3 ms·

I hate the proliferation of gambling on TV sports. It was bad enough to ask my kids to sit through alcohol ads and fast food ads, but the gambling ads are the w

by xrd 3y ago

I hate the proliferation of gambling on TV sports. It was bad enough to ask my kids to sit through alcohol ads and fast food ads, but the gambling ads are the worst. I was thinking this would push people to watch sports where betting wasn't as prominent. Then I thought, why not jai alai, and maybe I can relive my excitement of Miami Vice. But, it looks like even jai alai is corrupted by gambling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_alai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_alai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parimutuel_betting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parimutuel_betting

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bigbacaloa 3y ago
Jai alai in Miami was always about betting. Like the dogtrack.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
Wait, jai alai is your go-to for a sport not influenced by gambling? In my perception its history is closely entwined with gambling, it's like horse racing-level.
- xrd 3y ago
  So, I'm a recent transplant to Florida. All I know about jai alai was the three seconds from the intro to the Miami Vice series. I looked up whether it is still a popular pastime and apparently it has faded from the glory days of Crocket and Tubbs. Which to me sounded great, because I thought it might be a fun sport without the outrageous costs of other live sports. But, I was wrong about all my assumptions, as usual.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Ah I see. Yeah it has a long history of being a gambling sport in europe and controversies around organizational corruption & match fixing, and entanglements with organized crime are about as old as the sport itself. It's a great game but unfortunately in the places it caught on it also usually brought some of that baggage with.
  - kgwgk 3y ago
    I guess the error was to take ideas for family activities from the intro of a crime series called Miami Vice.
    - xrd 3y ago
      Yeah, flying them into Colombia so we could buy drugs from El Chapo did not end well, have to admit! Your comment really made me laugh, thanks!
kgwgk 3y ago
> it looks like even jai alai is corrupted by gambling You may be joking but for those who are not aware betting has been prominent in jai alai since the thirties. CS Professor Steven Skiena has a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-Mathematical/dp/0521009626 https://www.amazon.com/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-Ma... Related slides here: https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/talks/talk-jaialai.pdf https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/talks/talk-jaialai.pd... Excerpts from the book: https://www.jai-tech.com https://www.jai-tech.com

by xrd 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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bigbacaloa 3y ago

Jai alai in Miami was always about betting. Like the dogtrack.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Wait, jai alai is your go-to for a sport not influenced by gambling? In my perception its history is closely entwined with gambling, it's like horse racing-level.

xrd 3y ago
So, I'm a recent transplant to Florida. All I know about jai alai was the three seconds from the intro to the Miami Vice series. I looked up whether it is still a popular pastime and apparently it has faded from the glory days of Crocket and Tubbs. Which to me sounded great, because I thought it might be a fun sport without the outrageous costs of other live sports. But, I was wrong about all my assumptions, as usual.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Ah I see. Yeah it has a long history of being a gambling sport in europe and controversies around organizational corruption & match fixing, and entanglements with organized crime are about as old as the sport itself. It's a great game but unfortunately in the places it caught on it also usually brought some of that baggage with.
- kgwgk 3y ago
  I guess the error was to take ideas for family activities from the intro of a crime series called Miami Vice.
  - xrd 3y ago
    Yeah, flying them into Colombia so we could buy drugs from El Chapo did not end well, have to admit! Your comment really made me laugh, thanks!

kgwgk 3y ago

> it looks like even jai alai is corrupted by gambling You may be joking but for those who are not aware betting has been prominent in jai alai since the thirties. CS Professor Steven Skiena has a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-Mathematical/dp/0521009626 https://www.amazon.com/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-Ma... Related slides here: https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/talks/talk-jaialai.pdf https://www3.cs.stonybrook.edu/~skiena/talks/talk-jaialai.pd... Excerpts from the book: https://www.jai-tech.com https://www.jai-tech.com