5 ms·

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

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
  [deleted]
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
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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
[deleted]

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

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