America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
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Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#2Meanwhile, states and cities are trying to illegalize vaping while leaving cigarettes on shelves, not to mention continuing the criminally stupid "war on drugs" in ways too myriad to count while retaining one's sanity.
_sigh_
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#3As virtually most issues in America, unchecked capitalism is ruinous
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#4I know nothing about FanDuel and DraftKings, or sports betting in general. Do FanDuel and DraftKings only make money on fees, or are there also situations where , like in a Casino, you're playing against the house?
Also, I bet there are SWE's from FanDuel and DraftKings on HN. No judgement I would love to hear how you see things from the inside.
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#5I know nothing about FanDuel and DraftKings, or sports betting in general. Do FanDuel and DraftKings only make money on fees, or are there also situations where , like in a Casino, you're playing against the house? Also, I bet there are SWE's from FanDuel and DraftKings on HN. No judgement I would love to hear how you see things from the inside.
Everyone's playing against the house, but the house sets lines and odds with a goal of getting 50% of bettors on either side of the bet for a guaranteed profit.
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#6This one is going to hit really hard over time, because it normalizes betting on sports. Children will grow up in environments where it’s just what people do. How far are we from allowing people to bet money on high school sports? We’re going to start having big problems with degenerate gambling addictions in 10-15 years.
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#7Look at Australia for a cautionary tale on letting gaming companies do as they please. I've worked in the industry and I'm very much on the side of letting people gamble if they choose to do so, but _everywhere_ in our society is just plastered with ads for it. The volume of ads for gambling during a sports events can sometimes exceed the actual commentary on the event.
I'd ban gambling ads, and I'd ban pokies (tangential to this discussion but pokies are pure evil). I'd expand our self exclusion legislation to a national system and crack down on online retailers allowing the self exclusion system to be subverted.
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#8This one is going to hit really hard over time, because it normalizes betting on sports. Children will grow up in environments where it’s just what people do. How far are we from allowing people to bet money on high school sports? We’re going to start having big problems with degenerate gambling addictions in 10-15 years.
I don't know where you grew up, but gambling on sports was already extremely normalized in my experience. Some sports more than others, but it's rare to go to a Superbowl party or the like without discussion of "making it interesting".
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#9I know nothing about FanDuel and DraftKings, or sports betting in general. Do FanDuel and DraftKings only make money on fees, or are there also situations where , like in a Casino, you're playing against the house? Also, I bet there are SWE's from FanDuel and DraftKings on HN. No judgement I would love to hear how you see things from the inside.
Until sports betting was legalised in the US, FanDuel and DraftKings specialised in fantasy football, where you pay to enter competitions against other players. The winning players split the prize money, the company takes any money left over. For legal reasons the prize pot was fixed so if not enough people entered a contest the company would have to eat the loss.
That was arguably not sports betting, therefore legal, because it was a game of skill against other players.
The big difference with sports betting is that you’re now playing directly against the house. Their profit depends on how well they calculate their betting odds. Arguably it’s still a game of skill, but it’s obviously pretty stacked in the company’s favour.
Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling
#10This one is going to hit really hard over time, because it normalizes betting on sports. Children will grow up in environments where it’s just what people do. How far are we from allowing people to bet money on high school sports? We’re going to start having big problems with degenerate gambling addictions in 10-15 years.
Vegas is about to legalize Esports betting. Canada already has, I believe.
There will be ads in every video game in the not too distant future.