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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

#61

Post by danielmarkbruce »

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…

What if the loss rate on pokies was legally set at 0.5%? Right now they are around 13% (i think?), and that is pure evil.

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

#62

Post by irrational »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #16
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 Australia too and I think the government letting pretty much any company that wants a wagering license have one is problematic. I'm sure there were problem gamblers 30 years ago when TAB was the only player but it feels like these days there's a new player entering the market every month, and they're getting increasingly desperate to make a profit in what is already a flooded market.

What is the tax the government is levying on these machines? I presume this is a case of “follow the money”.

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

#63

Post by orangepurple »

agentwiggles wrote: post #36
the_only_law wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Urinalysis

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

#64

Post by jackstraw14 »

paulpauper wrote: post #45

Isn't this what crypto is? It's the same sort of thing. At least sport's betting does not seem to have the same level or magnitude of scamming or fraud compared to crypto.

It's sad but a big chunk of what people spend their time on nowadays whittles down to a bet. Sure crypto is one example, but you can easily find yourself in similarly scammy territory in more regulated markets. Where you live, how you live, even where you work is a bet on how much you think you're worth vs how much the market values your work. Where you stick your retirement funds is a bet hoping for a prosperous post-work life. A normal sequence of life is looking more like a series of bets, to me anyway. Maybe it was always like this, but people just didn't look at it that way quite as much?

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

#65

Post by jamesfinlayson »

KyeRussell wrote: post #39
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 us…

> We are of course plagued by sports betting in WA, just like everywhere else.

Oh really? I thought Western Australia was much stricter about allowing Northern Territory-registered bookmakers to operate in their state.

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

#66

Post by jamesfinlayson »

irrational wrote: post #62
jamesfinlayson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Australia too and I think the government letting pretty much any company that wants a wagering license have one is problematic. I'm sure there were problem gamblers 30 years ago when TAB was the only player but it feels like these days there's a new player entering the market every month, and they're getting increasingly desperate to make a profit in what is already a flooded market.

What is the tax the government is levying on these machines? I presume this is a case of “follow the money”.

Oh I was talking about sports betting but I used to work in a venue with poker machines and I was told the government tax was barely anything (like a tiny tiny fraction of what the venue earned in a year).

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

#67

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

Invictus0 wrote: post #41
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Betting 20 bucks on the super bowl once a year with your friends is worlds away from "normalized gambling".

In Australian the Melbourne / Adelaide cup days generally get a large amount of attention. I think they normalise and introduce gambling in a very problematic way - work ‘sweeps’ etc are very normal and mean that people are peer pressured into gambling.

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

#68

Post by technion »

irrational wrote: post #62
jamesfinlayson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Australia too and I think the government letting pretty much any company that wants a wagering license have one is problematic. I'm sure there were problem gamblers 30 years ago when TAB was the only player but it feels like these days there's a new player entering the market every month, and they're getting increasingly desperate to make a profit in what is already a flooded market.

What is the tax the government is levying on these machines? I presume this is a case of “follow the money”.

It was recently increased to and there was a huge lobbying effort with many places pretending they will go out of business.

Edit: Depends on business size.

https://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/taxes-duties-levies-royalties...

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

#69

Post by agentwiggles »

orangepurple wrote: post #63
agentwiggles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Urinalysis

A quick google suggests nicotine stays in your system for just a few days after quitting. I realize of course that it's hard to just quit nicotine on a whim for a few days, but I imagine most could do it for the sake of a job.
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