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America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

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Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#31

Post by matthewdgreen »

lumb63 wrote: post #23

Legalizing mobile gambling (sports is a common form of this) is a terrible idea. I used to be heavily in favor of legalized sports gambling; like the article says, I’m not harming anyone, and it’s my choice. Then one of my close friends with a gambling problem lost a substantial chunk of his life savings on gambling on his phone. He didn’t even have to leave his house to do it. After that, I had to reconsider my posi…

Have seen this destroy families as well. Once people use up their own funds they will absolutely find ways to extract from others, including elderly parents. It can be ruinous.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#32

Post by labster »

justinator wrote: post #17
fbdab103 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone else who does not speak Aussie, a pokie is a video poker or slot machine.

"Pokey" in old slang meant a jail cell. "Throw you into the pokey" a pokie is a video poker or slot machine Ah! You mean a, "fruit machine"?

I believe he was talking about one-armed bandits.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#33

Post by jamesfinlayson »

edmundsauto wrote: post #13
woooooo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a clean narrative and a reasonable starting assumption, but not necessarily accurate. House bookies are trying to maximize their earnings, not limit themselves to the rake. For example, certain teams have fans that bet on the team as a show of support rather than betting wisely. The house will identify these positions so they can take advantage, rather than letting the other side of the bet make most of the c…

Yep big gambling companies have a lot of analysts on staff - all working on improving models to squeeze more money.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#34

Post by Arrath »

I've long looked askance at the rise of legal sports betting, back to the draft kings ads. It just feels so utterly insidious. The machine that is capital is running out of ways to extract money from us little folk, and wider spread gambling is the last gasp? I dunno, hard to express.

It just gives me a bad feeling.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#35

Post by technion »

denkmoon wrote: post #7

Look 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 (tange…

Nearly every nightclub, dance floor, live music venue, and even many restaurants in pubs that I had in my younger years were pulled down to create "VIP rooms", which is what we call "rooms full of poker machines".

It's hard to express just how depressing it is what exactly has been done to sydney.

I genuinely don't know where people go out to socialise in their younger years these days, I cannot possibly imagine being 18 and getting the mates together to blast $300 on poker machines.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#36

Post by agentwiggles »

the_only_law wrote: post #28
agentwiggles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city I live in recently passed a ban on "flavored tobacco," which includes (for some reason) vape products. While this ban has not taken effect yet, after it does, the net effect will be that full strength cigarettes like Marlboro Reds remain accessible at every gas station and corner store, while any vape product with a "flavor" is no longer legally saleable in the city limits. I guess if flavor bans don't count…

It’s gotten so ridiculous I’ve started to see jobs… fully remote… that say will refuse to hire you if you use any nicotine products, explicitly including quitting aids like gums and patches.

That raises my eyebrows... How do they plan to validate this? What's to stop one from just... lying?

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#37

Post by lumb63 »

api wrote: post #30
lumb63 wrote: post #23

Legalizing mobile gambling (sports is a common form of this) is a terrible idea. I used to be heavily in favor of legalized sports gambling; like the article says, I’m not harming anyone, and it’s my choice. Then one of my close friends with a gambling problem lost a substantial chunk of his life savings on gambling on his phone. He didn’t even have to leave his house to do it. After that, I had to reconsider my posi…

I used to be very much the same and have started to reconsider too. I think I’m shocked at just how prevalent it becomes when it’s legal and advertising is permitted. It’s like gambling becomes a double digit percentage of the economy. In the future I think the ability to resist addiction is going to become a massive factor affecting life outcome, possibly even larger than intelligence or education or appearance.

Sports gambling has just been legalized in my state and I’ve been getting bombarded by advertisements non-stop over the last few weeks. I joke now that every commercial is a sports gambling commercial. And the rub is, as the article says, the “please gamble responsibly” in the fine print. Those companies want us to gamble as responsibly as is required to keep them from being banned and not a hair more.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#38

Post by 55555 »

jcranmer wrote: post #14
agentwiggles wrote: post #2

Meanwhile, 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_

In all seriousness: where are e-cigarettes more restricted than cigarettes?

Thailand. They're illegal. Cigarettes are not.

Re: America’s bad bet on expanding legal sports gambling

#39

Post by KyeRussell »

denkmoon wrote: post #7

Look 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 (tange…

I live in Western Australia. We don’t allow pokies outside the casino (well, actually, they aren’t technically pokies, due to some completely immaterial detail, but they look, smell, and quack like the duck). Going to the Eastern States is always such a shock. In fact I am writing this from a plane from Melbourne to Sydney, two capital cities that are utterly gripped by pokies everywhere in a way that I’m just not used to. I really hope that your State governments get their act together, which they actually seem to be doing, maybe.

We are of course plagued by sports betting in WA, just like everywhere else. I was disappointed to see the US loosen up around this. I expect the typical American didn’t know the complex sports betting industry that was ready to pounce on such a lucrative market. Given how many societal problems the US had as it was, I can’t only imagine that sports betting has cranked them up.

Remember people: supply reduction DOES work, sometimes. Certainly here.

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