4 ms·

As a counterpoint, I know plenty of people who willingly spend more than $500 on entertainment over a few months. I think the comparison to alcohol is an apt o

As a counterpoint, I know plenty of people who willingly spend more than $500 on entertainment over a few months. I think the comparison to alcohol is an apt one: we've seen from previous ban attempts that rather than deter people from an activity the ban risks driving people to the black market, empowering those willing to operate illegally, removing the capacity for regulation or legal recourse (exposing partakers to grievous downside risks from product perspectives, such as contaminated liquor and loan sharks) and, ultimately, requiring more intrusion of law enforcement processes on the lives of every-day people.

julianeon 3y ago
It does seem like legalization made it qualitatively worse. To quote the parent comment: > Then when I was home for the holidays every man I knew from my home town that was near my age was doing it. From how he's describing it, this sounds like a big change. I'm also getting the sense that maybe 1 in 100 guys did it before, and it's dropping to like 1 in 10. I think the reason is that drugs can be bought in cash, but bettors depend on credit cards, and when that rail was legalized, the floodgates opened.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
Then you keep it legal but regulate the shit out of it. As the OP suggested, one step might be to force the betting houses to take all comers — also force them to indicate bettor losses compared to bettor gains, etc.
- lstodd 3y ago
  > but regulate the shit out of it. So like a ban, but just a bit less so? This will bring the same ill effects, but a bit less so. What it the win then?
  - Consultant32452 3y ago
    It's important to protect the r̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶u̶m̶b̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ public from c̶o̶m̶p̶e̶t̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ predators.
  - dangus 3y ago
    “A bit less so” is the point. Under this logic you’re using, there’s no point to having speed limits on roadways or seatbelts and safety devices in cars. If we can never eliminate car crash deaths, why bother with all those regulations? Lower number of bad thing is better than higher number of bad thing. This is known to be effective with cigarettes. Higher taxes reduce usage. Less advertising reduces usage. Advertising induces demand that would not otherwise exist.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I think it is pretty different. The moral justification for speed limits is risks to others on shared roads, not oneself. You can drive as fast as you want on a private track.
      - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
        Seat belt law might be a better analogy, though there is always the risk of becoming a projectile when you don’t wear one that can injure others, so even that’s not a perfect one.
        s1artibartfast 3y ago
        That's better, and still legal to ignore on private property. There was a lot of anger and discussion about public seat belt laws for the reasons you said.
      - dangus 3y ago
        I think the family members of frequent gamblers might argue against the idea that it’s got no negative externalities to others.
  - rpgbr 3y ago
    In Brazil, tobacco is heavily regulated. They can’t advertise on TV and they must show scary health alerts on the back of their packages, for example. Since government started this trend, in end of 80s, tobacco usage is in free fall, as shown by this Brazilian Cancer Institute chart: https://www.gov.br/inca/pt-br/assuntos/gestor-e-profissional-de-saude/observatorio-da-politica-nacional-de-controle-do-tabaco/dados-e-numeros-do-tabagismo/quedadaprevalencia.png https://www.gov.br/inca/pt-br/assuntos/gestor-e-profissional...
tech_ken 3y ago
I think the economics of a physical drug substance and gambling are different enough that it’s actually un-apt to draw a comparison between sports betting and alcohol prohibition. Indeed I think it's actually highly misleading to extrapolate the harms caused by alcohol/drug prohibition to the prohibition on gambling. Caveat: this is all armchair speculation, I have no expertise or research on the matter. In the case of black market gambling it seems much easier to keep everything within my direct control, thereby limiting the risk of getting a bad product. I can make a wager or play a poker game with my buddy without taking on virtually any “undue” risk (aside the risk I’m taking on intentionally) because he’s my friend and I know he’s not going to kneecap me if I can’t pay. The chain of trust only needs one link, and it’s an easy one to verify. Some people clearly do go farther, and this isn’t to say that large-scale illegal betting doesn’t exist, but it seems like the majority of recreational gambling demand is met by this type of direct person-person transaction where trust is easy-ish to establish or enforce. In this case banning betting has limited harms, because for most people the black-market is relatively low-risk. Indeed legalizing it, and thus allowing big players into the game, actually seems less safe to me. A friendly poker game on Friday nights is going to self-regulate: nobody's too sharp, everyone has roughly equivalent cash reserves, and my friends are probably going to cut me off if it seems like I'm developing an addiction. In the long-run I'm unlikely to find myself too deep in the hole. Compare this to sports betting with DraftKings. I'm against an odds-maker who's WAY savvier, has much deeper reserves than I do, and is incentivized to keep me playing at almost any cost. It's orders of magnitude more likely that I'm going to blow everything I have and then some, and all through a frictionless iOS app while sitting on my couch. Compare this to the illegal drug trade. Unlike purchasing gambling services, buying ex. cocaine from the same buddy requires a much longer chain of trust, because of the manufacture and distribution processes involved. Even if I trust my buddy not to sell me fentanyl, I have to trust his dealer, and his dealer’s dealer, and the dealer’s dealer’s supply, etc. In this case I very much want lots of regulation ensuring the product isn’t contaminated, contains what it’s supposed to, etc. Legalizing just takes the already-existing supply chain and big players and moves them under government control. In this case the legalized version is far safer than the black market equivalent. W/r/t legal enforcement side of things the differences seem similar. A small bet between friends is basically impossible to prosecute. It’s only the really big organized stuff that is even possible to detect, legally. On the other hand, a small amount of personal cannabis is very easy to detect and prosecute, often easier than the professional distribution network.
beAbU 3y ago
My government banned cigarettes and alcohol during lockdown (don't ask). And the only thing it achieved was they missed out on billions in sin tax revenue during that time. I have a few friends and family in the retail and hospitality space, and all of them were trading under the table. Our local ice cream van (who remained operational because they were deemed "essential retail") pivoted to a mobile liquor store overnight.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  I vaguely get the ban. Cigarettes and alcohol are probably high on the list of things people 'go out for a pack of'. Doubly so when there's fuck all to do. Banning them would theoretically lower some spread.
  - Nasrudith 3y ago
    I've seen the exact opposite practiced for alcohol: declaring liquor stores essential because DTs are no joke and they don't want alcoholics in withdraw taking up hospital beds.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
      Was a legitimate risk early on in COVID and why many places declared them essential businesses, which I am guessing is also what you are referencing without being explicit about it
faeriechangling 3y ago
It’s not a risk, it’s a certainty, and I ask: So what? We saw life under criminalized gambling. There was more loan sharking and kneecap breaking going on but overall gambling happened on a much smaller scale than it did under legalization. The people I see hurt by gambling only seems to have skyrocketed to me since legalization. The legal for-profit gambling industry does more harm than the gangsters ever did. Just because alcohol criminalization isn’t worth it doesn’t mean we have to throw away criminalization as a tool in the toolbox.

julianeon 3y ago

It does seem like legalization made it qualitatively worse. To quote the parent comment: > Then when I was home for the holidays every man I knew from my home town that was near my age was doing it. From how he's describing it, this sounds like a big change. I'm also getting the sense that maybe 1 in 100 guys did it before, and it's dropping to like 1 in 10. I think the reason is that drugs can be bought in cash, but bettors depend on credit cards, and when that rail was legalized, the floodgates opened.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

Then you keep it legal but regulate the shit out of it. As the OP suggested, one step might be to force the betting houses to take all comers — also force them to indicate bettor losses compared to bettor gains, etc.

lstodd 3y ago
> but regulate the shit out of it. So like a ban, but just a bit less so? This will bring the same ill effects, but a bit less so. What it the win then?
- Consultant32452 3y ago
  It's important to protect the r̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶u̶m̶b̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ public from c̶o̶m̶p̶e̶t̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ predators.
- dangus 3y ago
  “A bit less so” is the point. Under this logic you’re using, there’s no point to having speed limits on roadways or seatbelts and safety devices in cars. If we can never eliminate car crash deaths, why bother with all those regulations? Lower number of bad thing is better than higher number of bad thing. This is known to be effective with cigarettes. Higher taxes reduce usage. Less advertising reduces usage. Advertising induces demand that would not otherwise exist.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think it is pretty different. The moral justification for speed limits is risks to others on shared roads, not oneself. You can drive as fast as you want on a private track.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
      Seat belt law might be a better analogy, though there is always the risk of becoming a projectile when you don’t wear one that can injure others, so even that’s not a perfect one.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        That's better, and still legal to ignore on private property. There was a lot of anger and discussion about public seat belt laws for the reasons you said.
    - dangus 3y ago
      I think the family members of frequent gamblers might argue against the idea that it’s got no negative externalities to others.
- rpgbr 3y ago
  In Brazil, tobacco is heavily regulated. They can’t advertise on TV and they must show scary health alerts on the back of their packages, for example. Since government started this trend, in end of 80s, tobacco usage is in free fall, as shown by this Brazilian Cancer Institute chart: https://www.gov.br/inca/pt-br/assuntos/gestor-e-profissional-de-saude/observatorio-da-politica-nacional-de-controle-do-tabaco/dados-e-numeros-do-tabagismo/quedadaprevalencia.png https://www.gov.br/inca/pt-br/assuntos/gestor-e-profissional...

tech_ken 3y ago

I think the economics of a physical drug substance and gambling are different enough that it’s actually un-apt to draw a comparison between sports betting and alcohol prohibition. Indeed I think it's actually highly misleading to extrapolate the harms caused by alcohol/drug prohibition to the prohibition on gambling. Caveat: this is all armchair speculation, I have no expertise or research on the matter. In the case of black market gambling it seems much easier to keep everything within my direct control, thereby limiting the risk of getting a bad product. I can make a wager or play a poker game with my buddy without taking on virtually any “undue” risk (aside the risk I’m taking on intentionally) because he’s my friend and I know he’s not going to kneecap me if I can’t pay. The chain of trust only needs one link, and it’s an easy one to verify. Some people clearly do go farther, and this isn’t to say that large-scale illegal betting doesn’t exist, but it seems like the majority of recreational gambling demand is met by this type of direct person-person transaction where trust is easy-ish to establish or enforce. In this case banning betting has limited harms, because for most people the black-market is relatively low-risk. Indeed legalizing it, and thus allowing big players into the game, actually seems less safe to me. A friendly poker game on Friday nights is going to self-regulate: nobody's too sharp, everyone has roughly equivalent cash reserves, and my friends are probably going to cut me off if it seems like I'm developing an addiction. In the long-run I'm unlikely to find myself too deep in the hole. Compare this to sports betting with DraftKings. I'm against an odds-maker who's WAY savvier, has much deeper reserves than I do, and is incentivized to keep me playing at almost any cost. It's orders of magnitude more likely that I'm going to blow everything I have and then some, and all through a frictionless iOS app while sitting on my couch. Compare this to the illegal drug trade. Unlike purchasing gambling services, buying ex. cocaine from the same buddy requires a much longer chain of trust, because of the manufacture and distribution processes involved. Even if I trust my buddy not to sell me fentanyl, I have to trust his dealer, and his dealer’s dealer, and the dealer’s dealer’s supply, etc. In this case I very much want lots of regulation ensuring the product isn’t contaminated, contains what it’s supposed to, etc. Legalizing just takes the already-existing supply chain and big players and moves them under government control. In this case the legalized version is far safer than the black market equivalent. W/r/t legal enforcement side of things the differences seem similar. A small bet between friends is basically impossible to prosecute. It’s only the really big organized stuff that is even possible to detect, legally. On the other hand, a small amount of personal cannabis is very easy to detect and prosecute, often easier than the professional distribution network.

beAbU 3y ago

My government banned cigarettes and alcohol during lockdown (don't ask). And the only thing it achieved was they missed out on billions in sin tax revenue during that time. I have a few friends and family in the retail and hospitality space, and all of them were trading under the table. Our local ice cream van (who remained operational because they were deemed "essential retail") pivoted to a mobile liquor store overnight.

whaleofatw2022 3y ago
I vaguely get the ban. Cigarettes and alcohol are probably high on the list of things people 'go out for a pack of'. Doubly so when there's fuck all to do. Banning them would theoretically lower some spread.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  I've seen the exact opposite practiced for alcohol: declaring liquor stores essential because DTs are no joke and they don't want alcoholics in withdraw taking up hospital beds.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    Was a legitimate risk early on in COVID and why many places declared them essential businesses, which I am guessing is also what you are referencing without being explicit about it

faeriechangling 3y ago

It’s not a risk, it’s a certainty, and I ask: So what? We saw life under criminalized gambling. There was more loan sharking and kneecap breaking going on but overall gambling happened on a much smaller scale than it did under legalization. The people I see hurt by gambling only seems to have skyrocketed to me since legalization. The legal for-profit gambling industry does more harm than the gangsters ever did. Just because alcohol criminalization isn’t worth it doesn’t mean we have to throw away criminalization as a tool in the toolbox.