13 ms·

America’s bad bet on sports gambling

83 points by sharkweek 4y ago

jollyllama 4y ago
I think the anti-gambling proponents who said gambling legalization would degrade society have to some extent been proven correct. TV, billboard, and other ads for gambling are rampant around here. I find it exploitative.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have made it abundantly clear decades ago that attempting to ban vices will only leas to criminal empires, and it's just the same with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana. Regarding advertising you're spot on, although I'd go a step further and call for sweeping regulations in the entire advertising industry. Unless you move to a 21 souls settlement in Alaska and leave a hermit life, you literally can't spend five minutes without being bombarded by one or another ad.
  - jonah 4y ago
    My area has banned billboards on the highway and otherwise. They also have strict rules about signage in general. It's really wonderful and when I go somewhere else and am bombarded by those ads I am reminded again how assaulting they are.
    - rufus_foreman 4y ago
      Hopefully there is never a pea under your mattress.
      - marssaxman 4y ago
        I just got back from a road trip through Vermont, one of the four U.S. states which has banned billboards. It was really nice! If you try sleeping on a pea-free mattress someday, perhaps you'll find that you appreciate the experience.
        deleted 4y ago
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        rufus_foreman 4y ago
        I have no idea whether there is a pea under my mattress. How would I notice?
        marssaxman 4y ago
        Have you ever visited a place which has no billboards?
        rufus_foreman 4y ago
        Yeah.
        marssaxman 4y ago
        Then I suppose you have all the information you need to draw the appropriate analogy!
  - majormajor 4y ago
    > Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have made it abundantly clear decades ago that attempting to ban vices will only leas to criminal empires, and it's just the same with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana. It's not obvious to me that all vices are created equal here. If forcing gambling underground creates a criminal empire or two but results in, say, 80% fewer gambling addicts who end up damaging their lives and those of their families, which is the larger harm? Fake numbers, obviously the benefits/harms would depend on several different factors, but I don't think a one size fits all approach makes sense because "illegal gambling gangs" didn't seem to cause the same sort of larger societal problems the last several decades that "illegal drug gangs" or prohibition-era alcohol gangs have. I would assume this is because the lack of a need for the same sort of supply chain that you could attempt to monopolize and dominate.
  - Karellen 4y ago
    If pervasive garish ads are criminalised, only criminals will see pervasive garish advertisements. ...and I'm fine with that.
  - mynameishere 4y ago
    Isn't the whole "prohibition was bad" pretty much a just-so story? Being the drinker I am, I don't want it to come back, of course. But does having a few seedy speakeasies run by the mob really amount to much compared to this sort of thing: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-rate-during-prohibition/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-rate-... That's one disease. Booze causes all kinds of problems, and I wouldn't be surprised if (as another example) wife-beating sharply declined during prohibition. (ED: Looking again at that graph, there's something a little dubious about it--but it was the first data I could find.)
    - microtherion 4y ago
      That graph is indeed quite dubious, considering how long it takes for liver cirrhosis to develop. Furthermore, it shows a steep drop preceding prohibition, so, if anything, it suggests that prohibition came about because society's attitudes toward alcohol had already changed.
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      > Isn't the whole "prohibition was bad" pretty much a just-so story? My understanding is that drinking levels did not return to pre-Prohibition levels until the 1970s.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    There's a difference between having it regulated and open and there being gambling ads during free throws.
  - throw0101c 4y ago
    > Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), "Whether it belongs to the human law to repress all vices?": > […] Now possibility or faculty of action is due to an interior habit or disposition: since the same thing is not possible to one who has not a virtuous habit, as is possible to one who has. Thus the same is not possible to a child as to a full-grown man: for which reason the law for children is not the same as for adults, since many things are permitted to children, which in an adult are punished by law or at any rate are open to blame. In like manner many things are permissible to men not perfect in virtue, which would be intolerable in a virtuous man. > Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like. * https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2
  - deleted 4y ago
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- nitwit005 4y ago
  Articles from the past make it seem more like plenty of gambling was going on when it was illegal, just that it was criminally controlled: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/26/archives/dimes-make-millions-for-numbers-racket-6001-payoff-lures-500000-a.html https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/26/archives/dimes-make-milli... And people keep finding new ways to gamble, some of which are difficult to make illegal. It's fairly clear the stock market is an elaborate gambling system to some people.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If the mob keeps it where I don't have to see it, then it's not my problem. I'd rather live in a city with illegal gambling done in private than in a city where the street is lined with casinos and gambling propaganda. Keep that shit in Vegas where it's easy for me to avoid. I wish they'd ban adverting of state lotteries too. Those ads are the worst, most insulting, most idiotic. A celebration of mindless materialism and short-term thinking. These ads celebrate the fact that most lottery winners blow it all on stupid shit then end up back at square one a few years later. It's flagrant exploitation of the dimwitted; the least they could do is not flaunt it on huge billboards all across town.
    - blockwriter 4y ago
      The mob threatens, kills or maims people for failure to pay. They have no other enforcement mechanism. This negatively affects entire communities, or even major cities, regardless of whether or not you see it.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        I doubt you can find much statistical evidence of casino legalization lowering the murder rate in cities.
        woleium 4y ago
        The mob still lends money when legal casinos open...
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  What's far, far worse is all the gambling being done under the guise of "gaming" and focused directly at children. Not only is it as exploitative as normal gambling, in 99% of instances you will never receive something which you can then exchange for currency or anything else ever again: they have your money regardless.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  Why not just ban all gambling ads? Many European countries do this.
  - Brian-Puccio 4y ago
    As well as direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising
  - jollyllama 4y ago
    Interesting, I never knew that. I guess you don't notice what isn't there. England must not be on the list, judging from EPL matches.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  When I watch bootleg streams of MMA matches they're usually being streamed by people in the UK, and the sheer quantity of gambling ads is kind of crazy to me.
- Proven 4y ago
  [dead]
tomohawk 4y ago
People have forgotten how harmful gambling is. It was once widely legal, but then made illegal in most places. During the time it was illegal in most places, Nevada led the nation in many categories such as: school drop outs, divorces, domestic abuse, ... Government involvement in such activities really just shows where the priorities are.
ilaksh 4y ago
It's weird to me how sports gambling just seemed to start being accepted as a normal part of everyone's life, apparently, based on how common the ads are. Gambling addiction is real. It affected my family. It's like a tax on society, except that it often most negatively affects the people who can least afford to be taxed, and then it usually just goes to greedy people rather than funding public works. At least lotteries supposedly go towards public projects. But again, you are taking proportionately more from the most desperate and poor people in that case which is the opposite of how a tax should work.
- thebigjewbowski 4y ago
  The state taxes casinos and sports books an insane amount on top of regular federal taxes and whatnot. It’s not totally extractive but they are obviously still profitable. The thing is, everyone gambled before legalization. You didn’t even need a bookie, every online casino has taken bets from US citizens and then pay no taxes to the state or country. Bookies are even worse than online casinos because they offer a line of credit and later coerce you to give up your business, sell drugs, etc. All in all it’s very similar to drugs. People are going to do it anyway, might as well make it legal. You can contact any casino and request to be excluded from play indefinitely. You can set deposit limits and cannot lift them for a month at a time. There’s some “harm reduction” required by law.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    No, "everyone" did not gamble. Some people did, but others didn't want to enough to find a bookie or try an online casino. "People are going to do it anyway" -- wrong, some people are going to do it. Many will not if it's illegal.
    - thebigjewbowski 4y ago
      Many people still don’t ;). I’m one of the only software engineers I know who gambles on sports or plays cards. Sports gambling has been legal in the UK and other parts of the EU for a long time. Betting on horses and dogs, too, has been legal for forever.
morcheeba 4y ago
My best friend's husband is always bringing home winning $20 or $50 lotto tickets. His family can't afford the $75 a week he spends on those, but every gas station sells them. Even not-out-of-control cases are harmful.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Cardboard crack
  - flappyeagle 4y ago
    Ban Magic
    - djbusby 4y ago
      Pogs? Beanie Babies? Cabbage Patch? Garbage Pail Kids?
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        Nothing of value would be lost if you banned all the cheap mass produced crap designed from the onset to be ""collectible.""
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- googlryas 4y ago
  Technically he's only spending $25-55/week! I wonder if cases like this could be helped if he was introduced to those "savings-with-lottery-features" apps. I'll say longgame.co as an example(I've never used it and am not vouching for it, I know there are others out there as well) It's really a shame. If he put that $50/week into a savings acct, that would be $2500 at the end of the year, which could pay for a nice week-long vacation for the family if they wanted to spend it on fun stuff and not reducing debt and other non-fun stuff.
ren_engineer 4y ago
bread and circus, same reason they are legalizing or decriminalizing drugs after resisting for decades. They want the masses sedated and distracted. 100K+ people die from opioids every year and that number is rising rapidly, yet no national emergency declaration or real action to try and stop it
- MrGazzo 4y ago
  > no national emergency declaration The former President of the United States declared it a national health emergency: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-declares-opioid-crisis-national-public-health-emergency/story?id=50718774 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-declares-opioid-crisis...
  - coding123 4y ago
    Biden did nothing except appoint a czar that did nothing.
  - jmclnx 4y ago
    But nothing was really done to stop it. But seems every US President will declare something and all it does is blow hot air to help warm the earth even faster :)
    - linuxftw 4y ago
      He was literally trying to have a wall built to minimize illegal border crossings commonly used by opiate smugglers?
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frebord 4y ago
Just replace gambling with alcohol. The small minority of addicts shouldn't fuck it up for the rest of us. I dove deeply into it this past year to extract some value out of promotions the books are running, and have continued to bet because it is fun trying to find lines that have positive expected value and it's been a nice stream of extra income.
- strombofulous 4y ago
  > it is fun trying to find lines that have positive expected value I've never gambled before, does this happen often? I would have assumed gambling companies wouldn't offer any bets like this, since it implies their EV is negative.
  - rileymat2 4y ago
    Is this true if they are not the counter-party, but the facilitator?
    - whartung 4y ago
      Sports (parimutuel) gambling is different from casino gambling. There's no "house margin", rather they simply impose a fee (percentage) on the bet. It's why on a 1:1 bet, you'd lose money, as the sportsbook tend to take something like 10%. Even though the odds are 1:1, your $1 bet would net $0.90. ($1.90, you'd get your dollar back.)
  - throwaway_4ever 4y ago
    The only exception is Blackjack, where you could learn positive EV play in a week, by "counting cards". That's why casino's kick people playing too well. They make a little money off 99% of players playing bad and try to kick the 1% that make money off the casino.
  - dottrap 4y ago
    Look up Edward Thorp, the famous mathematician who was the first to use probability theory to beat blackjack and write a book about it (Beat the Dealer). Basically, as a deck uses up cards, the remaining in the deck may present a positive expected value. By counting cards and knowing expected values, you can adjust your bets to capitalize. Since Thorp, Casinos have made it harder to beat them (e.g. larger decks), but they still tease the possibility you can beat them to entice people to try (and lose). Edward Thorp later went on to write Beat the Market, where he tried to apply similar probability principles to the stock market. He independently invented the options formula, before Black-Scholes (which the latter won a Nobel Prize).
jmclnx 4y ago
Seems peat and repeat for the US these days in all environments. People forgot why Sports Betting was first outlawed (Black Soxs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal This will not end well. In the 1930's, Finance Law were passed to reel in abuses, since the late 90s, these laws were whittled down and we had 2008. New, weaker laws passed and as of now most are gone. So seems to prove, if people do not read and understand history, they are dommed to repeat the past mistakes.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  Maybe the cure was worse than the disease. Just because something was previously banned, doesn't mean it was the right call.
  - boplicity 4y ago
    After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Not that it was the right choice. However, it is very sad how much disease we allow, as a society, without much effort at addressing the root societal causes. These types of diseases kill people. Yet, much of society has normalized the causes. The question, isn't whether or not the some "call" was the right call. That is beside the point. The question should be "what now?" The answer shouldn't be "status quo."
    - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
      Why shouldn't it? There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. The current situation may well be the least bad. I'm not a libertarian but many of their arguments are very reasonable.
      - zarzavat 4y ago
        The issue with alcohol in particular is a biochemical one. Ethanol is chronically slightly poisonous, but methanol is acutely very poisonous. If you drink ethanol all your life you may get cirrhosis of the liver and have elevated risks for other diseases, but if you drink even a small amount of pure methanol you’ll go blind or die. So alcohol prohibition decreases chronic disease due to less ethanol consumption, but increases acute disease due to more accidental methanol consumption. At least in populations that don’t already have strong cultural norms against alcohol consumption. Many other vices have this duality of harm, but alcohol’s is particularly one-sided.
baron816 4y ago
I’ve thought it would be a good idea for states to issue “licenses” for many vices. Want to buy alcohol or go to a casino? You need to take a short course on the dangers of it and how to be safe. If you act irresponsibly by over drinking or driving drunk, then you can get your drinking license suspended. For gambling, you could limit how long a person stays inside a casino over a period of time, limit how many bets they place over a period of time, or how much money they lose. Yeah, it’s a little nanny state-ish in the case of gambling, but there’s clearly some social harm going on there that states recognize by already controlling gambling.
- bergenty 4y ago
  It’s not going to work for everything. Most (not an exaggeration) men have wanted to sleep with 13-14 year olds in pretty much every society in history. How do you propose we satisfy that need?
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    We don't satisfy it. Lots of people want to kill their enemies, too. They seem to find the criminal penalties sufficiently deterring.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  This is actually not a terrible idea, but enforcing it might prove hard. I don't think your average casino right now keeps a young parent from gambling away the rent money. On the other hand, bars can and do refuse to give you any more alcohol.
  - baron816 4y ago
    I don’t think it would be that hard to enforce with pretty basic software. Casinos have to get a license to operate as is. They would scan people as they place bets. Casinos might even get behind it since they would get access to the data—they’d immediately know who the high rollers are, who the cheaters are, what games people like, etc.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
We can replace the X in "X should be legal because criminalizing it will just drive X underground" with (heroin / crack / glue sniffing / child porn / whatever). Not all of those substitutions work. It seems to be a difficult thing to process, for some people, that outlawing things does reduce their usage, and some of those things are really harmful. Conversely, at least some of the people who are now gambling on sports really would not have done so, when they still had to know a bookie. No, they wouldn't fuel the Mafia instead; they just wouldn't gamble.
- deleted 4y ago
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- aaplok 4y ago
  Legalisation is a very broad notion. What to legalise? Usage/consumption? Small business re-selling? Large private industry? Arguments for it cover an equally large range. The argument about legalising consumption for public health reasons probably focuses more on reducing harmful consumption rather than all consumption. The article cites several strategies used by the sports gambling industry (eg QR codes) that encourage addiction, and harm. You don't need to make all gambling illegal to crack down on that kind of stuff. Ultimately the question is one of control. Complete market deregulation is arguably the worse possibility here. With illegal activity the government can control through repression, and via a public monopoly they control the quality of the product and the chain of distribution.
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
It would be nice if they added to the relevant legislation that no bet can be more than negative 1% EV. There is some nuance to figuring that (and perhaps you'd have to regulate the total winnings / total wagered instead) but a decent part of the problem is that folks are making really crappy bets in most cases. Making a lot of $20 bets at -1% EV is very different than the same thing at -15% EV.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  This would amount to banning essentially all casino games except blackjack and video poker, and would remove all decision-making from those games, forcing everyone to play perfect basic strategy or close to it. I think gambling should be illegal, so I’d be happy for such a suggestion to be implemented, but it’s basically a more complicated and indirect way to just ban casinos outright.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I don't think gambling should be illegal, but I think casino games and lotteries should be illegal. The expected value is the only reason for me. When the expected value is negative, it's not really gambling. Expected value from gambling should be zero, going slightly negative because the table and the room needs to be paid for. People making money from gambling should be making money from providing services to gamblers, not taxing the pot with a rake or a vig.
    - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
      Basically agree. A -1% EV max mandate would be much better. Excitement without much loss.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    I should have been more specific - I meant for sports betting. That being said - there are many casino games which would work fine and leave decisions - roulette could be -1% EV with a single zero which was smaller than the other numbers. Several craps bets are close to 1% and minor adjustments could be made to payoffs. Blackjack would be practically impossible to make work.
tqi 4y ago
It's weird to me that media outlets like the NYT will criticize apps like Robinhood or Duolingo for being addictive then turn around and happily take advertising money from BetMGM or FanDuel... 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/technology/robinhood-risky-trading.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/technology/robinhood-risk... 2. https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/why-breaking-a-streak-feels-so-awful.html https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/why-breaking-a-streak-feels-s...
- majormajor 4y ago
  The NYT will also criticize those apps, a whole lot you can find here: https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/sports-betting-daily-fantasy-games-fanduel-draftkings https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/sports-betting-daily-fant... That collection (with the not-so-sunny title "The Dark World of Fantasy Sports and Online Gambling") has various news about the industry plus features with titles like "How the Daily Fantasy Industry Turns Fans Into Suckers." One could argue that they should accept fewer advertisers in general, but otherwise seems like nothing to see here re: RobinHood vs FanDuel or whoever. Unless there's a specific case of "RobinHood ads were rejected while FanDuel ones weren't or such" that would be more interesting... Personally I don't really agree with the idea that a publication should be expected to have a monolithic, religious-level fervor or single-voice to their editorial positions. I would sooner want to crack down on advertising-funded publications in general.
jonathankoren 4y ago
The dueling commercials for California propositions about sports gambling are such a farce. Neither prop 26 nor 27, actually talk about sports betting all, and unless you pay attention to who is paying for them, or actually read the text you wouldn’t know. For example, https://yestoprop27.com/ https://yestoprop27.com/ does not mention online sports betting at all. It’s so deceptive.
- whartung 4y ago
  Both are large gambling expansions. 27 is "worse" as it enables online sports betting, but all they talk up is homelessness and impoverished native tribes. 26 expands the native casinos to roulette and dice games. It's also fair to note, that folks can vote "No" on both of them, and neither would take place. It's not "one wins if the other loses". I dunno what happens if they both "win", perhaps "biggest winner" wins. The concern is that since sports gambling is getting more legalized, then the tribes can get their permission from the Federal Government rather than from the State, but I don't really understand the mechanics of that other than simply the State losing some aspect of control.
- ec109685 4y ago
  It’s inane. Prop 27 will provide less than 500M of state revenue / year, which is < .2% of the state budget, yet the proponents make it seem like this is a huge amount of funding. I really wish News sources were better at putting big numbers into context.
klinskyc 4y ago
This article makes some inane points. 1) The SuperDome has had a corporate sponsor (Mercedes Benz) since 2011. It's not like Caesars caused them to sell out. 2) No legal Pennsylvania sportsbook is advertising (or even offering options to bet on) B league Argentinian soccer. It's very likely the gambler in the article was on a grey-area offshore sports book (e.g Bovada), and legalizing sports betting helps combat those. 3) Sportsbooks paying $18 in total on two $10 bets is known as the "hold" and it's basically a transaction cost. You could make the same argument about poker (with the rake) or stock trading commissions. If there's a cost per transaction in an otherwise zero-sum game then money is being continuously removed from the total sum. 4) When you are betting in a non-exchange context (the case for all U.S based books), the sports book is taking the other side of the bet. They may try to balance the book, or lay off bets, but they often do end up taking risk on one side. This is advantageous for the book when done correctly. 5) Sports Betting is the only gambling option where you are betting against the house in a situation where the true odds are not known pre-facto. This is very different than blackjack or roulette where the odds are known beforehand, and the house can ensure the odds are always in their favor. 6) This means that sportsbetting is hypothetically (and often in practice) uniquely winnable in the long term. If you are better at determining the true odds for an outcome than the sportsbook, then you can have positive expected value. 7) If the above wasn't true, then sportsbooks would not have to limit winning players (which frequently happens). Sports betting is basically the only gambling option where the house does not always encourage/want more betting volume from players.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  Slight correction: blackjack is also possible to play with positive value for the player[1], and casinos routinely ban blackjack players for being too skilled. It’s also much easier to play blackjack with positive EV than to bet on sports, but it’s also trivial to detect if surveillance is paying attention, so the real game is avoiding surveillance in various ways, e.g. by never staying at the same casino for long. 1: technically this depends on the exact rules, most notably (1) how much is paid out for a blackjack (3:2 is ok, 6:5 is unplayable) and (2) “penetration”, i.e. how many cards are dealt from a shoe before a reshuffle. But it’s still very easy to find blackjack games with beatable rules.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Until reading the replies in this topic, I had no idea that gambling was still so controversial in the USA. From outside the country, the media portrayal makes it seem like it is broadly accepted. Is it religious morality issue? Telling people they cannot play with their money seems awfully paternalistic for a country whose image revolves around personal liberties.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  Throughout most of the US, if you turn on the radio and flick through the stations, you will hear evangelical Christian messaging. The two faces of the country are religious Puritans and scheming confidence men. In gambling, you can find combinations of both(church lottery) and also negations(atheists against gambling). But the most common norm would be to gamble in secret and keep quiet about it for the sake of appearances.
zibby8 4y ago
I have no moral qualms about gambling. I just hate that every single advertisement (in the NHL at least) is for sports betting. It’s just nauseating to see so many ads for the same topic, especially when I have no interest in sports betting As an aside, I’m surprised book makers exist in the age of betting exchanges. Why pay the book maker a cut when you can place a bet with a counter party directly?
czhu12 4y ago
An article like this can be written about almost every vice we have in our society. Social media, student loans for example. What about fast food or alcohol? Payday loans, corporate advertising, video game addictions, pornography addictions. Does the government need to play a larger role in all these areas? It’s probably not hard to put together a compelling piece on the damage of bad parenting, perhaps the government should also have a larger role there? I argue it’s deeply irresponsible and even immoral to buy a flashy car if you can’t adequately provide for your kids, should we legislate that? It’s not clear to me that gambling is any more dangerous than anything listed above. It seems every week an article like this comes out and the immediate reaction is to legislate it out of existence, it’s terrifying to see how quickly people (especially a more educated audience on HN) are willing to legislate things they don’t like.
- cbsmith 4y ago
  Addiction is certainly a universal challenge. However, there's a peculiar thing with gambling where it exploits the difficult economic realities underlying the rest of America's infrastructure.
- djmips 4y ago
  Is it really terrifying? If you are old enough you already lived through this stuff being illegal and you know what - it wasn't so bad. Having it come back inch by inch is not something I think is all that great. I actually wish for the days when society didn't want gambling.
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  It is quite difficult to end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt by eating too much fast food or watching too much porn.
  - czhu12 4y ago
    What percentage of people who participate in some form of gambling go on to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars? I'd argue it's also very difficult to end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt gambling.
pg_bot 4y ago
I think that everyone who has kids should teach them about gambling at a young age. Teach them how to play blackjack, poker, craps, roulette, sports gambling, etc. You can sneak in math lessons in a way that can be entertaining, but the greater lesson should be that the house always has an edge on the player. While gambling can be addicting, I don't think the correct response is to make it illegal. Perhaps there should be more regulation regarding the amount you can wager within a year, but keeping things underground is IMO worse for society.
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  That's the same reason I taught my 4 year old DND great way to learn basic mathematics
- cykros 4y ago
  Teach your kids about gambling, AND investing (and the absolute sorcery that is compound interest). There's no house edge when it comes to investing (especially in the days of $0 commissions), and if you're talking securities rather than derivative contracts, usually, if you lose, you don't lose your entire bet. And meanwhile, closely tracking your companies to see what's worth buying is bound to be more educational than tracking stats for an athlete, as it turns out, learning the ins and outs of how companies work can teach you about jobs that exist that you never knew about. You almost need to be taught a good amount about gambling to see just how different thoughtful investing is from actual gambling (particularly when hearing folks less educated equate the two).
ecolonsmak 4y ago
Gaming should be regulated in such a way that disincentives big business conglomerates from being involved. Upwards of 70% of gaming revenues is depending on the less than 10% of problem gamblers. Should be taxed and managed to ensure the house barely breaks even. Should be organized under the tax code in its own section similar to a 501.c3 -
jccalhoun 4y ago
Back in 1999-20000, I worked at a casino as a cashier in the midwest. I was shocked at how many people who worked in the casino and saw first hand how the house always wins would still regularly spend their days off going to the casino down the road and gambling or spend a break on the phone to a bookie.
mod 4y ago
> For years now, anyone who watches sports on TV or the internet has been bombarded with advertisements that insist you aren’t really enjoying the game unless you are betting money on it > How could any fan possibly have enjoyed the Patriots’ 25-point fourth-quarter comeback against the Falcons if he didn’t have “skin in the game”? I've only bet a couple superbowls, betting on the game does, in fact, make it a lot more interesting. I'm not a pro/college sports fan, though, maybe that's relevant. (I like playing sports, not spectating)
e63f67dd-065b 4y ago
I’m confused why we have casinos running books for sports betting. Wouldn’t the market be much more well served by a prediction market? Buying a contract that pays out $1 at the market price seems like a much better idea than betting with a casino.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
I don't want to live in a society where the government decides what I'm allowed to do with other consenting adults because "they know better". A free society is one that allows adults to make their own decisions, even ones that are possibly self-destructive. I happen to live in New York, where I am bombarded by ads from every angle to play the state-run lottery, which is perhaps the lowest return of any popular form of gambling. These ads include pushing an app for your phone that lets you play lotto at the touch of a button. At the same time, New York State has decided it is illegal for me to play poker - a game of skill. This is the government we are supposed to trust to determine what activities and behaviors we are allowed to engage in as adults?

83 points by sharkweek 4y ago

I think the anti-gambling proponents who said gambling legalization would degrade society have to some extent been proven correct. TV, billboard, and other ads for gambling are rampant around here. I find it exploitative.

mschuster91 4y ago
Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have made it abundantly clear decades ago that attempting to ban vices will only leas to criminal empires, and it's just the same with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana. Regarding advertising you're spot on, although I'd go a step further and call for sweeping regulations in the entire advertising industry. Unless you move to a 21 souls settlement in Alaska and leave a hermit life, you literally can't spend five minutes without being bombarded by one or another ad.
- jonah 4y ago
  My area has banned billboards on the highway and otherwise. They also have strict rules about signage in general. It's really wonderful and when I go somewhere else and am bombarded by those ads I am reminded again how assaulting they are.
  - rufus_foreman 4y ago
    Hopefully there is never a pea under your mattress.
    - marssaxman 4y ago
      I just got back from a road trip through Vermont, one of the four U.S. states which has banned billboards. It was really nice! If you try sleeping on a pea-free mattress someday, perhaps you'll find that you appreciate the experience.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - rufus_foreman 4y ago
        I have no idea whether there is a pea under my mattress. How would I notice?
        marssaxman 4y ago
        Have you ever visited a place which has no billboards?
        rufus_foreman 4y ago
        Yeah.
        marssaxman 4y ago
        Then I suppose you have all the information you need to draw the appropriate analogy!
- majormajor 4y ago
  > Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Alcohol prohibition should have made it abundantly clear decades ago that attempting to ban vices will only leas to criminal empires, and it's just the same with gambling, prostitution, porn and marijuana. It's not obvious to me that all vices are created equal here. If forcing gambling underground creates a criminal empire or two but results in, say, 80% fewer gambling addicts who end up damaging their lives and those of their families, which is the larger harm? Fake numbers, obviously the benefits/harms would depend on several different factors, but I don't think a one size fits all approach makes sense because "illegal gambling gangs" didn't seem to cause the same sort of larger societal problems the last several decades that "illegal drug gangs" or prohibition-era alcohol gangs have. I would assume this is because the lack of a need for the same sort of supply chain that you could attempt to monopolize and dominate.
- Karellen 4y ago
  If pervasive garish ads are criminalised, only criminals will see pervasive garish advertisements. ...and I'm fine with that.
- mynameishere 4y ago
  Isn't the whole "prohibition was bad" pretty much a just-so story? Being the drinker I am, I don't want it to come back, of course. But does having a few seedy speakeasies run by the mob really amount to much compared to this sort of thing: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-rate-during-prohibition/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-rate-... That's one disease. Booze causes all kinds of problems, and I wouldn't be surprised if (as another example) wife-beating sharply declined during prohibition. (ED: Looking again at that graph, there's something a little dubious about it--but it was the first data I could find.)
  - microtherion 4y ago
    That graph is indeed quite dubious, considering how long it takes for liver cirrhosis to develop. Furthermore, it shows a steep drop preceding prohibition, so, if anything, it suggests that prohibition came about because society's attitudes toward alcohol had already changed.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    > Isn't the whole "prohibition was bad" pretty much a just-so story? My understanding is that drinking levels did not return to pre-Prohibition levels until the 1970s.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  There's a difference between having it regulated and open and there being gambling ads during free throws.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > Better to have the demand served open and legally than forcing people underground. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), "Whether it belongs to the human law to repress all vices?": > […] Now possibility or faculty of action is due to an interior habit or disposition: since the same thing is not possible to one who has not a virtuous habit, as is possible to one who has. Thus the same is not possible to a child as to a full-grown man: for which reason the law for children is not the same as for adults, since many things are permitted to children, which in an adult are punished by law or at any rate are open to blame. In like manner many things are permissible to men not perfect in virtue, which would be intolerable in a virtuous man. > Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like. * https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2
- deleted 4y ago
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nitwit005 4y ago
Articles from the past make it seem more like plenty of gambling was going on when it was illegal, just that it was criminally controlled: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/26/archives/dimes-make-millions-for-numbers-racket-6001-payoff-lures-500000-a.html https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/26/archives/dimes-make-milli... And people keep finding new ways to gamble, some of which are difficult to make illegal. It's fairly clear the stock market is an elaborate gambling system to some people.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If the mob keeps it where I don't have to see it, then it's not my problem. I'd rather live in a city with illegal gambling done in private than in a city where the street is lined with casinos and gambling propaganda. Keep that shit in Vegas where it's easy for me to avoid. I wish they'd ban adverting of state lotteries too. Those ads are the worst, most insulting, most idiotic. A celebration of mindless materialism and short-term thinking. These ads celebrate the fact that most lottery winners blow it all on stupid shit then end up back at square one a few years later. It's flagrant exploitation of the dimwitted; the least they could do is not flaunt it on huge billboards all across town.
  - blockwriter 4y ago
    The mob threatens, kills or maims people for failure to pay. They have no other enforcement mechanism. This negatively affects entire communities, or even major cities, regardless of whether or not you see it.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      I doubt you can find much statistical evidence of casino legalization lowering the murder rate in cities.
      - woleium 4y ago
        The mob still lends money when legal casinos open...
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
What's far, far worse is all the gambling being done under the guise of "gaming" and focused directly at children. Not only is it as exploitative as normal gambling, in 99% of instances you will never receive something which you can then exchange for currency or anything else ever again: they have your money regardless.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
Why not just ban all gambling ads? Many European countries do this.
- Brian-Puccio 4y ago
  As well as direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-to-consumer_advertising
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Interesting, I never knew that. I guess you don't notice what isn't there. England must not be on the list, judging from EPL matches.
HideousKojima 4y ago
When I watch bootleg streams of MMA matches they're usually being streamed by people in the UK, and the sheer quantity of gambling ads is kind of crazy to me.
Proven 4y ago
[dead]

tomohawk 4y ago

People have forgotten how harmful gambling is. It was once widely legal, but then made illegal in most places. During the time it was illegal in most places, Nevada led the nation in many categories such as: school drop outs, divorces, domestic abuse, ... Government involvement in such activities really just shows where the priorities are.

ilaksh 4y ago

It's weird to me how sports gambling just seemed to start being accepted as a normal part of everyone's life, apparently, based on how common the ads are. Gambling addiction is real. It affected my family. It's like a tax on society, except that it often most negatively affects the people who can least afford to be taxed, and then it usually just goes to greedy people rather than funding public works. At least lotteries supposedly go towards public projects. But again, you are taking proportionately more from the most desperate and poor people in that case which is the opposite of how a tax should work.

thebigjewbowski 4y ago
The state taxes casinos and sports books an insane amount on top of regular federal taxes and whatnot. It’s not totally extractive but they are obviously still profitable. The thing is, everyone gambled before legalization. You didn’t even need a bookie, every online casino has taken bets from US citizens and then pay no taxes to the state or country. Bookies are even worse than online casinos because they offer a line of credit and later coerce you to give up your business, sell drugs, etc. All in all it’s very similar to drugs. People are going to do it anyway, might as well make it legal. You can contact any casino and request to be excluded from play indefinitely. You can set deposit limits and cannot lift them for a month at a time. There’s some “harm reduction” required by law.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  No, "everyone" did not gamble. Some people did, but others didn't want to enough to find a bookie or try an online casino. "People are going to do it anyway" -- wrong, some people are going to do it. Many will not if it's illegal.
  - thebigjewbowski 4y ago
    Many people still don’t ;). I’m one of the only software engineers I know who gambles on sports or plays cards. Sports gambling has been legal in the UK and other parts of the EU for a long time. Betting on horses and dogs, too, has been legal for forever.

morcheeba 4y ago

My best friend's husband is always bringing home winning $20 or $50 lotto tickets. His family can't afford the $75 a week he spends on those, but every gas station sells them. Even not-out-of-control cases are harmful.

bergenty 4y ago
Cardboard crack
- flappyeagle 4y ago
  Ban Magic
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Pogs? Beanie Babies? Cabbage Patch? Garbage Pail Kids?
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      Nothing of value would be lost if you banned all the cheap mass produced crap designed from the onset to be ""collectible.""
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googlryas 4y ago
Technically he's only spending $25-55/week! I wonder if cases like this could be helped if he was introduced to those "savings-with-lottery-features" apps. I'll say longgame.co as an example(I've never used it and am not vouching for it, I know there are others out there as well) It's really a shame. If he put that $50/week into a savings acct, that would be $2500 at the end of the year, which could pay for a nice week-long vacation for the family if they wanted to spend it on fun stuff and not reducing debt and other non-fun stuff.

ren_engineer 4y ago

bread and circus, same reason they are legalizing or decriminalizing drugs after resisting for decades. They want the masses sedated and distracted. 100K+ people die from opioids every year and that number is rising rapidly, yet no national emergency declaration or real action to try and stop it

MrGazzo 4y ago
> no national emergency declaration The former President of the United States declared it a national health emergency: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-declares-opioid-crisis-national-public-health-emergency/story?id=50718774 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-declares-opioid-crisis...
- coding123 4y ago
  Biden did nothing except appoint a czar that did nothing.
- jmclnx 4y ago
  But nothing was really done to stop it. But seems every US President will declare something and all it does is blow hot air to help warm the earth even faster :)
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    He was literally trying to have a wall built to minimize illegal border crossings commonly used by opiate smugglers?
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frebord 4y ago

Just replace gambling with alcohol. The small minority of addicts shouldn't fuck it up for the rest of us. I dove deeply into it this past year to extract some value out of promotions the books are running, and have continued to bet because it is fun trying to find lines that have positive expected value and it's been a nice stream of extra income.

strombofulous 4y ago
> it is fun trying to find lines that have positive expected value I've never gambled before, does this happen often? I would have assumed gambling companies wouldn't offer any bets like this, since it implies their EV is negative.
- rileymat2 4y ago
  Is this true if they are not the counter-party, but the facilitator?
  - whartung 4y ago
    Sports (parimutuel) gambling is different from casino gambling. There's no "house margin", rather they simply impose a fee (percentage) on the bet. It's why on a 1:1 bet, you'd lose money, as the sportsbook tend to take something like 10%. Even though the odds are 1:1, your $1 bet would net $0.90. ($1.90, you'd get your dollar back.)
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  The only exception is Blackjack, where you could learn positive EV play in a week, by "counting cards". That's why casino's kick people playing too well. They make a little money off 99% of players playing bad and try to kick the 1% that make money off the casino.
- dottrap 4y ago
  Look up Edward Thorp, the famous mathematician who was the first to use probability theory to beat blackjack and write a book about it (Beat the Dealer). Basically, as a deck uses up cards, the remaining in the deck may present a positive expected value. By counting cards and knowing expected values, you can adjust your bets to capitalize. Since Thorp, Casinos have made it harder to beat them (e.g. larger decks), but they still tease the possibility you can beat them to entice people to try (and lose). Edward Thorp later went on to write Beat the Market, where he tried to apply similar probability principles to the stock market. He independently invented the options formula, before Black-Scholes (which the latter won a Nobel Prize).

jmclnx 4y ago

Seems peat and repeat for the US these days in all environments. People forgot why Sports Betting was first outlawed (Black Soxs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal This will not end well. In the 1930's, Finance Law were passed to reel in abuses, since the late 90s, these laws were whittled down and we had 2008. New, weaker laws passed and as of now most are gone. So seems to prove, if people do not read and understand history, they are dommed to repeat the past mistakes.

danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Maybe the cure was worse than the disease. Just because something was previously banned, doesn't mean it was the right call.
- boplicity 4y ago
  After a recent bad experience around an alcoholic, I now understand, at least in part, why prohibition happened. Not that it was the right choice. However, it is very sad how much disease we allow, as a society, without much effort at addressing the root societal causes. These types of diseases kill people. Yet, much of society has normalized the causes. The question, isn't whether or not the some "call" was the right call. That is beside the point. The question should be "what now?" The answer shouldn't be "status quo."
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    Why shouldn't it? There is a good argument that it's a matter of pick your poison. The current situation may well be the least bad. I'm not a libertarian but many of their arguments are very reasonable.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      The issue with alcohol in particular is a biochemical one. Ethanol is chronically slightly poisonous, but methanol is acutely very poisonous. If you drink ethanol all your life you may get cirrhosis of the liver and have elevated risks for other diseases, but if you drink even a small amount of pure methanol you’ll go blind or die. So alcohol prohibition decreases chronic disease due to less ethanol consumption, but increases acute disease due to more accidental methanol consumption. At least in populations that don’t already have strong cultural norms against alcohol consumption. Many other vices have this duality of harm, but alcohol’s is particularly one-sided.

baron816 4y ago

I’ve thought it would be a good idea for states to issue “licenses” for many vices. Want to buy alcohol or go to a casino? You need to take a short course on the dangers of it and how to be safe. If you act irresponsibly by over drinking or driving drunk, then you can get your drinking license suspended. For gambling, you could limit how long a person stays inside a casino over a period of time, limit how many bets they place over a period of time, or how much money they lose. Yeah, it’s a little nanny state-ish in the case of gambling, but there’s clearly some social harm going on there that states recognize by already controlling gambling.

bergenty 4y ago
It’s not going to work for everything. Most (not an exaggeration) men have wanted to sleep with 13-14 year olds in pretty much every society in history. How do you propose we satisfy that need?
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  We don't satisfy it. Lots of people want to kill their enemies, too. They seem to find the criminal penalties sufficiently deterring.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
This is actually not a terrible idea, but enforcing it might prove hard. I don't think your average casino right now keeps a young parent from gambling away the rent money. On the other hand, bars can and do refuse to give you any more alcohol.
- baron816 4y ago
  I don’t think it would be that hard to enforce with pretty basic software. Casinos have to get a license to operate as is. They would scan people as they place bets. Casinos might even get behind it since they would get access to the data—they’d immediately know who the high rollers are, who the cheaters are, what games people like, etc.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

We can replace the X in "X should be legal because criminalizing it will just drive X underground" with (heroin / crack / glue sniffing / child porn / whatever). Not all of those substitutions work. It seems to be a difficult thing to process, for some people, that outlawing things does reduce their usage, and some of those things are really harmful. Conversely, at least some of the people who are now gambling on sports really would not have done so, when they still had to know a bookie. No, they wouldn't fuel the Mafia instead; they just wouldn't gamble.

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aaplok 4y ago
Legalisation is a very broad notion. What to legalise? Usage/consumption? Small business re-selling? Large private industry? Arguments for it cover an equally large range. The argument about legalising consumption for public health reasons probably focuses more on reducing harmful consumption rather than all consumption. The article cites several strategies used by the sports gambling industry (eg QR codes) that encourage addiction, and harm. You don't need to make all gambling illegal to crack down on that kind of stuff. Ultimately the question is one of control. Complete market deregulation is arguably the worse possibility here. With illegal activity the government can control through repression, and via a public monopoly they control the quality of the product and the chain of distribution.

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

It would be nice if they added to the relevant legislation that no bet can be more than negative 1% EV. There is some nuance to figuring that (and perhaps you'd have to regulate the total winnings / total wagered instead) but a decent part of the problem is that folks are making really crappy bets in most cases. Making a lot of $20 bets at -1% EV is very different than the same thing at -15% EV.

School-Cotton 4y ago
This would amount to banning essentially all casino games except blackjack and video poker, and would remove all decision-making from those games, forcing everyone to play perfect basic strategy or close to it. I think gambling should be illegal, so I’d be happy for such a suggestion to be implemented, but it’s basically a more complicated and indirect way to just ban casinos outright.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I don't think gambling should be illegal, but I think casino games and lotteries should be illegal. The expected value is the only reason for me. When the expected value is negative, it's not really gambling. Expected value from gambling should be zero, going slightly negative because the table and the room needs to be paid for. People making money from gambling should be making money from providing services to gamblers, not taxing the pot with a rake or a vig.
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    Basically agree. A -1% EV max mandate would be much better. Excitement without much loss.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  I should have been more specific - I meant for sports betting. That being said - there are many casino games which would work fine and leave decisions - roulette could be -1% EV with a single zero which was smaller than the other numbers. Several craps bets are close to 1% and minor adjustments could be made to payoffs. Blackjack would be practically impossible to make work.

tqi 4y ago

It's weird to me that media outlets like the NYT will criticize apps like Robinhood or Duolingo for being addictive then turn around and happily take advertising money from BetMGM or FanDuel... 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/technology/robinhood-risky-trading.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/technology/robinhood-risk... 2. https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/why-breaking-a-streak-feels-so-awful.html https://www.thecut.com/2019/04/why-breaking-a-streak-feels-s...

majormajor 4y ago
The NYT will also criticize those apps, a whole lot you can find here: https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/sports-betting-daily-fantasy-games-fanduel-draftkings https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/sports-betting-daily-fant... That collection (with the not-so-sunny title "The Dark World of Fantasy Sports and Online Gambling") has various news about the industry plus features with titles like "How the Daily Fantasy Industry Turns Fans Into Suckers." One could argue that they should accept fewer advertisers in general, but otherwise seems like nothing to see here re: RobinHood vs FanDuel or whoever. Unless there's a specific case of "RobinHood ads were rejected while FanDuel ones weren't or such" that would be more interesting... Personally I don't really agree with the idea that a publication should be expected to have a monolithic, religious-level fervor or single-voice to their editorial positions. I would sooner want to crack down on advertising-funded publications in general.

jonathankoren 4y ago

The dueling commercials for California propositions about sports gambling are such a farce. Neither prop 26 nor 27, actually talk about sports betting all, and unless you pay attention to who is paying for them, or actually read the text you wouldn’t know. For example, https://yestoprop27.com/ https://yestoprop27.com/ does not mention online sports betting at all. It’s so deceptive.

whartung 4y ago
Both are large gambling expansions. 27 is "worse" as it enables online sports betting, but all they talk up is homelessness and impoverished native tribes. 26 expands the native casinos to roulette and dice games. It's also fair to note, that folks can vote "No" on both of them, and neither would take place. It's not "one wins if the other loses". I dunno what happens if they both "win", perhaps "biggest winner" wins. The concern is that since sports gambling is getting more legalized, then the tribes can get their permission from the Federal Government rather than from the State, but I don't really understand the mechanics of that other than simply the State losing some aspect of control.
ec109685 4y ago
It’s inane. Prop 27 will provide less than 500M of state revenue / year, which is < .2% of the state budget, yet the proponents make it seem like this is a huge amount of funding. I really wish News sources were better at putting big numbers into context.

klinskyc 4y ago

This article makes some inane points. 1) The SuperDome has had a corporate sponsor (Mercedes Benz) since 2011. It's not like Caesars caused them to sell out. 2) No legal Pennsylvania sportsbook is advertising (or even offering options to bet on) B league Argentinian soccer. It's very likely the gambler in the article was on a grey-area offshore sports book (e.g Bovada), and legalizing sports betting helps combat those. 3) Sportsbooks paying $18 in total on two $10 bets is known as the "hold" and it's basically a transaction cost. You could make the same argument about poker (with the rake) or stock trading commissions. If there's a cost per transaction in an otherwise zero-sum game then money is being continuously removed from the total sum. 4) When you are betting in a non-exchange context (the case for all U.S based books), the sports book is taking the other side of the bet. They may try to balance the book, or lay off bets, but they often do end up taking risk on one side. This is advantageous for the book when done correctly. 5) Sports Betting is the only gambling option where you are betting against the house in a situation where the true odds are not known pre-facto. This is very different than blackjack or roulette where the odds are known beforehand, and the house can ensure the odds are always in their favor. 6) This means that sportsbetting is hypothetically (and often in practice) uniquely winnable in the long term. If you are better at determining the true odds for an outcome than the sportsbook, then you can have positive expected value. 7) If the above wasn't true, then sportsbooks would not have to limit winning players (which frequently happens). Sports betting is basically the only gambling option where the house does not always encourage/want more betting volume from players.

School-Cotton 4y ago
Slight correction: blackjack is also possible to play with positive value for the player[1], and casinos routinely ban blackjack players for being too skilled. It’s also much easier to play blackjack with positive EV than to bet on sports, but it’s also trivial to detect if surveillance is paying attention, so the real game is avoiding surveillance in various ways, e.g. by never staying at the same casino for long. 1: technically this depends on the exact rules, most notably (1) how much is paid out for a blackjack (3:2 is ok, 6:5 is unplayable) and (2) “penetration”, i.e. how many cards are dealt from a shoe before a reshuffle. But it’s still very easy to find blackjack games with beatable rules.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

Until reading the replies in this topic, I had no idea that gambling was still so controversial in the USA. From outside the country, the media portrayal makes it seem like it is broadly accepted. Is it religious morality issue? Telling people they cannot play with their money seems awfully paternalistic for a country whose image revolves around personal liberties.

syntheweave 4y ago
Throughout most of the US, if you turn on the radio and flick through the stations, you will hear evangelical Christian messaging. The two faces of the country are religious Puritans and scheming confidence men. In gambling, you can find combinations of both(church lottery) and also negations(atheists against gambling). But the most common norm would be to gamble in secret and keep quiet about it for the sake of appearances.

zibby8 4y ago

I have no moral qualms about gambling. I just hate that every single advertisement (in the NHL at least) is for sports betting. It’s just nauseating to see so many ads for the same topic, especially when I have no interest in sports betting As an aside, I’m surprised book makers exist in the age of betting exchanges. Why pay the book maker a cut when you can place a bet with a counter party directly?

czhu12 4y ago

An article like this can be written about almost every vice we have in our society. Social media, student loans for example. What about fast food or alcohol? Payday loans, corporate advertising, video game addictions, pornography addictions. Does the government need to play a larger role in all these areas? It’s probably not hard to put together a compelling piece on the damage of bad parenting, perhaps the government should also have a larger role there? I argue it’s deeply irresponsible and even immoral to buy a flashy car if you can’t adequately provide for your kids, should we legislate that? It’s not clear to me that gambling is any more dangerous than anything listed above. It seems every week an article like this comes out and the immediate reaction is to legislate it out of existence, it’s terrifying to see how quickly people (especially a more educated audience on HN) are willing to legislate things they don’t like.

cbsmith 4y ago
Addiction is certainly a universal challenge. However, there's a peculiar thing with gambling where it exploits the difficult economic realities underlying the rest of America's infrastructure.
djmips 4y ago
Is it really terrifying? If you are old enough you already lived through this stuff being illegal and you know what - it wasn't so bad. Having it come back inch by inch is not something I think is all that great. I actually wish for the days when society didn't want gambling.
thematrixturtle 4y ago
It is quite difficult to end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt by eating too much fast food or watching too much porn.
- czhu12 4y ago
  What percentage of people who participate in some form of gambling go on to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars? I'd argue it's also very difficult to end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt gambling.

pg_bot 4y ago

I think that everyone who has kids should teach them about gambling at a young age. Teach them how to play blackjack, poker, craps, roulette, sports gambling, etc. You can sneak in math lessons in a way that can be entertaining, but the greater lesson should be that the house always has an edge on the player. While gambling can be addicting, I don't think the correct response is to make it illegal. Perhaps there should be more regulation regarding the amount you can wager within a year, but keeping things underground is IMO worse for society.

buscoquadnary 4y ago
That's the same reason I taught my 4 year old DND great way to learn basic mathematics
cykros 4y ago
Teach your kids about gambling, AND investing (and the absolute sorcery that is compound interest). There's no house edge when it comes to investing (especially in the days of $0 commissions), and if you're talking securities rather than derivative contracts, usually, if you lose, you don't lose your entire bet. And meanwhile, closely tracking your companies to see what's worth buying is bound to be more educational than tracking stats for an athlete, as it turns out, learning the ins and outs of how companies work can teach you about jobs that exist that you never knew about. You almost need to be taught a good amount about gambling to see just how different thoughtful investing is from actual gambling (particularly when hearing folks less educated equate the two).

ecolonsmak 4y ago

Gaming should be regulated in such a way that disincentives big business conglomerates from being involved. Upwards of 70% of gaming revenues is depending on the less than 10% of problem gamblers. Should be taxed and managed to ensure the house barely breaks even. Should be organized under the tax code in its own section similar to a 501.c3 -

jccalhoun 4y ago

Back in 1999-20000, I worked at a casino as a cashier in the midwest. I was shocked at how many people who worked in the casino and saw first hand how the house always wins would still regularly spend their days off going to the casino down the road and gambling or spend a break on the phone to a bookie.

mod 4y ago

> For years now, anyone who watches sports on TV or the internet has been bombarded with advertisements that insist you aren’t really enjoying the game unless you are betting money on it > How could any fan possibly have enjoyed the Patriots’ 25-point fourth-quarter comeback against the Falcons if he didn’t have “skin in the game”? I've only bet a couple superbowls, betting on the game does, in fact, make it a lot more interesting. I'm not a pro/college sports fan, though, maybe that's relevant. (I like playing sports, not spectating)

e63f67dd-065b 4y ago

I’m confused why we have casinos running books for sports betting. Wouldn’t the market be much more well served by a prediction market? Buying a contract that pays out $1 at the market price seems like a much better idea than betting with a casino.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

I don't want to live in a society where the government decides what I'm allowed to do with other consenting adults because "they know better". A free society is one that allows adults to make their own decisions, even ones that are possibly self-destructive. I happen to live in New York, where I am bombarded by ads from every angle to play the state-run lottery, which is perhaps the lowest return of any popular form of gambling. These ads include pushing an app for your phone that lets you play lotto at the touch of a button. At the same time, New York State has decided it is illegal for me to play poker - a game of skill. This is the government we are supposed to trust to determine what activities and behaviors we are allowed to engage in as adults?