4 ms·

In your scenario, you are using gambling as insurance, and that's different. If you bet $20 on the Greenfeet it's not because something bad happens to you if th

In your scenario, you are using gambling as insurance, and that's different. If you bet $20 on the Greenfeet it's not because something bad happens to you if they win.

lucianbr 2y ago
Isn't the fact that you cand use gambling as insurance and insurance as gambling support the idea that they are the same? If it all depends on the context, then it's not the activity that is different, but the context. To me it sounds like you're saying whenever you like it, you will call it insurance, and whenever you don't like it, you will call it gambling. "It" is not apriori anything, until you have decided what you want to call it. That makes it all the same thing, pretty much.
- csande17 2y ago
  You can use some gambling products as insurance, but insurance products are designed so you cannot use them as gambling. At least in terms of products sold broadly to the general public, which is the main situation where people worry about gambling being immoral. As other commenters mention, the main way this works is by making it impossible to "win" at insurance. You aren't hoping for the rare payout event to happen, like you would be when gambling. Having your house burn down, or getting into a car accident, or needing treatment for cancer, or dying are all really bad even if insurance reimburses the monetary costs involved. This is probably why the concept of "insurable interest" exists; without it, it would be possible to use insurance products as gambling.
adw 2y ago
You’re using a tool and choosing to give the tool different names based on how you feel about it. If I’m the landlord of a pub in Glasgow, and Scotland get to the finals of Euro 2024 (we won’t, but work with me here), betting on Scotland losing the final is a reasonable hedge against the profits you’ll lose when everyone goes home depressed after the final rather than buying another round. Is that a contrived example? A little bit, but it’s structurally reasonable. (If you’re a sponsor of the Scotland team, gambling on the result could be hedging media risk). Can you leverage yourself up? Yes, but you can do that in the stock exchange or futures market too. They’re all the same thing.
- scott_w 2y ago
  No, betting on the Scotland game to try and hedge expected profit loss doesn’t turn it into insurance. The payout isn’t tied to the thing you want to hedge, so it’s just hedging your bets (gambling payout vs beer sales). Insurance might be a kind of “hedging” but in a limited way that makes it not gambling.

In your scenario, you are using gambling as insurance, and that's different. If you bet $20 on the Greenfeet it's not because something bad happens to you if they win.

lucianbr 2y ago

Isn't the fact that you cand use gambling as insurance and insurance as gambling support the idea that they are the same? If it all depends on the context, then it's not the activity that is different, but the context. To me it sounds like you're saying whenever you like it, you will call it insurance, and whenever you don't like it, you will call it gambling. "It" is not apriori anything, until you have decided what you want to call it. That makes it all the same thing, pretty much.

csande17 2y ago
You can use some gambling products as insurance, but insurance products are designed so you cannot use them as gambling. At least in terms of products sold broadly to the general public, which is the main situation where people worry about gambling being immoral. As other commenters mention, the main way this works is by making it impossible to "win" at insurance. You aren't hoping for the rare payout event to happen, like you would be when gambling. Having your house burn down, or getting into a car accident, or needing treatment for cancer, or dying are all really bad even if insurance reimburses the monetary costs involved. This is probably why the concept of "insurable interest" exists; without it, it would be possible to use insurance products as gambling.

adw 2y ago

You’re using a tool and choosing to give the tool different names based on how you feel about it. If I’m the landlord of a pub in Glasgow, and Scotland get to the finals of Euro 2024 (we won’t, but work with me here), betting on Scotland losing the final is a reasonable hedge against the profits you’ll lose when everyone goes home depressed after the final rather than buying another round. Is that a contrived example? A little bit, but it’s structurally reasonable. (If you’re a sponsor of the Scotland team, gambling on the result could be hedging media risk). Can you leverage yourself up? Yes, but you can do that in the stock exchange or futures market too. They’re all the same thing.

scott_w 2y ago
No, betting on the Scotland game to try and hedge expected profit loss doesn’t turn it into insurance. The payout isn’t tied to the thing you want to hedge, so it’s just hedging your bets (gambling payout vs beer sales). Insurance might be a kind of “hedging” but in a limited way that makes it not gambling.