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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

#161

Post by lupire »

kesselvon wrote: post #147
margalabargala wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid. It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.

Poor people don't buy lotteries because they're a good investment, they buy them because its fleeting hope that they'll escape their circumstances. Probability is like...a Grade 5-6 concept.

6th grade math ability is above median for adults.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#162

Post by lupire »

animal_spirits wrote: post #98
Raidion wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly agree with you, but am worried about the precedent it would set. If you start banning stuff because of addiction, does it apply to things like soda or fast food? Would it apply to things like baseball cards or other collectables? This is a really tricky problem, as there is clear evidence that these things hurt society as a whole, but it's hard to draw the line who is making deliberate choices about their…

Idk people say its hard to draw the line but it doesn't seem like it would be. Here's the line: no advertising for cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, e-cigs. Why this line? these are pretty obviously unhealthy for people. Why not some other line? Well lets take a poll and see what we are willing to do. And then if people think it is important to ban other types of advertising then that can be a new line drawn later.

what about cryptocurrency? stock trading? American football (concussions)? Cars?

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#163

Post by lupire »

mgh2 wrote: post #53
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 tamp…

> Laws are made to protect the majority, not the minority.

That's not what the US Constitution says.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#164

Post by tamaharbor »

acomjean wrote: post #50
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.

the comedian Mitch Hedberg had a bit about this. "You know how they advertise a casino, they always show a guy winning money, but that’s false advertising. Because that’s what happens the least. Perhaps when they advertise a hamburger they could show a guy choking. This is what happened once."

Mitch was the best! RIP.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#165

Post by tamaharbor »

mateo411 wrote: post #14
mdoms wrote: post #6

What an oddly written article. So Delany, the flagship character in the narrative, bet a bit of money and then his wife caught him so he stopped. Is he the best example they could have found? Sports betting and gambling in general is incredibly destructive and unbelievably difficult to kick for full-on addicts. Gambling addiction is no joke. For some far more compelling journalism on the terrible consequences of gamb…

I think the human interest story is sadder than you realize. In addition to being a gambling addict, Delany is also a Jets fan.

I am sure only Jets fans truly appreciate your humor.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#166

Post by JackFr »

bregma wrote: post #117
babypuncher wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State lotteries are a means to shift tax burden from the wealthy to the poor. Every time one is implemented to "support education", it is always followed by a tax break for the upper class, resulting in a net 0 increase in school budgets.

State lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.

Why? Because the expected value is negative?

If that's the heuristic for defining stupid, we better revisit auto insurance, which also has a negative expected value.

On the other hand, maybe variance and skewness (to say nothing of kurtosis) have values (and costs) which a rational analysis needs to consider. Some people might be willing to pay to shed variance, while others might pay to take it on depending on the value of their assets and their time horizon.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#167

Post by nerdponx »

kesselvon wrote: post #147
margalabargala wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to say this because it's a nice sound-bite that lets people feel like they themselves are not among the stupid. It ignores the reality that poverty is a causative agent for lacking the appropriate math skill to recognize that playing the lottery is not a good financial choice, and self-perpetuates that poverty.

Poor people don't buy lotteries because they're a good investment, they buy them because its fleeting hope that they'll escape their circumstances. Probability is like...a Grade 5-6 concept.

So it's still a tax on poverty, by way of it being a tax on hope/aspiration.

Ergo, it can go straight to hell and does not belong in a civilized society.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#168

Post by mgh2 »

lupire wrote: post #163
mgh2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tamp…

> Laws are made to protect the majority, not the minority. That's not what the US Constitution says.

Sure, but the elite has close ties with Washington, that is a crude truth

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#169

Post by chrismcb »

vgeek wrote: post #68
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…

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-b... This is a long read, but is really insightful on how the industry really works. If you're a consistently winning bettor, you're going to get blocked pretty quickly when you're betting against the house. Why would a casino want to play a game where they don't have odds in their favor when they can just ban the sharps and feast on the casuals? With parimut…

Sports betting isn't exactly being against the house. In sports betting the house takes bets on both sides and then charges a percentage. Oh wait, you seem to understand this. The op was talking about making sports bets but being against the house.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#170

Post by lamontcg »

diskzero wrote: post #149
mikeodds wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give any examples of how the data was used to increase losses? Quite interested.

I feel as if I comment with too much detail, I may be contacted by the Attorneys General of various states. In the early days, things were totally unregulated. Odds, statistics and other variables could be adjusted or manipulated. Automated accounts could hedge against, or join with, elite players. All trades, team compositions, trends and statistics were visible internally. Think of all the ways that one could abuse…

Ah so a cryptocurrency exchange then.
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