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People have known for years - that’s the really terrifying part. Heck, when I was in business school I wrote a paper on the dangers of sports betting. There wer

by hluska 2y ago

People have known for years - that’s the really terrifying part. Heck, when I was in business school I wrote a paper on the dangers of sports betting. There were many resources available then…and heck, Gmail invites were a rare commodity when I was in school. Edit - I just found a printed copy of the paper - I wrote it so long ago that the term 'sociopathic compulsive consumer' was being used. At the time, I found a lot of evidence of casinos using terms like 'instant gratification' in their marketing commmunications. This is over two decades ago. Heck, the actual paper is on a 3.5 inch floppy.

vundercind 2y ago
I was briefly involved with a major sports & esports betting company. It was way grosser than I ever imagined, and they had multiple astroturf campaigns working on legalizing betting in more places. Took me from a generally laissez-faire attitude about gambling, to being entirely on board with simply outlawing at least that sector of it. So very nasty. (Incidentally, this did answer a question for me: “how did esports get so big so fast, financially?”. Never made much sense to me. The money’s in gambling, and it’s a fucking lot of money. Lightbulb went on and I felt dumb for not realizing it sooner)
- hluska 2y ago
  I'm completely with you, my friend. I was in business school when I studied betting. All the stereotypes of business students are true - I could have suggested putting thalidomide into lollipops and nobody would have batted an eye. Despite that, my class had a serious problem with legalized gambling. One of the most free market absolutists I have ever met even concluded that gambling should just be outlawed. He was (and I believe still is) completely in favour of all drugs being legalized, but legalized gambling bothered him in a way that legalized crack cocaine never could have. What pushed him over was how they fund legalization campaigns with all these promises for help for addicts - they'll usually even offer to put a portion of total book into rehabilitation. And then as soon as it is legalized, they will specifically target people who could become addicted.
- wnissen 2y ago
  Oh, no, are you serious? I thought esports was fun, maybe a little silly. It's the gambling? That's the big lift? Argh.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    It’s where a ton of the money in the overall sector comes from, and why a lot of the viewers are watching. There’s a large audience that wants anything to gamble on, and gaming’s very convenient for streaming and stats-collection and such, plus it has frequent matches. There are sponsorships and all that, but I doubt those would be as big as they are without the gambling, either (the audience would decline significantly). Lots of the tournaments are funded wholly or in part by gambling.
- sensanaty 2y ago
  I had a long-haul flight last year and was sat next to a gentleman who worked for one of those betting companies in Europe who I had a chat with during the flight. The guy exuded pure sliminess from the minute he explained his job, and I couldn't believe the kinda crap he was proud of peddling to people. It's a good grift unfortunately, an insane amount of money is involved in it as is usually the case with these sorts of morally bankrupt endeavors.

by hluska 2y ago

vundercind 2y ago

I was briefly involved with a major sports & esports betting company. It was way grosser than I ever imagined, and they had multiple astroturf campaigns working on legalizing betting in more places. Took me from a generally laissez-faire attitude about gambling, to being entirely on board with simply outlawing at least that sector of it. So very nasty. (Incidentally, this did answer a question for me: “how did esports get so big so fast, financially?”. Never made much sense to me. The money’s in gambling, and it’s a fucking lot of money. Lightbulb went on and I felt dumb for not realizing it sooner)

hluska 2y ago
I'm completely with you, my friend. I was in business school when I studied betting. All the stereotypes of business students are true - I could have suggested putting thalidomide into lollipops and nobody would have batted an eye. Despite that, my class had a serious problem with legalized gambling. One of the most free market absolutists I have ever met even concluded that gambling should just be outlawed. He was (and I believe still is) completely in favour of all drugs being legalized, but legalized gambling bothered him in a way that legalized crack cocaine never could have. What pushed him over was how they fund legalization campaigns with all these promises for help for addicts - they'll usually even offer to put a portion of total book into rehabilitation. And then as soon as it is legalized, they will specifically target people who could become addicted.
wnissen 2y ago
Oh, no, are you serious? I thought esports was fun, maybe a little silly. It's the gambling? That's the big lift? Argh.
- vundercind 2y ago
  It’s where a ton of the money in the overall sector comes from, and why a lot of the viewers are watching. There’s a large audience that wants anything to gamble on, and gaming’s very convenient for streaming and stats-collection and such, plus it has frequent matches. There are sponsorships and all that, but I doubt those would be as big as they are without the gambling, either (the audience would decline significantly). Lots of the tournaments are funded wholly or in part by gambling.
sensanaty 2y ago
I had a long-haul flight last year and was sat next to a gentleman who worked for one of those betting companies in Europe who I had a chat with during the flight. The guy exuded pure sliminess from the minute he explained his job, and I couldn't believe the kinda crap he was proud of peddling to people. It's a good grift unfortunately, an insane amount of money is involved in it as is usually the case with these sorts of morally bankrupt endeavors.