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There are bookies still operating to this day, one in the local dive bar my wife and I frequent. I have no idea who is muscle is but if you don’t pay him you wi

There are bookies still operating to this day, one in the local dive bar my wife and I frequent. I have no idea who is muscle is but if you don’t pay him you will have violent repercussions. He’s an older guy who chain smokes some sort of pipe tobacco and he’s been there forever. Is that really better than a regulated industry? Because that’s the alternative when you have prohibition.

ramesh31 3y ago
>Is that really better than a regulated industry? Because that’s the alternative when you have prohibition. It all comes down to access. The mobile aspect of things can fuel addictions to an extreme that otherwise would have been controllable. There's no reason you can't have casinos or gambling halls or whatever to fill that need. Prohibition obviously isn't the answer. But being able to pop open an app and lose your paycheck in a moment is ruinous to people, and there's an entire predatory industry out there designing these things to trick people like that.
Goronmon 3y ago
Is that really better than a regulated industry? Because that’s the alternative when you have prohibition. Scale is important. If the "regulated" (I use that term loosely in this context) industry is hundreds or thousands of times larger than the previous unregulated industry, then I could see it being a much worse problem. And the fact that ads for sports betting have taken over broadcasting and online media for anything even tangentially related, my reaction is that the problem has gotten much worse.
- skippyboxedhero 3y ago
  When sports betting was illegal, the US was already the largest sports-betting market in the world.
missedthecue 3y ago
Yes that's better. The mafia wasn't doing hundreds of billions in dollars of gambling business every year. Sports betting is today, and it's growing at double digit percentages. Prohibition never completely stamps something out, but it's better than opening up access to every 18 year old with a smartphone.

ramesh31 3y ago

>Is that really better than a regulated industry? Because that’s the alternative when you have prohibition. It all comes down to access. The mobile aspect of things can fuel addictions to an extreme that otherwise would have been controllable. There's no reason you can't have casinos or gambling halls or whatever to fill that need. Prohibition obviously isn't the answer. But being able to pop open an app and lose your paycheck in a moment is ruinous to people, and there's an entire predatory industry out there designing these things to trick people like that.

Goronmon 3y ago

Is that really better than a regulated industry? Because that’s the alternative when you have prohibition. Scale is important. If the "regulated" (I use that term loosely in this context) industry is hundreds or thousands of times larger than the previous unregulated industry, then I could see it being a much worse problem. And the fact that ads for sports betting have taken over broadcasting and online media for anything even tangentially related, my reaction is that the problem has gotten much worse.

skippyboxedhero 3y ago
When sports betting was illegal, the US was already the largest sports-betting market in the world.

missedthecue 3y ago

Yes that's better. The mafia wasn't doing hundreds of billions in dollars of gambling business every year. Sports betting is today, and it's growing at double digit percentages. Prohibition never completely stamps something out, but it's better than opening up access to every 18 year old with a smartphone.