5 ms·

It amazes me that sports betting is allowed to persist as is. It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to child

It amazes me that sports betting is allowed to persist as is. It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to children is ok. If you go to Europe, you’re probably familiar with betting parlors. They shittify any town they take over, filling up with lonely men losing their money. Online just hides it a little better.

Clubber 3y ago
>It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to children is ok. We lost that battle when states introduced lotteries. Government gambling.
- gs17 3y ago
  Do lotteries advertise to children in your state? I guess scratch-off game designs are bright and colorful, but here in TN the ads on TV/radio are largely angled at adults.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    Yes, we have commercials and billboards and convenience stores with big billboards saying they sold a winning ticket. I don't really buy the argument that if advertising is bright and colorful, it's distinctly targeted to children. Most advertising is bright and colorful. The only decent argument from the smoking / vape wars was Joe Camel because he was a cartoon character, but I didn't know who Joe Camel was until I was ad adult. I think the advertising to children because it contains non-unusual ________ argument is pretty weak. If you mean advertise where children would be able to see it, absolutely, all over the place.
- afiori 3y ago
  Lotteries (gevernmental or not) and sport betting are worlds apart in term of societal damage
  - wincy 3y ago
    I’m curious, how so? I don’t participate in either aside from maybe a few scratchers a year (like literally, 3, maybe) but at a surface level them seem to be very similar.
    - Tyr42 3y ago
      Sports betting seems more social and seems more "skill based" in that you can follow a team and the news and try and make better bets vs a scratch ticket which doesn't care.
    - standardUser 3y ago
      It would take a lot of effort to burn an entire paycheck on lotto tickets. It would take 60 seconds to do so with online betting.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        Many states have added online lotteries. https://lotto.com https://lotto.com
        standardUser 3y ago
        The largest order I can make at one time is $30. It would take a lot of dedication to burn through a few thousand dollars, and it would come with no immediate feedback/reward for the effort. I'm not saying it's impossible to ruin one's life buying lotto tickets, but it seems highly unlikely and extremely boring compared to any other gambling problem I can think of.
        afiori 3y ago
        Few people watch routinely lotto extractions with strong emotions, millions are sport fan that never skip a game. Nobody cares wether the next lottery has a 24 and millions care very deeply about who wins the next sportball cup. Both allow you to use them as an addiction but one has a far weaker and narrower pull.
ramesh31 3y ago
> It amazes me that sports betting is allowed to persist as is. It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to children is ok. This didn't just magically happen. We knew all of these problems, and it was completely illegal in the US for decades because of that. But there was a concerted, highly funded, well organized push among state legislatures over the past few years to get this stuff through, to the complete detriment of society. Pure blatant regulatory capture funded by multi-billion dollar corporations.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I don’t see how betting on sports is any worse than buying lotto tickets or making risky options or shitcoin trades that the person barely understands.
  - overthemoon 3y ago
    All these things are bad, too.
  - jankyxenon 3y ago
    I think sports is much easier to understand than shitcoins, and the payout cycles are much faster than waiting for a cryto vehicle to go up over an unspecified period of time.
    - skippyboxedhero 3y ago
      Zero-day options. Sports betting is not zero harm, but the rate of harm is significantly lower than the kinds of betting that are legal in parts of the US. The US is one of the weirdest markets globally in that it legalized all the high-harm activities (because of massive political corruption) and banned all the low-harm stuff. Now they are normalizing, you have the hysterical people who don't really understand why it was banned initially saying that Eden has fallen.
  - ARandumGuy 3y ago
    Part of it is the ubiquity of advertising, and the ability to gamble from anywhere using your phone. Both of which make it much easier to develop a gambling addiction, and much harder for and addict to stop gambling. Sports betting also has the unique issue of introducing corruption into sports. A league like the NFL has a huge number of players, coaches, referees, and league staff, all of whom can influence the outcome of a game, and all of whom are potentially susceptible to bribes. A notable case of this happening is the "Black Sox" scandal, where the 1919 Chicago White Sox blatantly threw the World Series in exchange for bribes from a gambling syndicate. The more prolific sports betting is, the more likely events like this are.
wincy 3y ago
My uncle used to say “they had vote after vote after vote to legalize casinos in our state. It kept failing and they kept bringing up new votes. And wouldn’t you know once it was legalized we never had to vote on it again.” Legislation is weird because the bad guys only have to win once, and to prevent them you have to win every single time.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fnordfnordfnord 3y ago
1. How do you propose to prevent it? 2. Do you want to live in a free society, or do you want a lot of regulation over your behavior? If you start letting moralizers regulate everyone's behavior "for their own good" where do you stop?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Fauntleroy 3y ago
  If we don't regulate behavior at some level, and continuously pursue "freedom" over all else, our society will not be acting in the best interests of its people.
  - fnordfnordfnord 3y ago
    I notice that you don't have a response for 1. I understand, because, it's very challenging to solve real problems like preventing all gambling over the internet. In which case, it's easier to regulate it for fairness than to have it remain underground and completely unregulated; that's not good enough for some people though.
haunter 3y ago
>If you go to Europe, you’re probably familiar with betting parlors. They shittify any town they take over, filling up with lonely men losing their money You mean the UK? What you describe is uncommon in most european countries. UK is a very exception because private over-the-counter gambling outlets (aka bookies) are legal. That's not the case in most european countries where usually the state has monopoly.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  There was a boom in Spain not long ago. Luckily, a new government tried to curb the expansion and I believe they got somewhere.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gosub100 3y ago
It also sucks for this completely orthogonal reason: it brings in people who have no passion for the sport. Just people who glamorize gambling or want something for nothing. If I'm a big ${sport}ball fan, it detracts (in various ways) to associate with people who aren't genuine fans but just want to gamble.
skippyboxedhero 3y ago
"betting parlors"...I have never heard of this term used anywhere. You have high-street bookmakers, there are a lot of regulations about what they can and can't do, they aren't a very big part of the business anymore (and have been in decline for about ten years). Most old men used to meet up with their friends and put a line on for the races...you don't enjoy that, maybe you don't have friends to go places with but other people did...what is the issue? The government has wisely cracked down on FBOTs, the worst part of that model that appeared after sports betting moved online. The culture that exists today (as this industry disappears) is nothing to do with what it was (and, btw, the move online has seen the vig go down by something like 90%...so that isn't bad either). The really weird one is casinos in the US: until Adelson died, both parties largest donors were the casino industry...now it just the Dems. You have zero harm protection, zero regulations, and massive levels of political corruption. In the UK, these companies pay lots of tax, they invest heavily in technology, and until last year were the only people funding gambling addiction...the government, which runs the healthcare system, refused to do so. The rate of harm from online gambling is usually under 1% and highest in markets that are either overregulated (i.e. Hong Kong) or unregulated (i.e. US). You "lose" every time you go to the cinema, buy food, do anything by your terms is a loss. You want to gamble on sports, someone will take your bet, what is the issue? Casino/table games are pointless, but this isn't what "betting parlors" are and this isn't the culture in Europe which skews heavily towards sports betting, which is relatively low-harm. Again, look at the US: crypto, zero-day options, etc. There is value in having an outlet, because people are going to do this stuff whether it is legal or not.
- _factor 3y ago
  You don't have to get rid of it, just treat as what it is.. a negative addiction pattern. As it is right now, it's a first class member of society in the US. Treat it more like regulated substances like tobacco. Allowed, but with big warnings and not in plain view. I don't know about your harm statistics, but I've personally seen friends irresponsibly lose money after legalization. It used to be much more manageable before.
  - skippyboxedhero 3y ago
j4yav 3y ago
I live in Europe, I have no idea what a betting parlor is. Pubs have a machine in a corner somewhere with a sad looking person playing a vaguely slots looking game (not sure never played), but I've never seen a parlor or especially one that took over a town. Do you have an example of what these look like? Or are there specific countries in Europe you're referring to?
- Symbiote 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betting_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betting_shop UK, Ireland, Greece are mentioned. Italy apparently has them too. I don't know about anywhere else. Some British towns had four or more of these within 100m. It was generally a sign of a deprived area.

Clubber 3y ago

>It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to children is ok. We lost that battle when states introduced lotteries. Government gambling.

gs17 3y ago
Do lotteries advertise to children in your state? I guess scratch-off game designs are bright and colorful, but here in TN the ads on TV/radio are largely angled at adults.
- Clubber 3y ago
  Yes, we have commercials and billboards and convenience stores with big billboards saying they sold a winning ticket. I don't really buy the argument that if advertising is bright and colorful, it's distinctly targeted to children. Most advertising is bright and colorful. The only decent argument from the smoking / vape wars was Joe Camel because he was a cartoon character, but I didn't know who Joe Camel was until I was ad adult. I think the advertising to children because it contains non-unusual ________ argument is pretty weak. If you mean advertise where children would be able to see it, absolutely, all over the place.
afiori 3y ago
Lotteries (gevernmental or not) and sport betting are worlds apart in term of societal damage
- wincy 3y ago
  I’m curious, how so? I don’t participate in either aside from maybe a few scratchers a year (like literally, 3, maybe) but at a surface level them seem to be very similar.
  - Tyr42 3y ago
    Sports betting seems more social and seems more "skill based" in that you can follow a team and the news and try and make better bets vs a scratch ticket which doesn't care.
  - standardUser 3y ago
    It would take a lot of effort to burn an entire paycheck on lotto tickets. It would take 60 seconds to do so with online betting.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      Many states have added online lotteries. https://lotto.com https://lotto.com
      - standardUser 3y ago
        The largest order I can make at one time is $30. It would take a lot of dedication to burn through a few thousand dollars, and it would come with no immediate feedback/reward for the effort. I'm not saying it's impossible to ruin one's life buying lotto tickets, but it seems highly unlikely and extremely boring compared to any other gambling problem I can think of.
      - afiori 3y ago
        Few people watch routinely lotto extractions with strong emotions, millions are sport fan that never skip a game. Nobody cares wether the next lottery has a 24 and millions care very deeply about who wins the next sportball cup. Both allow you to use them as an addiction but one has a far weaker and narrower pull.

ramesh31 3y ago

> It amazes me that sports betting is allowed to persist as is. It’s an addictive hobby with similar detriments to addictive substances, yet advertising to children is ok. This didn't just magically happen. We knew all of these problems, and it was completely illegal in the US for decades because of that. But there was a concerted, highly funded, well organized push among state legislatures over the past few years to get this stuff through, to the complete detriment of society. Pure blatant regulatory capture funded by multi-billion dollar corporations.

jliptzin 3y ago
I don’t see how betting on sports is any worse than buying lotto tickets or making risky options or shitcoin trades that the person barely understands.
- overthemoon 3y ago
  All these things are bad, too.
- jankyxenon 3y ago
  I think sports is much easier to understand than shitcoins, and the payout cycles are much faster than waiting for a cryto vehicle to go up over an unspecified period of time.
  - skippyboxedhero 3y ago
    Zero-day options. Sports betting is not zero harm, but the rate of harm is significantly lower than the kinds of betting that are legal in parts of the US. The US is one of the weirdest markets globally in that it legalized all the high-harm activities (because of massive political corruption) and banned all the low-harm stuff. Now they are normalizing, you have the hysterical people who don't really understand why it was banned initially saying that Eden has fallen.
- ARandumGuy 3y ago
  Part of it is the ubiquity of advertising, and the ability to gamble from anywhere using your phone. Both of which make it much easier to develop a gambling addiction, and much harder for and addict to stop gambling. Sports betting also has the unique issue of introducing corruption into sports. A league like the NFL has a huge number of players, coaches, referees, and league staff, all of whom can influence the outcome of a game, and all of whom are potentially susceptible to bribes. A notable case of this happening is the "Black Sox" scandal, where the 1919 Chicago White Sox blatantly threw the World Series in exchange for bribes from a gambling syndicate. The more prolific sports betting is, the more likely events like this are.

wincy 3y ago

My uncle used to say “they had vote after vote after vote to legalize casinos in our state. It kept failing and they kept bringing up new votes. And wouldn’t you know once it was legalized we never had to vote on it again.” Legislation is weird because the bad guys only have to win once, and to prevent them you have to win every single time.

deaddodo 3y ago
[flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fnordfnordfnord 3y ago

1. How do you propose to prevent it? 2. Do you want to live in a free society, or do you want a lot of regulation over your behavior? If you start letting moralizers regulate everyone's behavior "for their own good" where do you stop?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Fauntleroy 3y ago
If we don't regulate behavior at some level, and continuously pursue "freedom" over all else, our society will not be acting in the best interests of its people.
- fnordfnordfnord 3y ago
  I notice that you don't have a response for 1. I understand, because, it's very challenging to solve real problems like preventing all gambling over the internet. In which case, it's easier to regulate it for fairness than to have it remain underground and completely unregulated; that's not good enough for some people though.

haunter 3y ago

>If you go to Europe, you’re probably familiar with betting parlors. They shittify any town they take over, filling up with lonely men losing their money You mean the UK? What you describe is uncommon in most european countries. UK is a very exception because private over-the-counter gambling outlets (aka bookies) are legal. That's not the case in most european countries where usually the state has monopoly.

manuelabeledo 3y ago
There was a boom in Spain not long ago. Luckily, a new government tried to curb the expansion and I believe they got somewhere.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gosub100 3y ago

It also sucks for this completely orthogonal reason: it brings in people who have no passion for the sport. Just people who glamorize gambling or want something for nothing. If I'm a big ${sport}ball fan, it detracts (in various ways) to associate with people who aren't genuine fans but just want to gamble.

skippyboxedhero 3y ago

"betting parlors"...I have never heard of this term used anywhere. You have high-street bookmakers, there are a lot of regulations about what they can and can't do, they aren't a very big part of the business anymore (and have been in decline for about ten years). Most old men used to meet up with their friends and put a line on for the races...you don't enjoy that, maybe you don't have friends to go places with but other people did...what is the issue? The government has wisely cracked down on FBOTs, the worst part of that model that appeared after sports betting moved online. The culture that exists today (as this industry disappears) is nothing to do with what it was (and, btw, the move online has seen the vig go down by something like 90%...so that isn't bad either). The really weird one is casinos in the US: until Adelson died, both parties largest donors were the casino industry...now it just the Dems. You have zero harm protection, zero regulations, and massive levels of political corruption. In the UK, these companies pay lots of tax, they invest heavily in technology, and until last year were the only people funding gambling addiction...the government, which runs the healthcare system, refused to do so. The rate of harm from online gambling is usually under 1% and highest in markets that are either overregulated (i.e. Hong Kong) or unregulated (i.e. US). You "lose" every time you go to the cinema, buy food, do anything by your terms is a loss. You want to gamble on sports, someone will take your bet, what is the issue? Casino/table games are pointless, but this isn't what "betting parlors" are and this isn't the culture in Europe which skews heavily towards sports betting, which is relatively low-harm. Again, look at the US: crypto, zero-day options, etc. There is value in having an outlet, because people are going to do this stuff whether it is legal or not.

_factor 3y ago
You don't have to get rid of it, just treat as what it is.. a negative addiction pattern. As it is right now, it's a first class member of society in the US. Treat it more like regulated substances like tobacco. Allowed, but with big warnings and not in plain view. I don't know about your harm statistics, but I've personally seen friends irresponsibly lose money after legalization. It used to be much more manageable before.
- skippyboxedhero 3y ago

j4yav 3y ago

I live in Europe, I have no idea what a betting parlor is. Pubs have a machine in a corner somewhere with a sad looking person playing a vaguely slots looking game (not sure never played), but I've never seen a parlor or especially one that took over a town. Do you have an example of what these look like? Or are there specific countries in Europe you're referring to?

Symbiote 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betting_shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betting_shop UK, Ireland, Greece are mentioned. Italy apparently has them too. I don't know about anywhere else. Some British towns had four or more of these within 100m. It was generally a sign of a deprived area.