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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

#191

Post by thret »

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…

Yep. Professional gamblers are always looking to buy new accounts. They get burnt every few months and have to move to new ones.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#192

Post by lapetitejort »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #187
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…

Yeah. People are supposed to lose. They get cut off if they're too succesful. Even worse is the addictive nature of it. Making money like this is like a dose of dopamine straight in the reward center of the brain. There are people who literally lose everything gambling. Even on the stock market people will make a good call on futures, get high on it and lose everything.

Losing can also release dopamine [0].

[0]: https://theconversation.com/designed-to-deceive-how-gambling...

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#193

Post by thret »

crubier wrote: post #185
sidewndr46 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this how every major betting operation works? I'm not counting lotteries because although you could argue that you are "betting" on some numbers anyone with a 6th grade education that there is no difference in expected outcomes if you choose different numbers. Why would bookmakers ever take bets from someone they don't expect to make money from?

There is actually a difference in expected outcomes at lottery if you choose different numbers. Commonly played number will be shared among all winners, so your share will be less than with rare numbers.

The less used numbers still have a negative expected value, but you are correct in that numbers 1-12 and 13-31 do have lower payouts because people commonly bet on dates like birthdays.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#194

Post by MengerSponge »

aidenn0 wrote: post #51
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

This has happened before: https://www.netflix.com/title/81084829

This will happen again.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#195

Post by matheusmoreira »

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.

Even if they win big chances are they'll go right back to being poor if not worse. Winning the lottery is likely to ruin someone's life.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#196

Post by vkou »

gostsamo wrote: post #66
slig wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your program looks at past results and infers who's going to win somehow?

most likely this is betting arbitrage. check the odds on different bookmakers and try to find an opportunity where you can bet on both sides and win regardless.

Shouldn't the bid-ask spread eat all of that profit, and more?

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#197

Post by lapetitejort »

nsxwolf wrote: post #183
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.

Most people buy lotto tickets so they can spend a few minutes in blissful daydream before they come crashing back down to their financial reality. It's like a very cheap drug. It makes them feel good, so it serves a purpose. Feeling good is good.

Having read horror stories of people winning the lottery, I can't even daydream about being rich. I would much rather be an average wage-earner than have my life be destroyed by money.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#198

Post by MengerSponge »

webkike wrote: post #21
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.

Matter of time? The World Series has already been thrown, it was called the black Sox scandal and as far as I know it didn’t even require sports betting to be legal

Exactly. It's happened in our lifetimes too in the NBA: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25980368/how-former-ref-...

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#199

Post by MengerSponge »

philwelch wrote: post #23
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.

Sports betting has been legal in Europe for a very long time and we have yet to see a UEFA Champions League thrown.

You sure about that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calciopoli

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#200

Post by vkou »

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.

If you're poor as dirt, but have five bucks to spare, from a mathematical perspective, you'd be stupid to not put it down on ten-thousand-to-one odds to win 20 grand.

Five dollars won't make any difference in your situation, but twenty thousand would be a life-changing amount of money.

Unfortunately, on a meta level, it's likely that were you to win, you'd go from twenty thousand to zero sooner than you'd like.

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