True, there is manipulation, but all advertising is based on manipulation, as is most of our media. Why don't we talk about banning alcohol? From deaths to sickness to loss of quality of life, alcohol is the grand-daddy of vice! But coastal liberals love their Pinot Noir, craft beer and boutique small-batch scotch, so instead we talk about limiting the vices of red-staters (guns, gambling, tobacco)
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    > It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. The government (via the NCAA) has already made it illegal for college athletes to accept money for anything related to sports. IMHO that ban has worked well for college athletes, and the feds should simply extend the ban to the rest of society and make pro sports illegal.
    - sithadmin 9y ago
      >The government (via the NCAA) has already made it illegal for college athletes to accept money What? The NCAA has nothing to do with it. The US federal government independently created regulations that make payment of student athletes undesirable regardless of whether the NCAA even exists. Title XI requires that all collegiate athletes receive identical opportunities and benefits, which clearly doesn't make sense for sports that aren't profit centers if cash compensation is added to the mix. >the feds should simply extend the ban to the rest of society and make pro sports illegal. Why? This clearly doesn't solve a gambling issue, as you can already place bets on NCAA events. And further, it doesn't really make sense given the economic structure and social mores of the contemporary United States. Aside from the fact that a ban on pro sports would fly in the face of centuries of case law prohibiting arbitrary government interference with private enterprises, I'm fairly certain that any representative sample of the contemporary US population would find your proposition both strange and unnecessary.
      - Alex3917 9y ago
        Title IX was only created in the 70s, the government created the NCAA as a self-regulatory organization in the early 1900s so that they wouldn't have to get involved and regulate sports directly themselves. > Aside from the fact that a ban on pro sports would fly in the face of centuries of case law prohibiting arbitrary government interference with private enterprises The new research on health outcomes for pro athletes is more than enough to overcome the requirement for non-arbitrariness. And given how many other strange and unnecessary laws there are, this might not be as serious of an issue as it seems.
    - stale2002 9y ago
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    >>> between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. By that logic nothing should be illegal as making anything illegal simply creates a black market. Some things are bad. Some things are just evil and need to be banned. Laws are meant to prevent people from doing things they otherwise would want to do. Gambling is a classic vice. If people want it banned then they should be able, through government, to ban it. That has happened at the federal level already. Rather than attempt to lawyer their way out from under the ban, states should lobby their people to elect reps that will change the federal law.
    - Kalium 9y ago
      It's true - no prohibition is ever perfect. And gambling, along with prostitution and drinking, are the classic vices. You're right on all those points. Gambling is something that already exists a number of places in the US in many forms. Lotteries, casinos, poker games, office betting pools, and more are cultural mainstays. You're not going to be able to get rid of it quickly or easily, nor make it stay gone. People really like their games of chance. Even if I did agree with you that gambling is just evil and needs to be banned.
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      > If people want it banned then they should be able, through government, to ban it If this was put to a national referendum today, no more than 10% of the votes would be to ban gambling. People enjoy it and are overwhelmingly capable of grasping the risks. For those that can't, stay away or phone that number on the sign in the casino that puts you in touch with a gambling addiction counselor. Silicon Valley has such a myopic worldview...Facebook and Twitter are much more harmful to the fabric of society than a one-armed bandit in Vegas.
      - mrguyorama 9y ago
        Facebook and Twitter hit the exact same addictive pleasure center of the brain as that one-armed bandit
- csallen 9y ago
  Why not just ban gratuitous advertising? I believe we do it with cigarette companies.
  - hug 9y ago
    My opinion is that Australia should ban gambling advertising. I also believe that Australia should also remove the electronic poker machine licenses from the Returned Services Leagues, and I also think that Australia should toughen up the mandatory anti-problem-gambling information at venues licensed for gambling, and in applications designed for gambling. I also think that the laws around ATM withdrawals at gambling venues should be tightened. These are my opinions. They're not objective fact, and they're honestly not well-researched enough that they'll all provide measurable benefit, but I also don't think there's any way these things could make things worse for our country.
    - FridgeSeal 9y ago
      As another Australia, I strongly agree. Gambling/bettings have put a lot of work into getting their slimy tentacles into sports clubs and RSL's and perpetuating this idea that gambling/betting is inherently part of sport, which it's not, but they're happy to lure people and profit off them all the same. If we reigned them in, I really don't think anything of value would be lost.
      - junkscience2017 9y ago
        Americans have a better solution. Instead of banning pleasure nationally, we just ban it in one region we call "Utah" that you can choose to live in or not.
    - robryan 9y ago
      A lot of the venues seem to only exist for the poker machines, not that it would be a bad thing for them to go away. Where I previously lived we would occasionally go for meals at our local pub and the dining area was pretty much always quiet, I doubt that they would exist if they were relying on dining income. Australia also has the Melbourne Cup horse race/ public holiday, where there is a culture of having a bet. People who otherwise would never look into gambling bet on that race, I think it acts as a gateway to further gambling and normalises gambling even further.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Note that we pretty much have widespread, legal gambling in the US. Lotteries, and then there are tons of casinos.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    I recently moved to Chicago and the amount of people blowing large amounts of money on scratch off tickets is insane.
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      This is true nationwide. People making < ~$13,000 spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets on the average.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  In the USA advertising cigarettes through certain mediums is illegal. I wonder if the same could be done for sports betting.
  - hug 9y ago
    It's banned in Australia, too. Our cigarette packets also can't have any branding, must be a drab olive colour, and must have a graphic warning about the medical dangers of smoking. (Think "picture of a gangrenous foot" on the front 3/4 of your cigarette packet.) Something similar, minus the gangrene, should be done for gambling.
- FigBug 9y ago
  > Ben Johnson recently was found to be on PEDs Recently? Wasn't he caught in 1988?
  - hug 9y ago
    I mean, on a universal timeline that's pretty recent. (I have no idea who Ben Johnson is or was. You are probably correct, and I probably look silly.)
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      Canadian olympic sprinter who was using drugs like everyone else but got caught. Well I do recall that as soon as he was caught, some in the Canadian media cynically referred to him as Jamaican.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  Regardless of the particular issue, the point is that the sovereign state of New Jersey should be allowed to make whatever laws it wants, other than those it explicitly agreed not to by signing the U.S. Constitution. Self-determination of peoples, and all that...
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    I get the general point, but as far as I know that purist interpenetration is not actually applied in courts or used in legislatures, other than in a very general sense. I'd love it if someone could inform us about what the laws really are (not the 10th Amendment, but the body of Congressional and state laws) and how they are applied by courts. > Self-determination of peoples People in Newark have self-determination in Washington; they elected those government officials too.
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      > as far as I know that purist interpenetration is not actually applied in courts Well, you're right about that. In practice New Jersey can be forced to commit to go further than what they've agreed to. That doesn't make it right. > People in Newark have self-determination in Washington; they elected those government officials too. This is a bit of a distortion of the concept. If the UN started telling your country whether it could legalize gambling or not (totally unjustified by anything in the UN charter) and had a military to back this up, would you still feel like you had "self-determination" because you get one vote in the General Assembly?
      - forapurpose 9y ago
        > If the UN ... I don't see how the UN is anything like the U.S. government, in terms of the self-determination of people in NJ. (And of course the UN and U.S. government are unalike in many other ways too, beginning with the fact that one is a sovereign, democratically legitimate government and the other is a multilateral international organization. The UN is more like ISO than it is like the U.S. government.)
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  The industrialisation of gambling is shocking. I just recent moved from New Zealand, where I thought we had a bit of a problem, but it's a completely different scale here. It helps that the TAB has a monopoly in sports betting, so there's less incentive for them to advertise, due to a lack of competition. I don't think I've ever seen an ad for the TAB. Gambling addiction is just as much a real thing as tobacco or alcohol addiction, yet there are limits on the advertising for alcohol, and advertising tobacco is forbidden.
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  We allow daytrading, how is that different? We allow daytrading while you drink! Impaired daytrading! Soon in California you will be able to be under the influence of marijuana while you daytrade! If anything, I would like to see gambling completely in the open across the entire US. Prohibitions against it are a silly throwback. If you are an adult and want to spend your life savings on craps, go for it. If you lose all of your money, sorry but you are an ADULT. I love going to Vegas. Most times I don't gamble at all. My wife knows to stop when she is down $1k. She KNOWS that with almost 100% certainty, she will hit this limit. She even enjoys a drink while gambling. If this experience is beyond the discipline of other people, they should stay away and let the ADULTS enjoy themselves. Our notions of legislating away all risk is inane. Just this weekend my friend was threatened with a $650 fine for riding his mountain bike on a Santa Clara County trail without a helmet. What? What next, will I be put in a police car if I go jogging without elbow pads?
  - jeffdavis 9y ago
    Social safety nets mean that society bears some of the risk for your behavior, and thus has a strong incentive to restrict your freedom.
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      what social safety net? Bill Clinton's welfare reforms put a limit on the welfare you can receive and you do not get a pass for gambling away your house...or day trading it away either
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  We already have widespread gambling. Betting on horse races is an American tradition, is legal in virtually every state both live and online. Lotteries are also legal in virtually every state and heavily promoted by the state on every medium. You can't watch a tv show or listen to the radio for more then a few minutes before hearing a jingle or an ad to get someone to "gamble" on the lotto (which has far, far lowers odds of winning than a sports bet). Much like the "debate" about legalizing online poker, the "debate" over sports gambling has far more to do with the already legal entrenched gambling interests trying to prevent any competition.
dchuk 9y ago
(Preface: I'm not particularly interested in the ethical debates around gambling with this comment, though I personally think it's something people should be allowed to do.). I've been slowly getting into Machine Learning for a while now, and have been looking for projects to accelerate my focus. I also happen to like to gamble (responsibly), so I've recently started researching how to apply Machine/Deep Learning to Baseball betting, and possibly other sports. It would be mostly a side project I would imagine, I have no dreams of becoming wealthy from this, and since it mixes scraping (which I really like to play with) with machine learning, it will probably be entertaining at least. I'm very curious if I could actually get decent success with it though. Anyone done this before? Or know of stories/books about this?
- agilebyte 9y ago
  This discussion could be of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15523186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15523186 tldr: keep it fun; if you bet professionally, you'll run into hurdles from bookies.
  - dchuk 9y ago
    Thanks!
- harryh 9y ago
  You might enjoy this old article about Bob Voulgaris on ESPN. He was/is a very successful NBA gambler that over time started to use some machine learning techniques. http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet-the-worlds-top-nba-gambler http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/mee...
  - dchuk 9y ago
    Thanks for the link!
- lucas_membrane 9y ago
  You might, but others have a several decades head start on you. Baseball odds started behaving quite differently when the first high-dollar computer-reliant betting syndicates started operating way back when. The rule of thumb back then was that if you could identify a systematic way to extract a decent income from gambling, the size of that income would decline rapidly to equal the minimum wage within 2 or three years.
mmirate 9y ago
Gambling/lotteries basically only harm people with innumeracy; ergo why should it ever be prohibited?
- hollerith 9y ago
  because maybe your brother or my brother is innumerate.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    > your brother I lack siblings. > or my brother is innumerate You led with "maybe"; to keep my next sentence's structure from becoming a complete mess, I'll assume that your hypothetical is true. If some random person tells me "my brother is innumerate" ... then why should that information be of any consequence to me, in the absence of further context? EDIT: and by further context I mean further information about you or your brother.
    - Intermernet 9y ago
      The further context is that your brother could be harmed by gambling or lotteries. The information should be of consequence due to human empathy usually associated with family members and hopefully, also other humans in general.
      - mmirate 9y ago
        > your brother You mean their brother? Presuming so, then my next paragraph applies to this item also. > other humans in general. But who? I draw much different conclusions from a physician or a programmer or a chemist or etc, than from a hobo or an organized-criminal or etc.
- whyenot 9y ago
  In other words, gambling should be allowed because it only harms the under-educated? I'm not sure that's a very compelling argument considering the current state of K-12 education in the US.
delinka 9y ago
> The decision “could have repercussions in areas that go well beyond sports betting: gun control, immigration, sanctuary cities...” And this is why the SCotUS will not make a landmark decision causing a "dam burst." The Justices can certainly limit their decision in many ways, and it'll be interesting reading the opinions that they produce. But I don't think they've been interested in drastic changes for quite some time.
paulie_a 9y ago
This is completely offtopic: But can anyone provide a name to a TV documentary/docudrama on "Point shaving" It was about some NCAA team and a guy that looked like he later in the sopranos. I think it was made by Fox.
- Gravis187 9y ago
  I think you are talking about Blue Chips with Nick Nolte?
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    I don't think it was that. It was more focused on the college student bookie.
    - mechhrt 9y ago
      I think this is the one, from ESPN's 30 for 30 series. http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=playingforthemob http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=playingforthemob
hoodoof 9y ago
Yes it will happen. Sadly what I have come to learn about our society is that almost all vested interests get what they want eventually by just persisting in the long term to keep bringing it back to the government through their lobbyists. Gambling, privacy reduction, net neutrality, mining, fracking, selling national interests overseas, property development... everything happens eventually if those with the money just keep pushing firmly over time. It's almost a prerequisite that these things are first resisted by the people and defeated by people power a few times... the vested interests know that the 2nd and 3rd time around people will stop fighting for whatever that thing is.

75 points by stablemap 9y ago

hug 9y ago

As an Australian, living in a society where betting is legal albeit fairly regulated: I sincerely hope not. The reason for that hope is that gambling and gambling advertising, with the rise of online betting sites and smartphone apps, has started to become a fairly genuine social issue. With advertisements like this one (https://twitter.com/sportsbetcomau/status/863634984682233856 https://twitter.com/sportsbetcomau/status/863634984682233856) [note: Ben Johnson recently was found to be on PEDs], or advertisements blanketing one of the busiest train stations in the country, like the following (https://twitter.com/Doc_Samantha/status/786665869787078656 https://twitter.com/Doc_Samantha/status/786665869787078656). These companies are, anecdotally of course, targeting their advertisements to the youngest possible market, in the worst possible way. The pushiness of their advertisements are a 'joke' amongst my friends. Widespread gambling is generally seen as harmful to a society. It would be nice if the USA didn't voluntarily allow its citizens to be taken advantage of for corporate profits, for once.

Kalium 9y ago
Speaking as an American, the choice in our society isn't between "voluntarily allow its citizens to be taken advantage of" and not that. It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability.
- orangecat 9y ago
  It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. Organized crime would probably a step up from state lotteries.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    State lotteries don’t murder people they have disputes with.
- rectang 9y ago
  Between organized crime and ruthlessly efficient corporate entities seeking endless growth, though, which ultimately results in more exploitation and human misery?
- opportune 9y ago
  Disagree. This is probably true among your demographic but it's not true of the biggest whales for casinos: really old people. My grandparents wouldn't break the law to gamble but given the chance would blow hundreds of dollars on slots in a single visit to a casino. And they would go as often as possible because they liked the attention casinos gave them and they had nothing better to do. Sure maybe legal gambling will let young people move from sketchy books to more legitimate operations, but they aren't really the ones that get abused by legalized gambling. Casinos will find a way to exploit old folks with this, I guarantee it. Old people often have about as much going between their ears as ~11-13 year olds but have a lot more disposable income.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    Gambling hasn't always been so difficult. It's a practice with a long social history, often including attempts to stamp it out. Out of all of that, my impression is that it is generally not viewed as characteristically a vice of the old. How are things different now? Do you think it's just that if you grow up around legal gambling and you're the type to waste everything you have on it, you won't have any money left to gamble away by the time you're old?
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Its a nasty addiction that’s been layered with a veneer of legitimacy.
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        I'm not trying to discuss whether it's a "nasty addiction" or legitimate or anything else. I'm questioning the view that the victims of legal gambling are primarily old people.
      - junkscience2017 9y ago
        I'm sorry but this really isn't true. This isn't tobacco, where people become addicted and then industry lies about the health implications. Everyone who gambles understands that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and if the casino lost more than they won, it wouldn't be a casino at all. No one is told they will always win. True, there is manipulation, but all advertising is based on manipulation, as is most of our media. Why don't we talk about banning alcohol? From deaths to sickness to loss of quality of life, alcohol is the grand-daddy of vice! But coastal liberals love their Pinot Noir, craft beer and boutique small-batch scotch, so instead we talk about limiting the vices of red-staters (guns, gambling, tobacco)
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > It's between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. The government (via the NCAA) has already made it illegal for college athletes to accept money for anything related to sports. IMHO that ban has worked well for college athletes, and the feds should simply extend the ban to the rest of society and make pro sports illegal.
  - sithadmin 9y ago
    >The government (via the NCAA) has already made it illegal for college athletes to accept money What? The NCAA has nothing to do with it. The US federal government independently created regulations that make payment of student athletes undesirable regardless of whether the NCAA even exists. Title XI requires that all collegiate athletes receive identical opportunities and benefits, which clearly doesn't make sense for sports that aren't profit centers if cash compensation is added to the mix. >the feds should simply extend the ban to the rest of society and make pro sports illegal. Why? This clearly doesn't solve a gambling issue, as you can already place bets on NCAA events. And further, it doesn't really make sense given the economic structure and social mores of the contemporary United States. Aside from the fact that a ban on pro sports would fly in the face of centuries of case law prohibiting arbitrary government interference with private enterprises, I'm fairly certain that any representative sample of the contemporary US population would find your proposition both strange and unnecessary.
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      Title IX was only created in the 70s, the government created the NCAA as a self-regulatory organization in the early 1900s so that they wouldn't have to get involved and regulate sports directly themselves. > Aside from the fact that a ban on pro sports would fly in the face of centuries of case law prohibiting arbitrary government interference with private enterprises The new research on health outcomes for pro athletes is more than enough to overcome the requirement for non-arbitrariness. And given how many other strange and unnecessary laws there are, this might not be as serious of an issue as it seems.
  - stale2002 9y ago
- sandworm101 9y ago
  >>> between allowing gambling to be run by organized crime and creating a system that enables at least a modicum of accountability. By that logic nothing should be illegal as making anything illegal simply creates a black market. Some things are bad. Some things are just evil and need to be banned. Laws are meant to prevent people from doing things they otherwise would want to do. Gambling is a classic vice. If people want it banned then they should be able, through government, to ban it. That has happened at the federal level already. Rather than attempt to lawyer their way out from under the ban, states should lobby their people to elect reps that will change the federal law.
  - Kalium 9y ago
    It's true - no prohibition is ever perfect. And gambling, along with prostitution and drinking, are the classic vices. You're right on all those points. Gambling is something that already exists a number of places in the US in many forms. Lotteries, casinos, poker games, office betting pools, and more are cultural mainstays. You're not going to be able to get rid of it quickly or easily, nor make it stay gone. People really like their games of chance. Even if I did agree with you that gambling is just evil and needs to be banned.
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    > If people want it banned then they should be able, through government, to ban it If this was put to a national referendum today, no more than 10% of the votes would be to ban gambling. People enjoy it and are overwhelmingly capable of grasping the risks. For those that can't, stay away or phone that number on the sign in the casino that puts you in touch with a gambling addiction counselor. Silicon Valley has such a myopic worldview...Facebook and Twitter are much more harmful to the fabric of society than a one-armed bandit in Vegas.
    - mrguyorama 9y ago
      Facebook and Twitter hit the exact same addictive pleasure center of the brain as that one-armed bandit
csallen 9y ago
Why not just ban gratuitous advertising? I believe we do it with cigarette companies.
- hug 9y ago
  My opinion is that Australia should ban gambling advertising. I also believe that Australia should also remove the electronic poker machine licenses from the Returned Services Leagues, and I also think that Australia should toughen up the mandatory anti-problem-gambling information at venues licensed for gambling, and in applications designed for gambling. I also think that the laws around ATM withdrawals at gambling venues should be tightened. These are my opinions. They're not objective fact, and they're honestly not well-researched enough that they'll all provide measurable benefit, but I also don't think there's any way these things could make things worse for our country.
  - FridgeSeal 9y ago
    As another Australia, I strongly agree. Gambling/bettings have put a lot of work into getting their slimy tentacles into sports clubs and RSL's and perpetuating this idea that gambling/betting is inherently part of sport, which it's not, but they're happy to lure people and profit off them all the same. If we reigned them in, I really don't think anything of value would be lost.
    - junkscience2017 9y ago
      Americans have a better solution. Instead of banning pleasure nationally, we just ban it in one region we call "Utah" that you can choose to live in or not.
  - robryan 9y ago
    A lot of the venues seem to only exist for the poker machines, not that it would be a bad thing for them to go away. Where I previously lived we would occasionally go for meals at our local pub and the dining area was pretty much always quiet, I doubt that they would exist if they were relying on dining income. Australia also has the Melbourne Cup horse race/ public holiday, where there is a culture of having a bet. People who otherwise would never look into gambling bet on that race, I think it acts as a gateway to further gambling and normalises gambling even further.
maxerickson 9y ago
Note that we pretty much have widespread, legal gambling in the US. Lotteries, and then there are tons of casinos.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  I recently moved to Chicago and the amount of people blowing large amounts of money on scratch off tickets is insane.
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    This is true nationwide. People making < ~$13,000 spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets on the average.
Paul-ish 9y ago
In the USA advertising cigarettes through certain mediums is illegal. I wonder if the same could be done for sports betting.
- hug 9y ago
  It's banned in Australia, too. Our cigarette packets also can't have any branding, must be a drab olive colour, and must have a graphic warning about the medical dangers of smoking. (Think "picture of a gangrenous foot" on the front 3/4 of your cigarette packet.) Something similar, minus the gangrene, should be done for gambling.
FigBug 9y ago
> Ben Johnson recently was found to be on PEDs Recently? Wasn't he caught in 1988?
- hug 9y ago
  I mean, on a universal timeline that's pretty recent. (I have no idea who Ben Johnson is or was. You are probably correct, and I probably look silly.)
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    Canadian olympic sprinter who was using drugs like everyone else but got caught. Well I do recall that as soon as he was caught, some in the Canadian media cynically referred to him as Jamaican.
umanwizard 9y ago
Regardless of the particular issue, the point is that the sovereign state of New Jersey should be allowed to make whatever laws it wants, other than those it explicitly agreed not to by signing the U.S. Constitution. Self-determination of peoples, and all that...
- forapurpose 9y ago
  I get the general point, but as far as I know that purist interpenetration is not actually applied in courts or used in legislatures, other than in a very general sense. I'd love it if someone could inform us about what the laws really are (not the 10th Amendment, but the body of Congressional and state laws) and how they are applied by courts. > Self-determination of peoples People in Newark have self-determination in Washington; they elected those government officials too.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    > as far as I know that purist interpenetration is not actually applied in courts Well, you're right about that. In practice New Jersey can be forced to commit to go further than what they've agreed to. That doesn't make it right. > People in Newark have self-determination in Washington; they elected those government officials too. This is a bit of a distortion of the concept. If the UN started telling your country whether it could legalize gambling or not (totally unjustified by anything in the UN charter) and had a military to back this up, would you still feel like you had "self-determination" because you get one vote in the General Assembly?
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      > If the UN ... I don't see how the UN is anything like the U.S. government, in terms of the self-determination of people in NJ. (And of course the UN and U.S. government are unalike in many other ways too, beginning with the fact that one is a sovereign, democratically legitimate government and the other is a multilateral international organization. The UN is more like ISO than it is like the U.S. government.)
toomanybeersies 9y ago
The industrialisation of gambling is shocking. I just recent moved from New Zealand, where I thought we had a bit of a problem, but it's a completely different scale here. It helps that the TAB has a monopoly in sports betting, so there's less incentive for them to advertise, due to a lack of competition. I don't think I've ever seen an ad for the TAB. Gambling addiction is just as much a real thing as tobacco or alcohol addiction, yet there are limits on the advertising for alcohol, and advertising tobacco is forbidden.
junkscience2017 9y ago
We allow daytrading, how is that different? We allow daytrading while you drink! Impaired daytrading! Soon in California you will be able to be under the influence of marijuana while you daytrade! If anything, I would like to see gambling completely in the open across the entire US. Prohibitions against it are a silly throwback. If you are an adult and want to spend your life savings on craps, go for it. If you lose all of your money, sorry but you are an ADULT. I love going to Vegas. Most times I don't gamble at all. My wife knows to stop when she is down $1k. She KNOWS that with almost 100% certainty, she will hit this limit. She even enjoys a drink while gambling. If this experience is beyond the discipline of other people, they should stay away and let the ADULTS enjoy themselves. Our notions of legislating away all risk is inane. Just this weekend my friend was threatened with a $650 fine for riding his mountain bike on a Santa Clara County trail without a helmet. What? What next, will I be put in a police car if I go jogging without elbow pads?
- jeffdavis 9y ago
  Social safety nets mean that society bears some of the risk for your behavior, and thus has a strong incentive to restrict your freedom.
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    what social safety net? Bill Clinton's welfare reforms put a limit on the welfare you can receive and you do not get a pass for gambling away your house...or day trading it away either
StanislavPetrov 9y ago
We already have widespread gambling. Betting on horse races is an American tradition, is legal in virtually every state both live and online. Lotteries are also legal in virtually every state and heavily promoted by the state on every medium. You can't watch a tv show or listen to the radio for more then a few minutes before hearing a jingle or an ad to get someone to "gamble" on the lotto (which has far, far lowers odds of winning than a sports bet). Much like the "debate" about legalizing online poker, the "debate" over sports gambling has far more to do with the already legal entrenched gambling interests trying to prevent any competition.

dchuk 9y ago

(Preface: I'm not particularly interested in the ethical debates around gambling with this comment, though I personally think it's something people should be allowed to do.). I've been slowly getting into Machine Learning for a while now, and have been looking for projects to accelerate my focus. I also happen to like to gamble (responsibly), so I've recently started researching how to apply Machine/Deep Learning to Baseball betting, and possibly other sports. It would be mostly a side project I would imagine, I have no dreams of becoming wealthy from this, and since it mixes scraping (which I really like to play with) with machine learning, it will probably be entertaining at least. I'm very curious if I could actually get decent success with it though. Anyone done this before? Or know of stories/books about this?

agilebyte 9y ago
This discussion could be of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15523186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15523186 tldr: keep it fun; if you bet professionally, you'll run into hurdles from bookies.
- dchuk 9y ago
  Thanks!
harryh 9y ago
You might enjoy this old article about Bob Voulgaris on ESPN. He was/is a very successful NBA gambler that over time started to use some machine learning techniques. http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet-the-worlds-top-nba-gambler http://www.espn.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/mee...
- dchuk 9y ago
  Thanks for the link!
lucas_membrane 9y ago
You might, but others have a several decades head start on you. Baseball odds started behaving quite differently when the first high-dollar computer-reliant betting syndicates started operating way back when. The rule of thumb back then was that if you could identify a systematic way to extract a decent income from gambling, the size of that income would decline rapidly to equal the minimum wage within 2 or three years.

mmirate 9y ago

Gambling/lotteries basically only harm people with innumeracy; ergo why should it ever be prohibited?

hollerith 9y ago
because maybe your brother or my brother is innumerate.
- mmirate 9y ago
  > your brother I lack siblings. > or my brother is innumerate You led with "maybe"; to keep my next sentence's structure from becoming a complete mess, I'll assume that your hypothetical is true. If some random person tells me "my brother is innumerate" ... then why should that information be of any consequence to me, in the absence of further context? EDIT: and by further context I mean further information about you or your brother.
  - Intermernet 9y ago
    The further context is that your brother could be harmed by gambling or lotteries. The information should be of consequence due to human empathy usually associated with family members and hopefully, also other humans in general.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      > your brother You mean their brother? Presuming so, then my next paragraph applies to this item also. > other humans in general. But who? I draw much different conclusions from a physician or a programmer or a chemist or etc, than from a hobo or an organized-criminal or etc.
whyenot 9y ago
In other words, gambling should be allowed because it only harms the under-educated? I'm not sure that's a very compelling argument considering the current state of K-12 education in the US.

delinka 9y ago

> The decision “could have repercussions in areas that go well beyond sports betting: gun control, immigration, sanctuary cities...” And this is why the SCotUS will not make a landmark decision causing a "dam burst." The Justices can certainly limit their decision in many ways, and it'll be interesting reading the opinions that they produce. But I don't think they've been interested in drastic changes for quite some time.

paulie_a 9y ago

This is completely offtopic: But can anyone provide a name to a TV documentary/docudrama on "Point shaving" It was about some NCAA team and a guy that looked like he later in the sopranos. I think it was made by Fox.

Gravis187 9y ago
I think you are talking about Blue Chips with Nick Nolte?
- paulie_a 9y ago
  I don't think it was that. It was more focused on the college student bookie.
  - mechhrt 9y ago
    I think this is the one, from ESPN's 30 for 30 series. http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=playingforthemob http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=playingforthemob

hoodoof 9y ago

Yes it will happen. Sadly what I have come to learn about our society is that almost all vested interests get what they want eventually by just persisting in the long term to keep bringing it back to the government through their lobbyists. Gambling, privacy reduction, net neutrality, mining, fracking, selling national interests overseas, property development... everything happens eventually if those with the money just keep pushing firmly over time. It's almost a prerequisite that these things are first resisted by the people and defeated by people power a few times... the vested interests know that the 2nd and 3rd time around people will stop fighting for whatever that thing is.