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The rising human cost of sports betting

nytimes.com

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Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#51

Post by aidenn0 »

ben7799 wrote: post #18

I think it's just a matter of time before we see a Super Bowl or World Series thrown due to the legalization of Sport betting... We have been here before and seen all of this before and it's really hard to believe history won't repeat itself. It's stupid all the way down.

My understanding is that college basketball is the worst team sport:

1. One player can significantly affect the outcome

2. The players are being paid peanuts

3. shaving points can be very lucrative to the fixers without actually affecting the outcome of the game.

A 5 figure payout just to win a game by less than expected can look like a great deal to a college athlete

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#53

Post by mgh2 »

animal_spirits wrote: post #8

Promotion of gambling should be likened to promotion of cigarettes. It should be illegal to advertise gambling, but I don't think it should be outlawed to gamble. People should be able to choose how they live their lives, but we should do all that we can to prevent mass manipulation through adverts in industries that are known to be harmful. I also think that alcohol and e-cig advertising should be outlawed as well.

No system is perfect. Laws are made to protect the majority, not the minority. It takes a lot of effort individually to find out what is ethical, and education seldom teach these.

Freedom of religion and separation of church and state helps create a collective conscience to enact laws, but at the end it comes down to each individual's responsibility to search for the truth - an effort that advertising can easily tamper with. We could use more stringent laws for advertising.

Note that the gaming and crypto industries have parallels with gambling, both targeting the younger population (least able to control addictions)

Disney (a media conglomerate) was initially opposed to sports betting, but once covid hit their bottom line, they turned to this opportunity once it was legal.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27514437

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#54

Post by thebean11 »

PKop wrote: post #48
shipman05 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my position for a while on so called "vices". Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good, but allowing companies to advertise these products to young people and those who are susceptible to abuse is a net negative for society. Worst of all are government run lotteries. A state run lottery may be preferable to one run by organized crime, but running millions of dollars worth of ads wit…

>Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good I don't believe this is true, though it is often parroted as so. Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. It is imperfect, and will always be. But it can absolutely work to minimize the behavior being targeted.

> Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments.

The punishments for drugs are pretty severe in much of the US (multiple years in prison). Are you advocating for even harsher punishments than that?

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#55

Post by bglazer »

hannasanarion wrote: post #26
mharty wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, > 6% of people in the US have alcohol use disorder, yet advertisements for alcohol are literally everywhere.

It's not a 1:1 comparison. For one thing, the regulations are different. There are few if any restrictions on online gambling advertising, whereas alcohol ads are disallowed from using imagery that might appeal to children, can only be run in places where at least 70% of viewers are adult, etc. But more importantly, the nature of the product and the intent of the creators is different. Alcohol vendors for the most pa…

While the statistics for alcohol consumption may not be as drastic as gambling, a large percentage (>20%) of alcohol revenue comes from heavy drinking. Here's a study from the UK.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30136436/

Also, what makes you think alcohol vendors don't want addicts? My impression is that while they don't actively promote alcoholism, they mostly don't care.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#56

Post by financetechbro »

slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Odd or have they adopted the same practices that casinos have in order to ensure that the house always wins

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#57

Post by thebean11 »

slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Wow, that's pretty amazing. Have you considered giving it a shot in-person in Vegas, assuming it's not super high frequency? Could potentially make a lot of cash before they ban you.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#58

Post by slap_shot »

financetechbro wrote: post #56
slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Odd or have they adopted the same practices that casinos have in order to ensure that the house always wins

casino and sports books are the same thing and are the unusual product I am describing

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#59

Post by slap_shot »

thebean11 wrote: post #57
slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Wow, that's pretty amazing. Have you considered giving it a shot in-person in Vegas, assuming it's not super high frequency? Could potentially make a lot of cash before they ban you.

we've started spreading the bets across lots of different accounts. the issue is we don't know which leg of the bet is going to be the one that profits, so you run the risk of one account winning too frequently and getting flagged.

If we did that same thing in person we would need a lot of random ass poeple. But it's definitely something we've considered.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#60

Post by lacksconfidence »

thebean11 wrote: post #54
PKop wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prohibition is ineffective and often does more harm than good I don't believe this is true, though it is often parroted as so. Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. It is imperfect, and will always be. But it can absolutely work to minimize the behavior being targeted.

> Effectiveness of prohibition is determined in large part on severity of punishments. The punishments for drugs are pretty severe in much of the US (multiple years in prison). Are you advocating for even harsher punishments than that?

Not OP, and not advocating it, but I suspect with respect to drugs the problem isn't the amount of punishment. It's the liklihood of punishment. Imagine a dystopia where everyone takes a drug test every day, and if someone fails they go to jail. It seems likely drug use would plummet due to enforcement (and special ways to get around it would spring up for the select few).
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