3 ms·

I personally think if betting is allowed then they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate. Same with my belief that Vegas casinos shouldn’t be allowed to ban card

I personally think if betting is allowed then they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate. Same with my belief that Vegas casinos shouldn’t be allowed to ban card counters. This also naturally discourages predatory business models. However aside from this, the data is over abundantly clear. Legalized betting significantly hurts the financial health of the places where it’s allowed; because of the rollout in the US, there’s so much data we can derive a definitive causative effect that bankruptcies are up and savings go down in places that legalize it. You can have a liberal view of “that’s their problem” but from a societal perspective this is a net societal harm that has no to minimal beneficial impact.

crazygringo 1y ago
> I personally think if betting is allowed then they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate. Why? What makes betting different from every other business in this regard? Why the exception? On what principle?
- vlovich123 1y ago
  The principle I’m generally in favor of “natural” consequences of actions being inescapable, for businesses and people, regardless of industry. The other principle is one of value creation being the only products that are allowed to be sold, particularly at scale on the broad market. If you want to extract oil, you shouldn’t be able to escape the cost of climate change. Similarly, you shouldn’t get extra protection and subsidies from government to enable your business model and subsidies should be countered strongly with tariffs to ensure those subsidies aren’t skewing the global economy. If you do sales of addictive products like alcohol, tobacco, or gambling you shouldn’t be able to offload the harm of that onto “personal responsibility”. Same goes with mobile phones and social media internationally trying to be addictive now that we understand this “attention grabbing” incentive really well. And you can tell that gambling isn’t being an honest player because of the lip service these companies pay by claiming they ban people with legitimate gambling problems but the actual evidence is they don’t and instead actually treat these people like whales and keeping them engaged and only banning the people who aren’t costing them money. But betting specifically is worse than alcohol in terms of destructiveness because the vast majority of people who engage with the product have a problem. At least the vast majority of people engage with alcohol without serious issues like that. And in terms of value creation, it s a cheap low value form of addictive entertainment at best, a step above slot machines. In the common case it’s harmful and the worst destructive. PS: if you read what I wrote, I didn’t say that sports betting is the exception. Gambling like blackjack and banning card counters was similar.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    You're arguing that gambling is bad and that externalities should be priced in. Fine, but none of that has anything to do with why you think betting/gambling firms shouldn't be able to exclude highly unprofitable customers while basically every other industry can. That's the exception you seem to be calling for.
    - Retric 1y ago
      If someone wants to ban an industry then making it less profitable is a step in the right direction.
    - vlovich123 1y ago
      Can you give an example of other industries that are allowed to classify customers as “unprofitable” and exclude them? And as a sibling noted, yes I think making that specific industry unprofitable is precisely how to resolve the problem of SCOTUS reversing a 26 year ban on the issue.
      - crazygringo 1y ago
        I gave three in my root comment. I'm not going to repeat myself. And OK, if you want to ban gambling then argue for that. Don't argue for removing the freedom to choose who you do business with as a means to that. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

crazygringo 1y ago

> I personally think if betting is allowed then they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate. Why? What makes betting different from every other business in this regard? Why the exception? On what principle?

vlovich123 1y ago
The principle I’m generally in favor of “natural” consequences of actions being inescapable, for businesses and people, regardless of industry. The other principle is one of value creation being the only products that are allowed to be sold, particularly at scale on the broad market. If you want to extract oil, you shouldn’t be able to escape the cost of climate change. Similarly, you shouldn’t get extra protection and subsidies from government to enable your business model and subsidies should be countered strongly with tariffs to ensure those subsidies aren’t skewing the global economy. If you do sales of addictive products like alcohol, tobacco, or gambling you shouldn’t be able to offload the harm of that onto “personal responsibility”. Same goes with mobile phones and social media internationally trying to be addictive now that we understand this “attention grabbing” incentive really well. And you can tell that gambling isn’t being an honest player because of the lip service these companies pay by claiming they ban people with legitimate gambling problems but the actual evidence is they don’t and instead actually treat these people like whales and keeping them engaged and only banning the people who aren’t costing them money. But betting specifically is worse than alcohol in terms of destructiveness because the vast majority of people who engage with the product have a problem. At least the vast majority of people engage with alcohol without serious issues like that. And in terms of value creation, it s a cheap low value form of addictive entertainment at best, a step above slot machines. In the common case it’s harmful and the worst destructive. PS: if you read what I wrote, I didn’t say that sports betting is the exception. Gambling like blackjack and banning card counters was similar.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  You're arguing that gambling is bad and that externalities should be priced in. Fine, but none of that has anything to do with why you think betting/gambling firms shouldn't be able to exclude highly unprofitable customers while basically every other industry can. That's the exception you seem to be calling for.
  - Retric 1y ago
    If someone wants to ban an industry then making it less profitable is a step in the right direction.
  - vlovich123 1y ago
    Can you give an example of other industries that are allowed to classify customers as “unprofitable” and exclude them? And as a sibling noted, yes I think making that specific industry unprofitable is precisely how to resolve the problem of SCOTUS reversing a 26 year ban on the issue.
    - crazygringo 1y ago
      I gave three in my root comment. I'm not going to repeat myself. And OK, if you want to ban gambling then argue for that. Don't argue for removing the freedom to choose who you do business with as a means to that. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.